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Everything from this point forward is about to change for us. And I think I’m ready to finally give him answers.
Jax walks over to the foot of the bed and sits next to me. I can smell that he’s fresh out of the shower himself and the amber scent he wears so delicately mixes with water and fresh soap.
Fuck, why does he have to do that to me. I had just cleared my head but now it’s racing wildly and I think about kissing him again. I want to bathe in the scent of him and run my hands all over his body.
“Hollis,” he whispers my name, and it almost sounds like he’s begging.
“Where do we start?” I ask him, not knowing what to really say or do. This is something that I know I need in order to move on either from him or with him.
If I told my therapist about this, they’d have a field day.“Have you tried talking to him about your feelings?”was always the top recommendation and I always shut it down.
“I’d like to show you something first, if that’s okay?” He reaches his hand out for me again, and I think to ignore it and help myself up.
But I know he’s trying to build something for us, a bridge of some sort. This is meant to be the start of something that will lead us to answers. He’s right, there’s a lot of kept secrets between us—at least it seems like—and I need to make the effort to move forward.
So I take his hand and let him lead me down the stairs to a room off of the living room. I didn’t notice it before, but then again, I wasn’t really looking.
He switches on the light and waits at the door frame as I make my way inside. The room looks like it doesn’t belong. The walls are a dark gray, there’s a glass China cabinet against one of the walls filled with what looks like plaques and trophies of some sort. He’s got a few pictures of him from what seems to be back in Colorado with his dad and someone else I don’t recognize.
There are floating shelves on the other wall with a few old, tattered books. And there’s a chair in the corner of the room with a side table and a lamp. It looks like the room belongs in a well-loved home of some family who’s been together a while. I can imagine that since he just moved in recently, that this is the room he decided to get to first when unpacking and organizing.
But as I scan the room to see what else I can find; something catches my attention.
On the wall to my right is the only window in the room. It’s a three-panel bay window with seating placed perfectly underneath it. Which allows occupants to look out to his backyard, which is fenced, but you can see the entirety of the beauty that is the Dallas skyline beyond it.
Next to the window bench is a guitar.
“Is that…” I attempt to say as I hear the pitter patter of the rain gently dancing against the glass. The sky lights up just beyond the city outside as lightning bolts through the darkness at the same time as I feel Jax place one of his hands over my shoulder.
“I wanted to know if I could finish that song for you.” His words escape his mouth in a soft but deep and sincere tone. I turn to look at him, our faces are inches apart. I can feel his breath feathering down onto my cheek as we stare in a moment of silence.
My heart starts to pump faster, sending chills scattering across my skin as my breathing catches, and I have to force myself to look away.
“You kept that rusty old guitar after all this time?” I say trying to grasp onto a tone of sarcasm to lighten the tension that seems to build between us.
I’m not a hundred percent ready to succumb to that part of me where I allow Jax to control the way I feel again. Being too close to him allows him to see deeper into my soul, the falter in my discipline. And this time, I know what I want.
He chuckles behind me before walking forward, grabbing the guitar and placing it across his lap as he sits down on the window bench.
I’m still standing in the middle of the room, but I’m looking at him as he settles his fingers into the right position.
He strums a few strings and readjusts the tuners and tries it again.
He looks up at me from his dark lashes and his ocean blue eyes. “You gonna sit or not?” There’s confidence in his tone, and the image of him like this brings me back to when I was twelve. When he was nervous to play a song for me and I sat there all cocky and enthused, hoping he’d embarrass himself. But now the roles seem to be reversed, because he looks like he can play a whole concert with the powerful sureness he holds as he stares up at me, waiting for me to make a move while I shake with nerves and butterflies.
I nod my head, not saying a word because I’m afraid it’ll come out raspy and choked up, and I move to take a seat next to him.
It doesn’t take more than a second for him to start playing the tune, and I immediately recognize it from long ago. Though I still don’t know what song it is, never thinking that I should look it up and after that day, he never played the guitar in front of me again.
But he plays it beautifully. His fingers work the strings and he moves effortlessly over the frets and fingerboard.
He starts to sway his body to the sound of the songs he’s playing, and I notice I start to join him but then I’m totally caught off guard when he opens his mouth to sing the words.
My body stills. My mouth falls open a little bit. My flesh burns with fire and goosebumps flourish in the flames as they skate across my skin. My heart feels lighter, my insides tickle with the flutter of butterfly wings.
Awestruck.
Enamored.
