AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 18
I surface from sleep slowly. The sun pokes its head out and pushes against the windowpane of my bedroom. When I roll over and bump a very big, very warm body, a smile curls my lips before I can stop it.
Sure I’m dreaming, I take inventory of the person lying next to me. Jackson is naked, sleeping on his stomach as per his usual style. My pale pink sheets are wrapped around one of his legs and half his bare butt is exposed. I take in the sturdy cheeks before admiring the strong line of his back and broad spread of his shoulders. He’s facing me, eyes shut, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.
He’s so damn handsome it hurts. Hollywood could trot out their top ten sexiest actors and line them up next to Jax and I’d gravitate toward my ex-boyfriend every day of the week and twice on Sunday. He has something Xavier never had—several somethings. Jax has confidence and presence, but the difference is it’s deserved. Jax is who he is because he says so. Most celebrities I come in contact with are the people others say they are. When you’re placing your identity and worth in the hands of the very fickle public, it’s a recipe for disaster. Trust me. I know.
I prop my head on my hand and watch Jax sleep, remembering the last time we were like this together—not on a bed but on the couch in my crappy shared apartment in L.A. I was so excited to see him I could hardly stand it. We made love the night he arrived, not caring who heard us. We missed each other so, so much. The distance was killing us. I knew it, he had to know it. When I asked him to move there with me, I was met with a resistance I expected. But when he dug his heels in before he left, I was surprised. I would’ve thought I meant more to him than that.
We tried to talk after. A few gruff, short, painful phone calls where we tiptoed on eggshells. I was the one who swung the axe and delivered the felling blow when it was obvious what we had was dying a slow death. I didn’t think he could do it—and he wouldn’t have. But what shocked me down to my bone marrow was that when I said, “I don’t think this is working,” Jackson agreed.
Agreed.
That black spot on my soul is visible from outer space.
I tried to take it back. I asked him again to move out to California with me and he refused. I retracted my test-breakup but he said, “C’mon Mini, the distance isn’t working.”
He was right, of course.
Then we agreed, rather civilly as I recall it, to take a break and give each other time to settle in and become used to being single again. We also agreed not to see anyone else for three months in case we came to our senses and wanted to get back together.
I thought one or both of us would be begging the other to come back, but for whatever reason, we didn’t call each other. Maybe it was stubbornness or maybe it was easier not to. To cut our losses and believe that those bright lights of Hollywood, and Jackson’s future with his father and the eventual business of his own he didn’t know about at the time, would heal those wounds.
They did on the surface. I didn’t walk around heartbroken over Jackson for long. I was eventually whole, or so I thought.
After last night, I have my doubts. Right now, waking to him next to me, I’m hyperaware of the emptiness residing in the center of my chest.
Hell if I know what to do about it.
I smooth a stray lock of dark hair from Jax’s forehead, noticing it’s not as dark as it used to be. Sun kissed from working outside, I’ll bet.
He grunts, his lashes fluttering. When his bright eyes land on me, he smiles, half his face smashed into my pillow. I like how masculine he looks against the pink sheets and quilted duvet. I like how I got to keep him last night—that feels particularly decadent, since I can predict the future.
I’ll go back to California.
He’ll stay here.
There’s nothing else to talk about—nothing more to say. The trick is to keep the boundaries between my heart and my person crystal clear. My heart’s been known to muddy the waters.
Jackson and I are close now, but later we won’t be. It’s simple in theory. A bitch in practice.
“Morning.” His voice is craggy and sleep-heavy.
“Sorry to wake you.”
“S’okay,” he says around a stretch. “Nothing a vat of coffee won’t fix.”
“You have to work today?”
“Yeah. Here.” He blinks like cinder blocks are weighing down his eyelids. “I have work clothes in the truck.”
“Just in case?” I accuse.
“Just in case.”
He pulls an arm out from under the pillow and wraps it around my waist, yanking me close as I yip in surprise. I cuddle with him and breathe in the faint remnants of cologne left on his T-shirt that I’m still wearing and what’s clinging to his skin.
“Last night.” That’s all he says before grunting an approving, “Mm.”
