Say You're Mine

by Alexis Winter

  Jaxson keels over in laughter and Scarlett and I are now crying. One day, this girl is going to find her filter. But then again, she’ll probably be the old lady who gets kicked out of the nursing home for being inappropriate.

  “Oh, Tori,” Jaxson says as he collects himself, “please make sure I’m there when you tell him. And that my phone is charged. I’ll need to take some video so he can watch that every day for the rest of his life.”

  We make sure that everyone is gone, and Jaxson and I lock up the gallery. It’s a beautiful night. The weather hasn’t taken a turn to fall quite yet, so we take advantage and walk the few blocks back to the loft, picking up a pizza on the way.

  “I’ve been thinking lately,” Jaxson says, breaking our comfortable silence.

  “About what?”

  “The first time I saw you. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we went to your dad’s for dinner.”

  If it’s the same day I first saw him, I’d rather he have a different memory.

  “Please don’t tell me you remember me for nearly spilling coffee on you only to knock over a display of gift cards instead. Because I’d rather that not be the story we tell our grandkids someday.”

  I stop myself. I don’t know what made me say that. We’ve never really talked about kids. We’ve joked a few times about marriage, but nothing concrete.

  Of course I’ve thought about it. A lot. A little baby Jaxson causing trouble, but secretly being a mama’s boy, and a little girl with my red hair worshipping the ground her daddy walks on. The two of them running around The Pit, getting into anything and everything.

  He stops and takes my hand in his, looking at me with all the love in the world—with those deep brown eyes that once held only pain and anger behind them.

  “No, I’m going to tell them about how when I saw their mom, her beauty rendered me speechless for months. And that though I didn’t know it at the time, she saved my life.”

  I don’t care that we’re on a sidewalk in Chicago—me holding a bouquet of flowers and him holding a deep dish pizza. I kiss him with all that I have, and everything I want to give him.

  Because he saved me too. In so many ways.

  36

  Jaxson

  I look at my phone and see that it’s 4:30 in the afternoon, and although I’d like to take a lap around The Pit to see how everything is going today, I know Reggie is about to come in with his daily mail call.

  But when he walks in, he doesn’t have a stack of papers in his arms. Instead, it’s just his coat and satchel.

  “Do I actually not have homework tonight?” I joke. “If so, this might be the first time since we opened that you haven’t given me things to do when you leave. Go before you change your mind!”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I’d rather not do it here,” he says, almost nervously. “Do you think we could talk somewhere else?”

  “Yeah. Is everything okay?” I ask as I grab my keys and jacket.

  “I hope so. I’d just . . . I’d just rather talk in private.”

  We head to my loft since Annabelle is at the gallery. I grab us a few beers and we take a seat around the island.

  “Dude, I gotta say, this is kind of freaking me out. What’s going on that we couldn’t close the door and talk about at the gym?”

  Reggie runs a hand through his hair and takes a long pull of his beer. “Honestly? I don’t know yet, but I’m noticing some weird things and I wanted to bring them to your attention, but I didn’t want anyone to overhear because it could be nothing.”

  “Or it could be something,” I say, finishing his thought.

  “Yeah, it could be.”

  Reggie begins explaining that it started with the security camera in the alley getting broken again. He didn’t tell me because he honestly thought it was the same punk kids who did it the first time, and it wasn’t too much of an expense to replace it since we’ve doubled our membership.

  “If it had just been that, I honestly wouldn’t have thought anything of it. But Jaxson, money has been going missing.”

  This takes me by surprise. Reggie is meticulous about our books—down to the last cent.

  “How much?”

  “Every day we’re missing anywhere from $50 to $300. It’s never the same amount.”

  In the time since Reggie and I opened The Pit, we’ve never had trouble with any employees or theft. This just doesn’t make any sense.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  He gives me a sobering look. “It started a few weeks after your dad came on board.”

  I shake my head, though I really don’t blame him for thinking it.

  “No, it couldn’t be him. He doesn’t have a key to the safe or the lockbox. Stan Kelly is many things, but a thief isn’t in his repertoire.” One time, back when I was a kid, we were locked out of the apartment and he couldn’t even pick a 20-year-old lock to get us in. Instead I called Maverick, who could pick a lock by the age of five.

  “I have no proof it is or isn’t him, Jaxson. I just know that that’s when money started going missing. I don’t know how you want to handle this, but I figured I needed to talk to you about it sooner rather than later.”

  I thought about all the times my dad would have had the opportunity to swipe from the box or the register, and honestly, there haven’t been many. He closed The Pit that one night I surprised Annabelle at the gallery, but since then, he hasn’t closed without someone else there. There are too many people around during the day who would’ve noticed him stealing money, and the petty cash is locked in my office every night.

  While he’s rightfully the top suspect, it just doesn’t add up. There’s something missing.

  But I know a surefire way to find out if he’s the one behind the missing money or not.

  “Grab your jacket. Come back to the gym with me. I have to see something before we decide anything else.”

  I don’t tell Reggie what we’re about to do, because I don’t even want to tell myself.

