Or it could mean Jackson wasn’t over her at all.
The whole thing started feeling like Keith all over again, with a relationship I thought was done now suddenly coming back to haunt me. Only this was worse, much worse, because I was really falling for Jackson Sullivan.
Even though Jackson had pushed Lexie out of his space, she seemed undeterred. Her amber eyes blazed fire in my direction once again, with a sinister smirk twitching her mouth.
“Listen, honey, I’ve been with Jackson for a long time. And he always comes back to me. Always. So don’t think you’re really his woman or that he’ll be sticking around. He’s mine and I’m his, and that’s the way it’s always been since the minute he slid that massive dick into my sweetness.”
Oh God, that was what he’d said to me just a couple of days ago. Did he make that claim with every woman he slept with? These thoughts swirled inside my head, making me sick to my stomach. That queasiness quickly turned into panic and I started to sweat.
Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Myer, probably calling to let me know she was back from her weekend with Wade. I declined the call, but then immediately texted her instead:
In romantic meltdown situation! Come get me ASAP!
I typed Jackson’s address and hit send.
“Lexie, I haven’t belonged to you in a long fucking time, but you pulling this shit out of the clear goddamn blue shouldn’t be surprising anymore.”
“But Jax! This time I—”
“Enough! Not another word out of you.” Then he turned to me, grabbing the sleeve of my jacket. “And what the fuck are you doing, Lauren? Who are you texting?” His gaze scorched me like I had done something wrong.
“You know what Jackson? None of your friggin’ business!”
His eyes went wide then narrowed at me. “Oh no? Considering I’ve been inside you for the last several days straight, I think I’ve got a right to know who you’re texting in the middle of all this shit.”
That remark got a snicker and eye roll from Lexie. Geez, she really was a bitch. I should have been happy Jackson was more focused on what I was doing than on his ex’s antics, but at that moment, waves of humiliation and anger crashed over me, and I was totally pissed I’d been duped by a guy once again.
“Don’t let what I’m doing distract you. It seems you’ve got a lot more going on in your life than you let on,” I hurled back his way.
I looked down at my phone again, seeing she had texted me back:
On the way! Girl, you’ve got LOTS of explaining to do. I thought you were with Keith for the weekend??
At the mention of Keith, I felt my temper spike into the stratosphere and I took it out on Jackson.
“First Keith, now you? I don’t need to keep dealing with exes showing up unexpectedly.”
His jaw clenched and his body turned to granite. “I’m nothing like that douche bag, Lauren, and it is total bullshit for you to compare me to him.”
“No? Because I think the fact that you were almost married would’ve been something worth mentioning, especially since it wasn’t that long ago.”
“Let her go, Jackson, so we can work things out.” Lexie reached for his hand.
He turned to her and got right in her face. “Lex, I don’t need this shit now. There’s nothing to work out. We’ve been over for almost a year and you show up now?”
Her eyes widened but his anger didn’t deter her from getting closer to him.
“Baby, we may have been officially broken up for a while, but you know you’ve been in my bed since then.” Lexie looked right at me when she said that last part, as if to ensure I heard her. Jackson started to glance over at me, but she grabbed his face and directed it toward her. “Let me make it up to you, Jax. I promise it’s going to be so good between us from now on.” She placed both her palms on his chest and gazed up at him like a goddamn puppy dog.
Now I knew I was going to hurl.
I couldn’t get over how transparent this chick was, and then that made me wonder what he saw in her in the first place. Well, besides her looks and gorgeous body.
He backed away but continued to stare at her, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was taking her pleas into serious consideration. And I know this sounds ridiculous, especially since I’d barely known him for any time at all, but I still felt my heart break and the tears well up in my eyes.
Because I really believed this was the start of something real. Something lasting. And it didn’t even last a week, which meant at twenty-seven years old, I was still all kinds of a fool.
Just then, I heard a honk and relief flooded me as I saw Myer and Wade pull up in their car. I grabbed my bag and gave Jackson one last glance, soaking in the little I could before I bolted. This time, I couldn’t bring myself to offer face-saving platitudes because, in spite of the whole ugly scene, I still didn’t want to bullshit him.
“Bye, Jackson.” That was all I could say before I dashed away, like it was my getaway car from a robbery in progress.
“Goddamn it, Lauren, wait a minute!” he called out, but I was already down the drive to the car.
I hopped in like my body was on fire and locked the car as soon as I got in, which was fortunate because he tried the door handle and was banging his palm on the window. I couldn’t look at him and kept my head down.
“Not a word, guys,” I said to my best friend and her awesome man. “Just drive!”
Thank God Wade has always had a lead foot because he burned rubber and got us out of there in a flash. I silently let the tears fall and told them what had happened, with Keith first and now with Jackson. They were dear enough friends to not call me crazy or say “I told you so”, and they let me pull myself together at their house.
Myer was the first real friend I made when I moved to Vienna, Virginia. She had sold me my beloved bungalow and religiously combed through flea markets and antique shops over the last year to help me decorate it. She was also a Southern girl, from Texas, and was the ideal blend of Southern tradition and modern hipster. Her husband, Wade, was just as adorable—also blond and from Texas—and was some kind of computer genius who was in constant demand by both the government and the private sector. They were fabulous, a combination of cream-cheese cute and slick-city edginess. And I was beyond relieved to find sanctuary on their comfy, shabby-chic loveseat while sharing my latest dating disaster.
