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I blinked at him. The air in the room felt charged. I felt frozen in place as he continued.
“Everything feels different,” he said. “And yet everything also feels right, and good, and comfortable, somehow. Like… like being with you has knocked me further into being myself, instead of pushing me away from myself. I’ve never felt that way before. About anyone.”
My eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and I willed myself to open them again, even though looking at him was doing weird things to my heart.
“What are you thinking right now?” he asked softly. “Please, fuck, give me some sign, because I just dumped my soul out to you and I’m really not used to that, because I’m always the one listening, never the one fucking blabbing all of my secrets and feeling like a total idiot. Give me a clue what’s on your mind—”
“I’m trying not to cry,” I blurted out, squeezing my eyes shut and rubbing my palm over my face.
“Oh,” Jax said, with genuine surprise.
When I opened my eyes again his expression was less pained, and more concerned. “Are… are you sad, about what I said?”
My throat was tight. “It’s complicated.”
“So fucking explain it,” he pressed, and I kind of loved that he’d called me on my bullshit.
I gazed down at the hardwood floor for a moment, summoning the courage to speak my mind. “I’m trying not to cry because I think what you just said to me—all that stuff about how I’ve changed your life, for the better—I’m pretty damn sure it’s the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me.”
“Oh,” he said again. One little word, that only he could make sound so spontaneously adorable.
“And it makes me want to cry because no one has ever said anything like that to me. Because it makes me think of all the shit I endured, from men who just wanted someone to fuck and then discard. And how it’s taken me getting a fake boyfriend to ever really feel what a good partnership can be, and—it’s not even real, and—”
My throat was tight again. I swore under my breath, trying to center myself.
And then he moved forward again. Just a little this time.
When I looked up, he was holding out a hand, and I took it, the warmth of him instantly feeling too good.
“Now it’s my turn to let you in on a little secret,” he said. Low voice, like velvet.
“Sure. Fuck it,” I said, my voice a broken whisper.
“It is real,” he said, squeezing my hand. “It’s real. Us being… good, together. And I know you feel it, too.”
I was gone. Nowhere near Earth. I was floating elsewhere, and I was somewhat doubtful that all of this wasn’t just the nicest dream I’d ever had, and I was asleep somewhere, alone and peacefully dreaming about a world where this could be my life.
But he was still here.
My hand was still clasped in his. His eyes, still right in front of me, not looking fire or jewels or any of that anymore, but just purely his. Genuine. Like everything else about him.
And very, very real.
I knew it was silly that my first reaction was to laugh. It didn’t even feel in my control, really, just a steady mounting of emotion that had somehow circled back around from needing to cry to needing to fucking laugh, at just how impossible all of this seemed.
“You’re even crazier than I thought,” I said to him, a couple of tears managing to make their way down my cheeks.
“Yes,” he said, his gaze dancing over my face as he reached a hand up to wipe away the stray tears. “Yes, I am. And so are you. So let’s be crazy together, because why the hell not?”
“Hate you.”
“Nah,” he said. “You really, really like me. And I am so fucking into you it’s kind of throwing my life into chaos, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I felt like my heart had been cracked into a million pieces and then somehow repaired again, piece by piece, just by Jax standing here, staying, and refusing to let me be afraid and alone.
“I do really like you,” I said.
“I’m going to take you on a date,” he told me. “I can’t tomorrow or the next day, but after my frat meeting on Thursday.”
“You don’t want to date me,” I tossed out, a knee-jerk reaction. But my doubt skimmed past Jax like it was meaningless.
“Try me.”
Now I was floaty, tingly, and fucking certainly going to melt into a puddle of nothing the moment I had a chance to stop and process even one of the things he’d said to me tonight.
“Three nights from now,” I said. “The day before the premiere?”
“Let’s do it,” Jax said, reaching down to hold both of my hands now. “A date, no cameras.”