  As soon as we get back to The Pit, I run to the office and unlock my top drawer. I’m the only one who has a key, but if someone is figuring out how to get into the safe, then this drawer would be child’s play.

  When I open the drawer, my stomach drops like I’m on a roller coaster. Inside I find only paperwork, a few paper clips, and an assortment of pens.

  The engagement ring is gone.

  “Fuck!” I yell, standing up and punching the wall.

  “What?” Reggie is confused. “What was supposed to be there?”

  I pull at my short hair, wishing it were longer just so I’d have something to rip out right now. How could I be so fucking dumb?

  “I . . . Annabelle’s dad gave me her mother’s engagement ring. I locked it in the desk so she wouldn’t find it in a drawer at the loft. Stan was the only one who knew it was in there.”

  I knew I should have listened to the voice in the back of my head that said to proceed with caution—that at the end of the day, he was still Stan Kelly, career criminal and general piece of shit.

  But now I’m left wondering how the fuck I got into this mess.

  37

  Annabelle

  When I caught Marcus cheating on me, I had a weird feeling that day that something was off.

  It’s the same feeling I’ve been having with Jaxson.

  It’s been two days since we’ve seen each other. That isn’t completely abnormal for us, but normally when our days don’t sync up and I’m in bed before he gets home, he wakes me up and kisses me goodnight.

  But the last two nights he hasn’t. And last night he slept on the couch. Tonight he’s home for dinner, but he might as well be a million miles away.

  I’m trying not to freak out. But damn, it’s hard not to let my mind think the worst.

  Did something happen with his dad?

  Maybe he regrets asking me to move in?

  Is he seeing someone else?

  “Is everyt
hing okay?” I ask him.

  “Yup.”

  Well, isn’t that an enlightened answer?

  “Is something wrong with your chicken?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then why are you picking at it like a child who doesn’t want to eat his broccoli?”

  He slams his fork down. “Why do you care so much about how I eat my dinner?”

  Like hell he’s going to snap at me when he’s the one acting like an ass. “If it were just about your dinner, I wouldn’t give a damn! Maybe it’s because you voluntarily slept on the couch last night and I haven’t seen you in days! Why is that?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t want to wake you up. God, I’m such a horrible person for letting you sleep. Call the police on me.”

  “You didn’t mind waking me up last week with your tongue. Or do you only wake me up when you want to fuck me?”

  “Now I’m an asshole for eating your pussy? Sorry it was such an inconvenience for you.”

  That’s it. We’re both pissed off and this is going nowhere. I’m not going to argue about random shit just because he’s too hardheaded to tell me what’s actually bothering him.

  “I don’t know why you’re being an ass, but I’m not going to sit here and take it. You are obviously in your head about something. And you promised me that when something like this happened, you would come to me. That we would talk it through. So here I am, asking you to confide in me.”

  He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t speak, just continues to push the chicken around his plate.

  “Fine,” I say, grabbing my plate and dropping it in the sink. “I’m going to bed. Since you seem to be quite familiar with the couch, you can stay there again tonight if you aren’t going to tell me what’s wrong.”

  I charge off to our bedroom and slam the door shut.

  As soon as I hit the bed, my tears fall. I’ve always been an emotional person, and I can’t believe my angry tears didn’t come during our epic yelling match. I’m surprised our neighbors didn’t call the cops on us.

  He promised me he wouldn’t do this—that he wouldn’t go back to the Jaxson who would refuse to talk to me when things got hard. And he had been better. These last few months have been the best of my life. I thought they were for him too.

  Maybe the honeymoon is over? God, I hope not. I might be angry with him, but he’s the love of my life. I know that as much as I know anything.

  I don’t hear the door open, but I feel his weight as soon as he sits on the edge of the bed. My head is buried in the pillow, trying to muffle the sound of my crying.

  “I hate it when you cry,” he says, his voice strained.

  I roll over and sit up, wiping the tears as best I can. “I hate it when you make me cry.”

  His hand reaches out for my leg, and his touch starts to calm me. He massages it gently, and I know he’s trying to find his words. This I can work with. This is better than screaming at the dinner table.

  “What’s the matter, Jaxson? I thought everything was going well, and that we were fine, but the last few days you’ve been so . . . gone.”

  He doesn’t answer for a minute, and with every second that passes by, my nervousness grows a little bit more.

  “Annabelle, I don’t know how to say this . . .”

  Oh God. Is he breaking up with me?

  “Stop. Don’t say it.” I have to cut him off. I don’t want to hear the rest.

  “Say what?” he asks in confusion.

  “If you’re breaking up with me, I don’t want to hear the words. I can’t hear them. I—.”

  Before I can finish the thought, he makes his way to me, crashing my lips with his. I’ve missed his lips so much. How he claims me a little more each time our lips join.

  This kiss is intense and consuming and there is no way he’d be kissing me like this if he were leaving me. That’s my only solace right now. So I give back just as much as he’s giving to me.

