Free Boarlander Cursed Bear (Boarlander Bears Book 5) by T. S. Joyce Page B

somewhere.” She was mostly teasing. He probably wouldn’t actually go find them.
    “Fine,” he muttered, unscrewing the cap on some fire-engine red nail polish. “Oh, my God, your toes are so fuckin’ cute.” He plopped down on his side and drew her leg over his waist. “I always loved how they were in a perfect diagonal line.” He brushed his fingertip over the top of her toes.
    Alyssa put an extra pillow under her head and frowned at him. “What do you mean you always loved them?”
    But Clinton was apparently very busy painting her toenails now because he didn’t answer.
    “Clinton, what did you mean?”
    “I mean from the first day I saw you in Saratoga, you were wearing flip-flops, for reasons I can’t fathom, because it’s cold as a witch’s tit up here, but I noticed your toes.” His voice dipped to a grumpy snarl. “And I liked them.”
    “Oh.” She let him work for a while before she asked, “Can I tell you the dream I had about the boy who looks like you?”
    “I wish you would leave it alone.”
    “You’re being rude again.”
    Clinton blew on her toes and then tossed her a bright-eyed glare. “I ain’t him, and he ain’t me. I don’t want to hear about this boy who has nothing to do with me. You can like me as I am or not.”
    “Oh, Clinton. That’s not what I was saying at all. I’m sorry if you think I’m trying to mash you up with some idealistic image I have in my head. I’m not. I like you the way you are.”
    Clinton snorted. “You would be the only one.”
    She canted her head on the pillow and watched him paint the big toe of her other foot. He was so gentle and precise, like he wanted it to be perfect for her. “What do you mean?”
    “I’m the resident screw-up at the trailer park, really of all of Damon’s mountains. I’m on a C-Team crew, and even my own people call me Crazy Clinton, and they ain’t wrong. When I talked to my mom a few months ago, she told me she doesn’t understand how I got this way. She said she doesn’t even recognize me anymore.”
    Alyssa reached down and brushed her fingertips over his elbow. Clinton tensed but allowed the affection. “Were you two close?”
    “Yeah. I was close with both my parents. But I made a decision when I was sixteen that they hated, and when I came out of that decision, I wasn’t their little boy anymore. And I guess that still makes my mom really angry. And I get it. I would be pissed at my kid, too.”
    “What decision?”
    Clinton shook his head for a long time, then blew on her other foot. “It was just something I had to do if I was going to have a shot at being happy again.”
    “Do you know a girl named Shae?” Alyssa blurted out. Because what he was saying seemed so familiar, like maybe she had a supernatural connection with this girl in her dream.
    Clinton went rigid, then slowly leveled her with an angry look. “No, and if this is something to do with your dream, I told you, that ain’t me. You have to let that go.”
    “But, I can’t.”
    “But you have to!” Clinton rocked off the bed and strode into the bathroom again.
    She’d pissed him off. Something about her dream made him angry, but that wasn’t fair. “So,” she drawled, stepping carefully off the bed so she didn’t mess up her nails, “you’re allowed to have baggage, but I can’t? You don’t want to deal with me, is that it? Because I’ve done this before with Ben and Kyle, and this is just like what always happens, except at least they were nice enough to wait a few months before they bolted.”
    “Don’t compare me to those assholes,” Clinton gritted out, brushing past her. “They weren’t worthy of you. You picked bad. That had nothing to do with me.”
    “But you’re shutting me down—”
    “Because it hurts!” Clinton backed into the kitchen and she followed. In a softer voice, he said, “It hurts to talk about some boy you obviously have a connection with. I want to be it for you now. Me. Not anyone