“Wait, you… agree with Jaxon?”
She stopped pacing and looked at me like I’d grown another head.
“Of course I do!”
“But—he started a fight.”
“He defended you,” she corrected immediately.
I opened my mouth to argue, but she held up a hand.
“Oh, sweet, sweet Savannah.”She sat beside me and grabbed my hands.“Listen to me.Jaxon has always been… protective to a fault, especially after what happened with Lyra.Once he trusts you and lets you in, there's no going back.You can count on him to do anything and everything for you.”
Something inside me shifted.My emotions were tangled in a knot—anger twisting with something softer that I didn’t quite want to acknowledge.Because the truth was… I understood why Jaxon reacted the way he did.
Chase had crossed several lines.
And bringing up Jaxon’s sister was beyond cruel.
But still.
The fight.
The shouting.
Security dragging Chase away after a freaking Maddox brother had to step in and part the fight.
Guests and staff taking on the role of onlookers ready to see what would happen next.
I hated all of it.
I hated being the center of a spectacle.
“Trust me, Jaxon's always the first person who shows up when someone needs help.Doesn’t matter what it costs him.Doesn’t matter if it gets him in trouble.”She shook her head faintly.“I swear, sometimes he forgets his own safety entirely.”
I frowned slightly.“What do you mean?”
“Last year, I was in this really toxic situation with my ex.Side note, never fall in love with a musician.But anyway, things got… messy,” she continued.“We were arguing constantly, screaming matches, the whole nine yards.Let's just say, one night I got so angry that I keyed his brand-new car.Signed it, too, with the key, and finished it off with red lipstick on the glass.”
My eyes widened slightly.
“Yeah.”She grimaced.“Not my proudest moment.In my defense, he was stealing from me, but that's another story for another day.The point is, he came storming over to my place, pounding on the door and losing his mind.I didn't have many options, and at the time I'd been with the shop for a little under a year.Jaxon answered on the first ring.”
I blinked.
“He rode over immediately,” she said.“Didn’t even ask questions.I thought it was mind-blowing—he literally dropped everything to come and help me, and this was two in the morning.It really showed me the type of person he was and what he meant by the shop is a family.”
Her mouth twisted slightly.
“When he got there, my ex was already out of his mind.Long story short, they got into a fight and ended up spending the night in jail.”
My eyes widened.
“And not once did he complain about any of that.I thought I'd be fired after all that, but he just walked into work the day after like nothing happened.That’sjust how he is.He protects the people he cares about.Even when it’s a terrible idea.”
Silence settled between us.
I ran a hand slowly through my hair, trying to process everything she’d just told me.