  “I can’t believe you’d even think I would be ending this,” he says, now on top of me. “Don’t you know how much I love you, Annabelle? That I would die for you?”

  I wrap myself around him, needing to feel connected to him as much as possible.

  “I love you too. But when you didn’t sleep in our bed last night, my mind just took off in a thousand directions.”

  He kisses me again, not as forceful this time, but there’s something different about this kiss than the hundreds we’ve shared before. He’s now covering me with his body and his weight is nearly crushing me, but I don’t care. He chose to spend the last two nights away from me, physically and emotionally, and right now I need to feel him.

  His lips are everywhere as he tries to remove my clothing without breaking away. It’s next to impossible, but he doesn’t seem to care. It’s like I might disappear if he moves even an inch from me.

  He makes his way back up my body, placing kisses over my breasts, along my neck, on my ear, across my cheek, and then finally on my lips.

  “I’m so sorry I worried you. I’m sorry I was the reason for your tears. Again. Please know that I love you. I love you so much, Annabelle.”

  He slowly removes my clothing while tracing his hands over my body. It’s like he’s trying to memorize every curve.

  “I don’t deserve you. I never have. You are perfection.”

  I sit up on my knees, mirroring his stance, and wrap my arms around my neck.

  “We are perfect. Together.”

  No more words are spoken. We spend the evening making love—taking it slow and savoring every moment.

  I realize he hasn’t told me what’s wrong, or why he’s been acting the way he has. And maybe I should have pushed harder for an answer.

  But he’s back with me. At least for now. And that’s all I need.

  38

  Jaxson

  I didn’t sleep a fucking wink last night. Luckily, Annabelle fell asleep in my arms, so she didn’t realize all I did was stare at the ceiling.

  How the fuck did I get myself into this situation?

  How was I so fucking blind that I didn’t realize Stan was back to his old ways?

  Those are just a few of the questions I’ve been raking over in my mind since last night. Luckily, Stan is off today at The Pit, so I have time to figure out my next steps before confronting him. Or punching his face in. That will probably happen no matter when I see him next.

  My body and mind are tired, and I can’t focus, so I grab my gloves and decide to go a few rounds with the speed bag. It’s pretty late. We’re open, but it’s a Friday night and no one is here, so I appreciate the peace. Just me, the bag, and the mountain of problems I all of a sudden need to face.

  If he were only stealing a few hundred dollars, he wouldn’t be in that deep. And the ring has more sentimental value than anything else. It has a smaller diamond in it, but I knew Annabelle would love it more than any high-priced ring I could get her.

  Without a doubt, I’m firing Stan tomorrow. That’s a fucking fact. He knew he had one chance with me, and he blew it.

  I know gambling is an addiction, and I feel for the people who truly suffer, but with Stan, I don’t think it is an addiction. It’s his life. It’s the only life he knows.

  And again, he chose that over his family.

  My fists are connecting with the bag at a rapid-fire pace, and the only sounds in the gym are the bag hitting the platform and my breaths growing heavy. That is, until I hear the front doors open and see two dudes—so big they make me look tiny—come around the corner.

  I don’t know them, but I know exactly why they’re here. Two guys who look like that—with their imposing frames, slicked-back hair, and tailored suits—are absolutely the kind of guys Stan used to run around with when he was setting up his fights.

  Seeing these guys makes my stomach tighten, because I have a feeling that dear ol’ dad is in a lot deeper than a few thousand bucks.

  “Gentlemen, what can I help you with?” I step away from the bag, but don’t
take off the gloves.

  “Where’s Stan?” one of them says.

  “Not here. Who wants to know?”

  “We’re friends of his. We need to pay him a little visit.”

  “Why did you think he was here?”

  “He can’t stop bragging about this place. Your pops is real proud of you, Jaxson.”

  The drop of my name is on purpose—his way of telling me he has the upper hand here. I might not remember him from back in the day, but this isn’t my first rodeo.

  I can play this one of two ways. I can act dumb. See what they’ll tell me and hopefully it’s enough to figure out the depth of the shit Stan is in—or more specifically, how deep I’m in it.

  Or I could play along and see how much information they’ll drop.

  Considering I don’t know if they’re packing, and I don’t want to say the wrong thing that could land me a trip to the hospital, I go with the first option.

  “Well, he’s not here. Haven’t seen him today. But I’d be happy to tell him you guys swung by. What did you say your names were again?”

  The smaller of the two, the only one who has been saying anything, speaks up again. “We didn’t say who we were. We know where to find him. We were just hoping to talk to him a bit in private. It’s in good taste to try to collect 200 large without company around, if you know what I mean.”

  “I get it.” How I said that with a straight face, I’ll never know.

  Two hundred fucking thousand dollars? He’s only been out for two months! How in the actual fuck do you get 200 grand in the hole that quickly?

  But I have to keep my cool. The only way I’ll get any info is if I play along.

  “Well, I’m just about ready to shut down for the night, so if you don’t mind . . .” I don’t finish the sentence, hoping they aren’t going to put up a fight and demand something from me.