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We drove onto the Boulder University campus, which was blanketed in a very thin layer of white snow from earlier tonight. The tree branches were all coated in snow, and as Jax pulled up outside of a stately, old brick building, for a second I thought we were making a stop along the way. He threw the car in park and turned it off, though, and I realized where we must have been.
“This is your frat house?” I asked, gawking at the three-story building. It was basically a small mansion.
“This is the pad,” Jax said.
“How many guys live here?”
“Usually around fifty of us,” Stevie said from the back, and I was glad to hear he was somewhat coherent.
“Holy shit,” I muttered. “It’s absolutely beautiful, and I also cannot imagine that much testosterone under one roof.”
“I’ve got a lot of fondness for the place,” Jax said. “Stevie boy, you ready?”
“I am ready to get the fuck into bed.”
The house had an entryway every bit as grand as the columned exterior, and the two of them led me toward a kitchen that was the size of an entire small house.
“Wow,” I said. “I always wondered why guys wanted to join frats, but now I might kind of get it.”
Stevie got a kick out of that, laughing as he grabbed a huge jug of Gatorade out of one of the fridges.
“I am so fucking tired I feel like I could pass out right here,” he said.
“And the room isn’t spinning anymore?” Jax asked him.
“No, thank God,” Stevie said. “I mean, I’m drunk, and I’m going to feel like a zebra’s fucking ass tomorrow morning, but I’ll be fine. You guys are saints.”
“And you’re not going to call her, right?” Jax implored.
Stevie’s sorrowful glance toward the floor broke my heart a little more. “Don’t see what good that would bring.”
We spent a few more minutes with him before Jax gave him a hug goodbye.
“Was nice meeting you, Stevie,” I told him.
“You, too, even though I acted like a turd,” he said, saluting me.
“I get it,” I told him, and there was no way he could have known how true that was. “It’s okay.”
Jax and I went back out to his car, the gentle sound of crickets filling the night air around the frat house. The campus looked so still and peaceful with its dusting of snow, and as we walked to the car, I felt like I was in a dream.
“I feel like I’ve lived a year in the last five hours,” I told Jax once we were in the car.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Although, to be honest, I feel that way most days, lately.”
“Yeah, because you always burn the candle at both ends, and pack, like, sixteen activities into every hour of your life.”
“Shut up,” he said, smiling softly at me from the driver’s side. “Also, you’re right.”
“I love it, Jax,” I said. “You’re probably one of the best people I’ve ever known, and you’re obviously an incredible friend.”
He gave me a sly little smile as he turned the car on, throwing it into reverse. Heading home was a small relief after a chaotic couple of hours. We started the drive back up the mountain not saying much, just listening to a radio station playing oldies.
“You’re sweet-talking me because you feel bad about annihilating me in that last round of racing, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. A little bit,” I told him. “I just don’t know where you got so much patience. I feel like I have ten times less patience than you, even now. When I was your age I had practically none.”
“I take life one thing at a time,” he said. “It’s the only way I know how.”
“I guess you were used to chaos growing up,” I told him. “Even when people are being hard to deal with, you’re a calm, steady ocean.”
He just shrugged one shoulder. “Sometimes people just need a little help, even when they’re being a total self-destructive pain in the ass, you know?”
His words hit me like a kick in the chest.
Jax had no clue what those words meant to me. How deeply I resonated with being that person—an endlessly self-destructive pain in the ass, who alienated almost everyone I’d dated. Jax was only talking about tonight, and about Stevie, not past memories of me. But it ripped right through me, leaving everything misplaced in its wake. A mishmash of guilt about my past, gratefulness for the present, and some deep, undeserved affection for Jax. It all swirled inside me, adding up to one big feeling of too much.
Halfway through the drive, Jax reached over, holding my hand again, seemingly thinking nothing of it. My heart ached like it was bruised.
Such a small gesture, but again, so much.
We pulled up in my driveway a while later. Jax had barely put the car in park before he popped off his seat belt and leaned over toward me. His hand was gentle as he cupped the side of my face, leaning in to kiss me. His fingers moved backward, raking through my hair. I might have been confused about my own thorny tangle of feelings, but I sure as fuck wasn’t confused about this. Jax was such a good kisser it was almost annoying.
