Bonham (Pushing Daisies Book 3) by Heather Young-Nichols (the little red hen read aloud txt) 📗

At least I had no worries about Delaney outing me to our parents for dating Bonham. No. She was my ride or die and she wanted me to out in the world like this.

10

Bonham

The car jerked to the right before I could control my reaction. Had Jurnie really just said that? Her sister was invested in her losing her virginity? That meant Jurnie was a virgin. When I thought about it, it made sense. She’d commented before about having not ever needed the birth control her mother had put her on or something like that. But fuck… she was twenty-one. How could she still be a fucking virgin?

“Sorry.” Her face tinged pink as she put a lock of hair behind her ear. I thought that was a nervous habit because I’d seen her do it before. That and playing with the hem of her shirt or skirt, or those little embroidered flowers.

Today she was wearing white shorts, the length of which I thoroughly appreciated because they showed off a lot of leg. Now, Jurnie didn’t have a lot of leg to show off, but what she did have looked soft and smooth and I could imagine running my hands up—nope. Mind out of the gutter.

“Just for clarification… what did you say?” The fact that I was driving meant that I couldn’t look over at her. Couldn’t watch her answer that question. But I did move my hand to her knee, where my fingers could draw small, soothing circles on the inside. “Just want to make sure I heard you correctly.”

Jurnie groaned then sighed. “My sister was asking about you and she wanted to know if since we were going out again, we were going to have sex, and I told her I didn’t know. She’s always been invested in me losing my virginity because she feels guilty that the hammer was lowered on me when I didn’t do anything.”

“The… hammer?” None of this was making much sense yet and my brain wouldn’t stop thinking about the fact that hot-as-hell Jurnie was a virgin. It was like a neon light flashing in my brain over and over.

“The rules,” she told me. “The way my parents lorded over me after Delaney got pregnant. They brought down the hammer when I wasn’t even doing anything.”

I pulled up in front of my parents’ house. The rest of this conversation was going to have to wait. No way in hell were we doing that in front of my family. This was going to be an easy night.

“Let’s talk about all of that later, yeah?”

“We probably shouldn’t. My family will scare you away.”

I laughed at her being worried that was a thing that could happen. If she thought some strict parents were going to scare me away from what I wanted, she was wrong. Every day it was becoming more and more clear that Jurnie was what I wanted.

“Please.” I brushed her off. “You’re about to meet my entire family, plus a couple of extras. I don’t scare easily.”

“Wait.” Her hand grabbed my forearm. “Your entire family?”

“Well, my parents are out for the evening, so I guess not technically my entire family, but pretty much.”

Jurnie began playing with the hem of her shirt again, which made me put my hand over hers to still it. “It’ll be fine,” I promised.

She bit that bottom lip then nodded.

I took her hand as we walked toward the house. The smell of pizza filled the kitchen as we came in. I’d brought her in through the garage, mostly because that was how we usually entered. The noise was already deafening as Daisy spoke loudly about something Van had done on stage. Which show they were talking about or what he’d done, I had no idea. But everyone was laughing. This was what I’d been hoping for when I’d asked Jurnie to come. With us being home only a week, some things had to be on a faster timeline.

“Hey, guys,” I called out when we got to the dining room. The kitchen and dining room were attached in an open floor plan. It was how Dad could yell at us from the kitchen. “This is Jurnie.” I took the time to introduce the rest of them to her. Her eyes danced with excitement when I introduced Daisy.

Damn. I find a girl I really like and she’s a Daisy fangirl.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Daisy told her as she gave her a hug. Weird. My sister wasn’t a hugger.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jurnie said back. Once they released each other, she continued. “I saw you play your violin forever ago at the opera house. It was a competition. You were amazing.”

“Thank you. I remember that. I won first place.”

“Of course you did,” Mack told us. Because when Daisy competed in a musical competition, she won.

“You’re the intern on K98, right?” Daltrey asked her.

Jurnie shifted like she wasn’t comfortable with the spotlight. “Yes. Bonham said you all heard that first interview. Sorry about that. I didn’t listen to much but classical growing up.”

“Christ, Bonham.” Van laughed. “You found the one girl who’s never heard of us.”

Jurnie’s eyes widened when she looked at him and Daisy snorted. “There are millions of women in the world who have never heard of us.”

“Yeah, but she knows you.”

“Yes, but I transcend genres of music. I’m eternal.” Daisy said this with a straight face for about point five seconds before she burst out laughing.

My sister could’ve very easily had a big ego, but she didn’t. For someone with the talent that she had, she was totally down to Earth. We weren’t sure how that had happened.

I grabbed plates for Jurnie and me, then dropped the one piece of everything pizza onto hers because that was what she’d asked for. I took three. After getting us both a drink, I moved us over to the two empty chairs. Somehow, we all fit around this table. Mack, Van, Daltrey, Daisy, Lawson, Lexi, Jurnie, and me.

The conversation