“Doesn’t sound like your mama’s dating rules are holding up there.” She offered me my favorite, a Moscow mule concoction—in a copper mug she had bought just for when I came over. Because, yes, she was that kind of ol’ school Southern charm and style.
I let out a derisive laugh and wiped my eyes. “I’m just a hot mess, aren’t I?”
“Oh hush, you’re no such thing.” She waved me off and collapsed in the chair across from me. “The whole tale sounded like a romantic dream until that bitch showed up.”
“Some dream—letting the owner of a biker bar fuck me five ways ’til Sunday and then having him lose all interest the minute The One That Got Away showed up.”
Myer stared at me, a look of disbelief on her peaches-and-cream face. “Lauren Elizabeth, you are sniffing glue if you think that’s true!” she exclaimed. “That man was running after you faster than green grass through a goose, and I would’ve made you hear him out, but you were so desperate to hightail it outta there that I didn’t know what to think!”
I rolled my eyes. “Myer, you didn’t see his ex. She was stunning. And quite determined. And bitchy to boot.”
“It doesn’t matter what she wanted, only if he wanted her. And from the little I saw, I didn’t see a man holding a torch for some ex. I saw a man determined to catch you.”
I sat there, staring off into space, replaying the day’s events, reel by reel, in my mind. Then I looked up at my friend, sitting there looking completely self-assured and pleased with he
rself.
“You’re thinking I overreacted,” I practically mumbled.
“Yes ma’am.” She took my now-empty drink from me.
“You’re thinking I need to apologize or something?”
She walked to her kitchen to rinse out the mug and I followed. “Now I didn’t say that. But I think you owe it to him to hear him out and not bolt from a relationship the minute it gets a bit bumpy.”
“Wait a sec, I don’t even know if this is a relationship!”
She turned to me, her face all scarlet pink, which happened when she got embarrassed or mad. Her hand was on her hip and she gave me her best Southern-mama stare.
“Lauren, I love you like a sister, but you are so full of shit that your green eyes are turnin’ brown!” she barked at me. “How the heck can you think you’re not in a relationship? So what if you bumped uglies the first night you met him? You two may not have had the kind of start you brag about in church, but that man took you away for the weekend afterwards. Hell, you even showed him that sketchbook of yours you take everywhere with you like a security blanket.” Then she sighed, blew some stray hairs out of her face, and offered me a soft smile. “You moved here to stop running and start living long. That means giving people a chance, letting them in. You’re the sweetest, most creative and interesting woman I know, but you keep men at arm’s length.”
I let out a sigh. “I totally do that, don’t I?”
To her credit, she only offered an amused smile. Myer was awesome that way—telling you the truth you needed to hear, but taking the sting out of it. I leaned against her refrigerator and crossed my arms in front of me. “Even if you’re right, that doesn’t mean he’s the one for me. My mother would die if I brought home some tattooed motorcycle man as a serious boyfriend.”
She wiped her hands on the dishtowel and shook her head at me. “When I first met Wade, that boy had a mullet—a mullet, Lauren—and an entire wardrobe consisting of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings T-shirts. And he used to be so shy, he didn’t look anyone but me in the eye when he spoke! Talk about parents’ worst nightmare! But I knew, without a doubt, that he was my man, even though he was only a boy at the time. My mama and daddy pitched a fit, by the way, and I paid them no mind. Now, we’ve been married for ten years and, after I worked on his social skills, I swear they might love him even more than me. So I don’t want to hear you use your mama as an excuse to keep a possible good man away.”
Just then, Wade came in the kitchen, with a huge shit-eating grin on his face. He snaked his arm around her and pulled her close.
“Now that you mention them, maybe I should resurrect the ol’ T-shirt collection! They were sah-weeet!” He gave me a playful wink, something he often did when he was trying to get a rise out of his wife.
Now it was my friend’s turn to overreact. “Lord have mercy on me.” She swatted Wade on his biceps with her dishtowel. “Babe, I love ya, but there’s no way you’re bringin’ back those God-awful rags. Let ’em rest in peace, okay?”
His grin just grew, as if he was already scheming. “Whatever you say, baby doll.”
She smirked and grabbed her keys. “All right, well, I’m gonna drop Lauren off at home right quick and, when I get back, there best not be any of those wretched tees hanging in my closet or on your body, ya hear?”
Wade pulled my friend into his frame, reveling in her fake snit. “Yes ma’am. Just get back fast cuz I got plans, sugar.” He nipped at her earlobe while she yelped and swatted him away, but all the while I could tell she was loving every minute of it.
My bungalow was one of the few in the town of Vienna that didn’t hug a street curb. The house was set far back, with a driveway that snaked from the main street and curved to my front porch. This meant you couldn’t see a big portion of the house from the start of the driveway. It’s a feature I loved because it reminded me of the homes in North Carolina, sitting pretty and far back on a piece of land handed down through the generations, with a winding pathway leading you to a welcoming, wraparound porch, with rocking chairs in the front and fresh lemonade waiting.
