“Juno, you know that’s utter horseshit, right?” West moved to sit on the armrest, concern swirling in his dark eyes as he stared down at me. At least it was concern and not pity.
Pieces of my disheveled hair brushed my cheek with my confused head tilt. “Which part?”
“All of it,” Langston snorted. “If I found out my girl, much less my fiancée, wasn’t getting what she needed from me in or out of bed, I’d figure that shit out in a hurry.”
“Yeah, well, Eric didn’t feel the same way. It was easier for him to blame me for what was wrong instead of focusing on himself. After I found them, he cut it off and said he was sorry, that he loved me. And like the idiot I was, I wanted to fix it, us. Maybe if I could do better, be more of what he needed, then we could work it out. There was just so much history between us….” I paused, wondering how to explain the initial infatuation I had with Eric, how I felt special for being noticed by him. “His parents are wealthy, and mine weren’t, so when he asked me on a date, I felt honored, I guess. It didn’t help that my mom andstepdad liked to remind me how I should have been grateful that someone of his caliber would want me?—”
Langston ripped off his hat and twisted it between his hands. “My ‘strangle with my bare hands’ list is growing longer by the fucking second. Your stepfather andmomsaid that to you?”
I nodded.
“That’s messed up, sweet cheeks,” West said softly.
My throat worked as I tried to swallow, throat scratchy and dry. “Then Mom got sick.” Unshed tears burned behind my eyes. “That was when most of my time and energy shifted from Eric and our relationship to taking care of her, visiting her at the hospital, then hospice.”
Langston’s massive hand reached for mine, thick fingers intertwining with my much smaller ones. “Losing a parent is an awful thing to go through, especially alone, which it sounds like you were with that bastard as a partner.”
He wasn’t wrong. Eric wasn’t really there for me like I needed him to be, more worried about how it affected him instead.
“I mean, my stepfather helped some, but yeah, you’re right about Eric. Looking back, I realized he actually made me feel guilty for spending that time with her. He would complain about how I wasn’t around as much. He said it was because he missed me, but when I was home, he was frustrated at how exhausted I was, making me the bad guy for taking care of my mom. I honestly think he was relieved when she died,” I whispered. A fraction of the tension in my chest eased at that, having never said that suspicion out loud before. “That’s what I mean by history. He was there through so much, and we’d been together for so long, that I didn’t want to give up easily. So I tried, I really tried to fix me?—”
“Damnit, Juno,” Langston snapped, cutting me off. “There is nothing to fucking fix.” He leaned in close, freezing me with hisintense stare. “You hear me, Juno Jones. There is nothing about you that needs to be fixed or changed.”
“You don’t know me,” I rasped, wishing like hell he was right. “It’s why I prefer computers and online games. I’m better virtually than I am with actual people?—”
“Tell that to the people here you’ve become friends with since you arrived. I know most of the women here would disagree with you,” he countered.
“Fine, I make female friends okay, but as far as relationships go, I suck. I’m not what a guy wants. I’m introverted, not very affectionate, and then there’s the not liking sex thing, which every man needs?—”
“From what I’ve heard, that was more of an Eric problem than something wrong with you, Juno,” West said, stopping me. “From our perspective, it’s easy to point out what was messed up in that relationship, but everything you’ve said points to him being the issue, not you. He sounds like a selfish asshole who only cared about himself, and that’s not a relationship.” He paused, scanning my face as if trying to figure me out, then sat back with a curse. “I get it, and I don’t blame you.”
“What do you get?” I said warily.
“You believe that’s how all relationships function,” he mused, rubbing a hand over his jaw as he studied me. “That’s what you meant by being broken. You think all the dysfunction in that relationship was your fault, which means every other relationship will be the same.”
I lifted both shoulders in a minuscule shrug. “It’s easy to think that when that’s what you’ve been told”—a single tear escaped and slipped down my cheek—“your whole life.”
“Look at me.” With a small headshake, I lowered my gaze to Langston’s boots. “I said look at me, Juno, now.” The dominant command in his tone had me raising my head just enough to see through my dark lashes. “Fuck them.”
I jerked back, startled at the intensity in his loud voice.
West reached over and patted Langston’s thigh with a wince. “I think what my not-so-eloquent friend is trying to say is, who cares what they think? They were wrong. You see that now, right?”
I angled my head from side to side in a so-so gesture. “It’s ultimately why I left like a damn thief in the night. I realized he wasn’t trying to save us, or at the very least putting in the bare-minimum effort, and I had to stop disappearing into the idea of saving us or there wouldn’t be anything left of the real me to salvage. So I ran, had a few great, peaceful months making friends and healing from all that trauma, and then boom.” I gestured to Langston. “Captain Asshole ferries my worst nightmare straight to my little sanctuary.” Brow arched, I shook my head in disapproval. “I’m still confused about how all that came about. West tried to explain, but I wasn’t really listening at the time—panic attack and all that.”
Langston grabbed both of his knees in a white-knuckled grip. “I didn’t do it on purpose. They called Brandon, booked a trip from Anchorage to here like any other client would. The caveat was that they were coming here to surprise you, and since we didn’t know any of this until now, we didn’t see a problem with it. It did sound suspect, yeah, but Brandon took their money and ordered us not to say anything to you.” His voice trembled with frustration, no doubt aimed at himself.
“Well, they got what they wanted. I was surprised all right, but thankfully without them knowing. If I would’ve panicked like that in front of them….” I trailed off, not even wanting to think about that level of embarrassment. Pressing a loose fist to my sternum, I rubbed to release the pressure. “It has to be more than just showing up together. What do they want? Why are they really here to see me?”
“No clue,” Langston grumbled, looking anywhere other than at me.
“Are you serious?” I glanced between the two men. “No one asked when they booked? And you didn’t interrogate them on the ride from Anchorage like you do to everyone, Langston?”
He just pursed his lips in response.Guess that’s a no.
West smirked, those damn dimples popping, as he shook his head. “All the information they gave Brandon fit on a Post-it note—not much.”
“Great,” I whined in frustration. “Guess that means I’ll just have to wait for them to blindside me face-to-face to find out why they’re here. That sounds fun.”
