Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Feeling invincible, I push off the podium and walk to her pew. “May I?” She nods, so I sit beside her, perhaps taking my first real breath in a week. I don’t say anything. There’s not much left other than a few important details to work through privately. But when she reaches over and slides her hand in mine, I know I’ll get that chance.
You’d think I was a superhero with all the back pats and congrats I was getting outside on the sidewalk. The mourners have gone, and Gil’s been helping Juni wrap up after the minister spoke. He comes trotting down the steps and says, “Mr. Clark would have approved.”
“What about you?” Gil’s a father figure to Juni. His opinion matters to me.
He replies, “Way to make it count. I’ll see you two tomorrow. I have a date at home.”
“You didn’t have to wait.”
I turn to see Juni, dressed in a black dress, standing on the top step. Rascal sits at her side on his leash.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I say, “I don’t mind waiting for you.” I don’t think the double meaning is lost on either of us. A gentle smile works its way onto her face as she comes down the steps.
She stops on the last one, closer to eye level with me but not quite. “He left Rascal to me.”
I look down at the dog who’s staring at me like he’s enamored. He’s the strangest and cutest dog I’ve ever seen. “He knew you’d take good care of him. You already were.”
Kneeling, she strokes the top of his head. “Who’s a good boy? You are.” When she stands again, she asks, “Did you mean everything you said?”
“Every word.”
“You still left, Andrew.”
I let the name slide because I understand she has reasons to be mad. Reasons to feel abandoned. “I left because I didn’t see there was an alternative. And I wouldn’t have learned that had I not gone. I wouldn’t have learned that I’m not indispensable and that although my role requires I look after the business and its employees, there are more important things in my life to me. You. Us.” Taking hold of her hands, I say, “Travel is required with the company, but if you give me this second chance, you’ll know that I’ll look at each scenario and consider more clearly if it’s my pride that decides if I go or if I’m a necessity. Because you are essential to me.”
She sighs, her chest laden with heaviness. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to check with me to do your job. I just want to know that at the end of it, you’re returning to me. That’s what commitment means to me.”
“Commitment means trusting that I will, not believing I won’t.”
When she nods and her shoulders lighten, she leans closer. “The wires were crossed in a chain of painful events. I confused commitment leading to abandonment. That’s not everyone’s fate. That was my parents. I had no right to project that onto you.”
Her arms come around my neck, and there’s only enough room for a small papillon between us. Juni says, “My parents lived a full life, lived for every day, and made the most of it. I thought they were selfish and didn’t want me. But they were showing me how to live all along. No tomorrow is guaranteed. And like Mr. Clark said, the only regret I’ll have is wasting time without you in it.”
I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get another chance to have my lips against hers again. And she kisses me.
When our lips part and she opens her eyes, she says, “I’m proud of you for accomplishing number three.”
Left-field tangent. It’s good some things never change. “I didn’t understand what you meant when you held three fingers for me.”
She comes down the final step and hooks her arm in mine. “You performed in front of an audience. It was a spectacular performance as well. Guy gets girl and then chooses his boring work over her.”
“Destiny steps in, and he has a revelation.”
“And what might that be?”
I stop and cup her cheeks. “I love you, babe.” I kiss her again, and when I look into her eyes, they’re watery.
“I love you, Drew.” Those are the sweetest four words I’ve ever heard. And I don’t know what’s happening, but something must be in the air because my eyes are watery as well.
We don’t dwell on the mushy stuff as we walk down the street to take Rascal to the park, but I hold her hand, not just because girls dig it, but because I want to be the one on Juni Jacobs’ arm.
I am Juni’s beau, after all. And maybe more one day.
Definitely more.
37
Juni
Five months later . . .
“I don’t understand.” I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and look at Gil to help me make sense of this.