Yeah. And Gillian could use her padded personality to steal my tips, too.
Grumbling, I turned away from Jax and headed for the corner of the room. The only storage was in the basement and I hated going down there. Normally, I would have argued to have someone else do it, but with Jax standing there, I wanted to stand around and talk to him—which made me itch to get away.
I was almost to the door when I realized I had company. Seriously. This day couldn’t get any worse. “Stalking me? Really?” As if I didn’t have enough of that crap going on already?
He shrugged and held the door open wide. “We were talking. I figured we could walk and talk.”
“We weren’t talking, Jax. You were talking—I’m convinced it’s because you love the sound of your own voice. I was trying to walk away.” I gestured to the steps, then started down them, holding tight to the railing so I didn’t end up in a heap at the bottom. “Exhibit A.”
He wasn’t deterred. “I wanted to give you a chance to apologize.”
Apologize? Was he kidding? I opened my mouth, and then closed it. No. This is what he wanted. To get me going. Instead of answering, I went down to the bottom and made my way through the narrow aisles toward the liquor storage as though he wasn’t there.
“Nothing fancy,” he continued. “A simple ‘I’m sorry and want to make it up to you’ works for me.”
I couldn’t keep my mouth closed any longer. Reaching the end of the row, I turned on my heel and pinned him with my most intimidating glare. “What the hell are you doing, Jax?”
He stopped a few feet away. “Waiting for my apology?”
“Try waiting for rabid monkeys to fly sideways out of my ass,” I snapped. “I mean, here. What are you doing here? You skipped town with no notice three years ago, then you pop back for no reason. You say you’re leaving, yet here you are.”
He stepped closer. “In a rush to get rid of me?”
I wasn’t. But I was. And then I wasn’t. There it was again. That damn indecision. “Matter of fact, I am.” I backed up until I hit the shelf where the club stored its extra vodka. A loud rattle and several clinking bottles, and one zoomed from the top, past my right side. It happened so fast. One second Jax was in front of me, the next he was on my right side, a bottle of vodka clutched in his hand inches from the ground.
He straightened and handed over the bottle. “There. I saved you from having to explain why you broke a bottle. I think I deserve a thank-you.”
The air caught in my throat. There was a mischievous tilt to his lips, but also a stark seriousness in his eyes. I hated how it made me feel. Comforted by the familiarity of it, while at the same time, betrayed because he’d left me behind.
Jax was the one who, up until the night he disappeared, had always been there for me. He brought me back to life after my parents died, the only person who’d been able to reach into the darkness and yank me out.
Our relationship had been the most natural thing in the world. Like breathing or the rotation of the planet. We were made for each other, two halves of the same whole. It’d never occurred to me that we wouldn’t end up together. Then he found the courage to tell me he felt the same way, and was gone the next day.
I needed to say something witty to break the tension. “If you’re going to try negotiating another kiss you’re out of luck.”
A wicked smile crept across his face and suddenly it was impossible to concentrate. The basement, normally so much colder than the main floor of the club, felt like Texas in July. My clothes, the ones that only a moment ago felt too revealing, were constricting and in the way. He leaned across and took the bottle, making a move to put it back on the shelf. On the way up, his arm grazed my cheek, the sleeve riding up so that it was skin on skin, and a tiny gasp slipped from my lips. He stretched farther, like he was trying to reach the next shelf, letting his free hand skim up my bare arm and past my shoulder. The touch was so light, barely there, yet the most incredibly electric thing I’d ever experienced. It left me burning and desperate, on the verge of dragging him close and begging him to put his hands all over my body.
When he was done, he paused by my ear, warm breath caressing my cheek, and whispered, “If I want a kiss, trust me, I’ll get one.”
If the reaction from his body pressed close against me was any indication, then he did want that kiss. And more.
When he finally pulled away, the expression on his face had morphed from jovial to serious. “What I want is for you to tell me the truth. What happened at Huntington?”
An icy wave of panic rolled over me. Admitting it happened, out loud, scared me nearly as much as the actual attack had. If I didn’t speak about it, then I could pretend it wasn’t real. Even though a masochistic part of me wanted him to keep going, to push past and claim my personal space as his own, my breath faltered and the walls sprang up.
A million retorts bubbled to the surface and I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from saying something I’d regret. We stood there, eye to eye, neither of us willing to budge. The air cooled and fire between us fizzled, and all the rejection I felt when he turned his back and left came rushing to the surface again. “This should really go without saying, but why the hell do you care?”
“Because I know there’s something going on and I’m worried.”
“If you were so concerned about me then you should have stuck around.” The bitterness in my voice grated. “Can’t just walk back into my life and plant yourself in the center again.”
I pushed him, but he wouldn’t budge. It only made me angrier. More helpless. There was too much of that in my life right now. The shitty job. The lack of direction. The overdue bills piling up. I was giving inches and life was taking miles. I’d reached the breaking point. An explosion had been building for some time now, and how poetic was it that Jax was conveniently standing right here?
“What you did was selfish. Whatever your issues were, it was easier to run away than stay here and face them. A coward,” I breathed. “You’re a damn coward.”
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he snapped, then softened just a bit.”I didn’t just decide to leave on a whim. I had a damn good reason. And it really pisses me off that you could even think it was a careless, spur-of-the-moment choice and that it didn’t rip me the fuck apart.” He grabbed the shelf on either side of my head and leaned close again. “Just tell me what the hell happened at Huntington.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he growled, then took a deep breath. “You need to tell someone, Sammy. For your own sanity.”
“I was attacked.” The words spilled out before I could stop them. It was him. The cosmic pull he had on every part of me. Mind, body, and soul.
My heart pounded, a thundering echo inside my chest, and a rush of anger crashed over me. It chased away the hurt and replaced it with pure rage. That he’d gotten what he wanted. That I’d had to say it out loud. That I, in some small way, blamed him for the whole thing. It was completely irrational, but I couldn’t push the feelings aside.
I braced my hands against his chest and gave a good shove, this time putting some solid distance between us. Do. Not. Cry. “Someone attacked me on my way home from a party one night and I couldn’t take it. I ran away. Are you happy now? You know the truth. Do you feel better?”
For the longest moment he said nothing. He was staring at me with the strangest expression. Not anger or confusion. Not pain or regret. It was like he was concentrating. I could see him breathing. The steady, slightly quickened rise and fall of his chest as he inhaled and exhaled, and then, the flexing of his right hand. I was just about to scream at him again when he finally spoke.