I had told Myer not to pull up to the house, to just drop me off in the front of the drive because I knew she had trouble backing her car down the long path. With the sun almost setting, I strolled home, lost inside my head, vacillating between planning how I was going to apologize to Jackson and imagining him and Lexie reconciling. I was debating whether I should call or just show up or wait for him to come to me.
Maybe he wouldn’t come at all. Because, let’s be frank, I bolted out of there like the place was on fire. I’m always hearing from the women in my life not to let the crazy out too soon around men because they’re easily spooked, like cattle in a thunderstorm. This, of course, led me to get pissed off all over again because, hey, I’m not the one with the almost-fiancée showing up staking her claim. Why should I have felt badly about taking off?
I heard the creaking of a rocking chair, which startled me. I looked up, and it took a second for my eyes to adjust because of the twilight sky, but once they did, I let out a quiet gasp.
It was Jackson, sitting on my front porch, waiting for me. My car was back in my driveway.
“How did you get my car back? I still have the keys in my purse.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave a quick shake of his head. “Had my buddy hot-wire it. Knew you’d need your car for work tomorrow.”
I decided to let that piece of knowledge float away because my heart swelled at the sight of him, a huge smile dancing across my face. His left knee was mindlessly bouncing up and down, and whether that was to release his nervous energy or anger, I couldn’t yet tell. His face was expressionless, not giving anything away. I stopped at the bottom of the three steps that led to my porch.
His gaze slowly traveled the length of me and then he leaned his elbows on his knees and took a deep breath. “Don’t. Do that. Again.”
I looked down and kicked at the gravel with my boot. I dropped my bag and shoved my hands deep into my jeans pockets and didn’t respond, so Jackson got out of the rocking chair and sat on the porch steps, which meant he was right in my line of vision, so I couldn’t escape. Then he grabbed me by one of my belt loops and pulled me closer to him, so I was standing in the V of his legs. Without thought, I sat on his lap, as if I’d been doing such things all my life.
He gave me an approving squeeze and started talking. “I met Lexie several years ago and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love her once.” He exhaled loudly then brought me even closer to his side. “And when it was good, it was a blast. But when it was bad, which it soon was a lot more than it was good, it was hell.”
“You wanted to marry her once, Jackson. Couldn’t have been all that bad.”
He looked off and shook his head. “Yeah, I thought so, but me breaking things off was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. I’ll tell ya about it if you don’t plan on running off again.”
It was my turn to let out a sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry about leaving the way I did. But look at me now and tell me if there’s still something between you two. Because if it’s really as over as you say it is, I have a hard time believing she’d feel that comfortable just showing up unannounced at your place and getting in my face the way she did.”
He looked away for a second, obviously debating something in his mind. “We haven’t been together as a couple since last year, when I came to my senses and broke off the engagement, but it’s also true she has found her way into my bed a few times since then. But Lauren?” He turned my head so I looked right at him, holding my face in the palm of his hand. “It’s been a long while, since way before New Year’s Eve, and anything between us that may have been holding me cut loose the minute I met you.”
I can’t say I was thrilled with the visual of him and that manipulative brat together, but it explained some of her entitled behavior. I’m sure in her mind, as long
as he was granting her access to his bed and his body, she had some rights to the rest of it.
“Say something, anything, babe.”
I blew out an exasperated breath. I was still on his lap, looking down at him. This handsome, complicated man who drew me to him in every way. I could drown in his eyes, crawl into his body and not want to come up for air ever. I gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“I hate feeling like this, getting wound up, feeling jealous. I don’t want to be that woman. I won’t be that woman, Jax, no matter how hard I’m falling for you. So I’m only going to ask you this once. Are you sure you’re over her now?”
He gazed up at me, but it was getting harder to see him because it was now pretty dark outside and I didn’t have the porch light on. “Our fucking was more about saying goodbye and loneliness than holding on to something.” His arms tightened around my waist and gave me a long squeeze. “You really falling for me, beautiful?”
I let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. Charming, I know.
“Oh please, as if you don’t know! Stop shooting fish in a barrel, Jackson.”
He took hold of me by the neck and pressed his mouth hard against mine, cradling me in his arms and refusing to let me go. I gave in to his kiss, especially when I felt his hot, silken tongue on the seam of my mouth, urging me to open for him. When I did, he let out a low groan and clawed his fingers through my hair. I whimpered into his mouth. Too soon, he broke the kiss, but kept me in his arms. His eyes were still dark with desire, but I knew he still had something to say because of the way his brow furrowed.
“Lauren, don’t let her derail what we’ve got goin’.” He trailed his lips and tongue on my neck, making it nearly impossible to concentrate on what he was saying. “And don’t you dare run from me again.”
My eyes got heavy as I leaned into his caresses, my nipples pebbling. “Jax, I don’t know, I-I—”
He grabbed my head in his hands and kissed me deeply before continuing his assault on my senses. “I know this is new, but I’m in this, and I know you are too. Don’t punish me for her showin’ up, something out of my control.”
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