15. The Truth Tax
THE TRUTH TAX
JUNIE
The thing about telling someone the truth is that you have to live with it afterward.
At some point, you’ll have to decide what’s important enough to act on.
That’s what I’d said, and I’d meant it. For so many reasons.
But it’s also the truth for me.
I had every opportunity to push him away sooner than I did, and yet I sat in the silence too because I needed him to break first.
I’ve stared at my ceiling all night, my body betraying everything my mind knows to be true.
The feel of him pressed against me.
The air that we shared.
The pure electricity that shoots between us when we touch.
It has to mean something. Right?
Rolling over, I groan into my pillow as defeat sets in.
Natalie tried to break my spirit.
Grace and Paul knocked me off-kilter.
Cole Whittaker will be the final hammer that shatters my heart made of glass.
My alarm goes off, and that momentary panic of what now sets in.
Because the only thing I’m certain of is that the feelings that keep combusting between us are not as one-sided as the six years of separation have led me to believe.
There’s something keeping him from acting, and knowing Cole, it’s something devastating.
His duty to those secrets will always keep him from choosing me, even if I’m 99.9 percent sure he wants to.
God, this is so frustrating, and it’s all boiling over before I’ve even gotten out of bed.
Flopping onto my back, I angrily swipe my hair out of my face when Nana Mae’s ring catches the early morning light.
I glare at it as if it’s the sole proprietor of all my anxiety.
Panic, fear, aggravation, love, and pain all attack my nervous system at once because of this stupid symbol that means too much and not enough.
Off. Get it off now!
My breathing is labored as I jump out of bed, make my way to the kitchen, then thrust my hand into the ice drawer.
Once upon a time, I dreamt of wearing Cole’s ring. It’s the vision of every childhood fantasy I’d ever had. Now it feels like a leash for a man who is incapable of choosing me, and that makes my lungs malfunction.
I tug on the diamond. “Come on. Get off. I need you to get off.”
I don’t need a man to choose me. I choose myself. I always have. How could I have so stupidly forgotten that?
Twisting and turning, the glittering symbol of love and devotion mocks me as it catches on my knuckle, but still, I pull until the skin on my ring finger is raw and close to mangled.
“Please,” I beg. “It’s too much. I need you to get the fuck off my hand.”
Nothing works—not even my brain. That’s the only explanation I have for running down the stairs and bursting into Cole’s kitchen, catching him by surprise.
His hand pauses in the coffee beans, and it barely registers that he’s shirtless.
Whatever he sees on my face has him dropping the canister and gripping my biceps with a firm grip.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, scanning my body for injuries. “What happened?”
He’s too close. This is why we have boundaries. This is why emotional walls were erected in the first place.
“Juniper. Speak.”
His demand snaps me into the present. “I’m not a fucking dog.”
“You’re scaring the shit out of me. You’re pale, you’re shaking, and your pupils are blown wide, but I can’t fix whatever the hell’s going on if you don’t talk to me.”
I scoff. “Talk? Now you want to talk?”
“Junie.” He growls my name. A warning I don’t heed. “What happened?”
This, I realize, is who Cole is. Who he’ll always be.
He’s a fixer who can’t, or won’t, address the elephants sitting on our chests, but he’ll solve the world’s problems to make himself feel like he’s doing something.
“For fuck’s sake, Junie. Did Grace do something?”
I shake my head, then hold up my left hand. A small line of broken blood vessels around the platinum band showcases my pain better than words.
“I can’t wear this. I need it off. Now.”
“Junie.” This time, my name is a plea full of pain, sorrow, and tinged with regret.
It fuels the fire of my anger.
“Get it off me, Cole. This—this lie is too much. It’s just too much.”
He nods and leads me over to the sink, then reaches for a jar of coconut oil. Without taking his gaze off mine, he sticks his thick finger into the white creamy substance, and while staring into my soul, he massages the skin I’ve torn up in my quest to be rid of him.
“Jesus, Junie.” I glance down at the finger he’s caressing.
It shouldn’t be erotic. I shouldn’t feel it in my pussy. It shouldn’t break my heart that I do.
“What have I done?” His voice is somber.
“It—it hurts.” My voice cracks, and my sadness is reflected in his expression.
What the hell was I thinking, getting close to him again?
I knew when I showed up here that he had the power to wreck me, and without a shred of dignity, I once again handed him my heart on a silver fucking platter.
