“I take my role very seriously, baby,” he replied with teeth in his smile.“It's all about selling the story, you know.If anyone asks, you can say this is where we went for our first date.Then back to my place.”
“That never happened.”
“Okay, different venue then—”
“Not that.”I shot him a glare.“The ‘back to your place’ part.Sleeping with you on a first date—fake or real—is not happening.You’re not that great.”
“Oh?”he asked, leaning closer, voice dropping to a whisper.“Feel like you can resist my charms, trouble?”
I scoffed and picked up the tray.“No doubt in my mind about that.”
His chuckle brought a scowl to my face, but I kept walking until we found a break in the crowd.Jaxon leaned one shoulder against the railing, biting into his hotdog like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“So,” I said, picking up my hotdog then glancing sideways at him, “why tattoo art and not hockey?Last I checked, you were on your way to going pro.Ashburn High's star player and all that.”
He barked out a laugh.“The glory days.”
“You were half-decent.”
“That almost sounded like a compliment there, trouble.”
“Emphasis on half-decent.”
“Uh-huh.”He sobered a little, gaze drifting to the waters.“Remember when I told you a lot has changed?Hockey was one of them.I don't know, I guess after high school it didn't feel important anymore.”His jaw flexed as if remembering something sharp-edged and old.
“I grew up around this biker crowd.Rough guys to a princess like you,” he teased.“Solid, though.They used to hang at a tattoo shop, and one of them—the boss—saw me sketching one day.He was impressed and told me to ink it; practically put a machine in my hand and taught me the ropes.”A small smile tugged his mouth.“Never looked back since.”
I studied him quietly—not the swaggering, smirking version of him, but this one.Grounded.Real.A little scarred.
It made something in me… soften.
Dangerously.
He caught me staring.
“Your turn,” he said, cutting into his hotdog.“Why law?Lemme guess—liked arguing from an early age?”
I rolled my eyes.“Very funny.”
“I thought so.”
“No.”I sighed and leaned on the rail.“When I was younger, my grandma went up against a corporate development lawyer.They wanted her house for some high-rise skyscraper plan.She fought tooth and nail… and she won, but it cost everything.All her savings.We had to move to a really rundown neighborhood afterward.”
My fingers traced the metal railing.
“I told myself I’d never let anyone bulldoze my family like that again.I wanted to fight those types of people.I wanted access to the power she never had.”
He didn’t say anything at first.
Just watched me—really watched me—with that quiet, heavy-eyed focus that felt like gravity.
“Sorry that happened to you.”
I shrugged.“We're fine now.My grandma lives in a better neighborhood, and I'm almost done with law school.”
He nodded, then a tiny smirk came to his lips—one that I knew meant trouble.
“You would’ve been terrifying as a kid,” he finally said.
