Never gonna happen.
“June?”
I whip my head toward the familiar voice, my gaze clashing with Gia’s tired hazel eyes.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, wincing at my rudeness. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was chasing you away or anything.”
She returns my smile, and it’s as tired as I feel. “August is sick. I had to take him to the clinic for a checkup.”
At ten years old, he’s her youngest. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve stepped around him or laughingly tried to join in when I’ve come home from work to find him kicking a ball down the street with the other neighborhood kids. I can’t imagine how she must feel. A sick kid means she can’t work one of the two jobs she needs every paycheck for.
“Is he okay?” I try to remember what I have in my apartment. “I can bring him some soup. I think I have some chicken noodle.”
“Keep your soup, but thanks.” She smiles gratefully at me. “It’s just a bug going around his school. He’ll be fine.”
“There’s a card.” Randall, a school janitor who lives on the third floor, calls out, drawing my gaze back to the monstrosity taking up half of the first floor entrance.
“Who’s it for?” Ivy, a nurse on the second floor, asks.
I bet I can guess.
“June.” Randall offers me the small white card with my name scrawled on the front in a strong, masculine hand.
With a tired sigh, I take the envelope he passes me, tearing it open to read the small card I pull out.
We have a lot to apologize for, Juniper. We didn’t mean to scare you. Please call. It’s important.
Callum
I don’t even look at the phone number at the bottom before I rip the card in half and toss it in the trash. Then I turn to Gia, telling her, “The flowers are yours. I don’t want them.”
Tired and fed up, I walk up the stairs to get some much-needed sleep.
The next morning, I push open the front door of my apartment building, halting before I can take one step outside.
It’s early. Not even six yet and a familiar dark-haired man is sitting on the top step, his back to me, with a bouquet of beautiful blood-red roses beside him.
I turn around to leave through the back door. It means passing by the stinky dumpsters, but anything has to be better than a conversation with Torin.
“Please don’t run away, June,” he says before I can make a quiet escape.
My lips flatten and I abandon sneaking out through the back to avoid him. “Don’t call me that.”
Torin turns around to look at me. He’s not smiling. His green eyes are tired, and his clothes are creased. Definitely slept in. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness for how I treated you; I know that. But there’s something important I need to tell you.”
Seeing him hurts.
Not just my heart. My soul. Every part of my body screams, and I wish it wouldn’t, because this man hurt me so badly, I wish I could forget he exists.
But I can’t.
I was watching a medical drama on TV in the hospital, and a doctor said that sometimes a patient who had a leg cut off still feels it. He’ll reach down to scratch the itch, but the leg is gone. There’s nothing to scratch. I broke the bond between us, but it still feels like something is there, hurting me, making me miss him.
“I gave that floral arrangement to my neighbor,” I tell him, needing him to know flowers aren’t good enough. Not the floralarrangement from before, and not the roses he brought with him this morning.
“You deserve more than a floral arrangement, Juniper. It’s hard to know how to apologize—or make right—something unforgivable.”
His quiet, intense words surprise me.