He pinches the skin around my ring finger with one hand while gently trying to ease the band over my knuckle.
“How the fuck did Nana Mae even get this on you?”
“Please,” I say, glancing down. I can’t give him more than that. He’s already taken too much.
He douses my greased-up finger in olive oil next. Then he moves on to butter, and finally Vaseline. I smell like a diner at 3 a.m., but we’re no closer to removing the ring.
“I think,” he grunts when he pulls hard on the metal, but his hand slips, and he smashes his knuckles into the cabinet. “I think we’ll have to get it cut off.”
I glare at the offending symbol of love, and a new wave of guilt hits my ribs when I study the pavé diamonds that wrap around the entirety of the band.
Cutting it off will ruin it forever.
It feels symbolic in a macabre sort of way. The destruction of the ring sits in parallel with the destruction of us because if I cut Cole out of my life, this time, there will be no coming back.
“I’m sorry, Junie. I really am.”
I’m numb as he sticks my hand under warm water and uses pomegranate soap to scrub my skin free of all the lubricants we’ve tried.
“I’ll let Nana Mae know and then search for a jeweler who can do it.” He pats my skin dry, then turns to pull down my mug, and continues making our coffee.
I just…can’t.
I move on wooden legs to my office. I don’t lift my head when he sets my mug on the table next to me. I don’t take my eyes off my computer screen when I hear him slowly climb the stairs.
I can’t do this much longer. This in-between, the unwritten rules, the lingering touches that only hold meaning for me.
My one option is to solve Cole’s financial crisis and then get the fuck out of The Haven for good.
With a renewed sense of purpose, I open my spreadsheets.
At three o’clock, Cole arrives with my coffee and a folder. “Wilford’s completion sign-offs. These go back farther than what’s in the green binder.”
It feels like a peace offering.
My fingers twitch to reach for it, but at the last second, I clasp my hands in my lap. I’m done taking risks. “You can leave it on the corner there.” I indicate the space with my head. “I’ll get to it in just a moment.”
His hand pauses in midair, the folder hovering above my desk, almost as if he’s waiting for me to look at him.
He’ll be waiting a long time though, and he seems to know that but does nothing to move things along.
“Did you need anything else?” I ask.
“No.” I can tell by his voice that his jaw is clenched tightly.
But that’s fine. It’s fine. We’re fine.
We’re two professionals who can occupy the same airspace and communicate in monosyllables and spreadsheets and not talk about the fact that he had his forehead pressed to mine and his hands fisted in my hair in a way that made my core clench.
Completely.
Fine.
Eventually he drops the folder with a sigh right next to the bottle of water Nana Mae has been dropping off daily—something about sodium and swelling—but it still takes him three minutes to leave my space.
My relief is short-lived though because the next thing I know, he’s wheeling his desk chair out of his office, through the hall, and pushing it directly across from me.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Trying to undo my fuckups one step at a time.” He drops into his chair dramatically, then opens his own laptop that was tucked under his arm and focuses on his screen. “Close your mouth, Junie. I may be an idiot, but I’m an idiot who’s committed to trying.”
Committed.
To.
Trying.
Trying what?
Why is he doing this to me now?
He’s too close. Too…everything. So I do the one thing I know will push him away. I aim for his sore spots.
“I’m running out of time here, Cole. We know Devin stole from you. We know it’s more than what you originally let on. If you don’t do something about it, I’ll be forced to.”
He clenches his jaw. “That’s why you’re here.”
It’s the truth, but after everything else, it hurts to narrow down our relationship in these terms.
“So why are you still dragging your feet?”
“I know what you’re doing.”
Good. At least one of us does.
“What am I doing?”
“You’re pushing Devin at me so you don’t have to talk about anything else. This is your chosen method of rebuilding walls.”
“This is me telling you as a professional that your entire business is fucked if you don’t do something about it now.” My voice has risen with each word, and my chest flares with the effort.
“If you or I report this now, the only name on those documents will be mine.”
I suck in a breath and deflate in my seat. He doesn’t know I believe he’s innocent. I see the shame, the hurt—it’s all there in his eyes. We’ve never been able to communicate, so why would his financial ruin be any different?
“There are…things tied to me.” Each word rumbles through his chest as though it’s slicing through the very heart of him.
“Conditions that… People count on me, Junie. If I’m charged with Devin’s crimes, the house of cards I’ve been single-handedly holding together will crumble for more people than you realize—”
“Cole…”