Liz
“He totally has a girlfriend at home,” Jax said, her fingers still absentmindedly rubbing my feet while her eyes were still on the TV.
I couldn’t help but smile. I knew she would be hooked.
After our night at the club we were staking out for Sloan, we had come home and had a night full of crazed sex until we finally decided to retire on the couch. I would never get over just how well our bodies knew each other.
Sex with her was amazing. Life-altering. I never knew it could feel like this, and now I couldn't stop myself.
Well… Retire was the wrong word. We’d run out of steam, so we had to stop. But it wouldn't be long until we started again.
I was in nothing but one of her large shirts. Luckily, I’d been able to find one she hadn’t brought a pair of scissors to yet. She was in a thin cropped tank top and pajama pants—no underwear, of course.
Lying on the couch, watching my favorite guilty pleasure—reality TV dating shows—and enjoying the post-sex glow was heaven. A pillow was behind my head. My feet were up on her lap. And every so often, she would give them a nice rub.
And she didn't even judge me for what I was watching. In fact, she commented on it.
I felt like a teenager. Back at the club, when my ex-husband saw me… I wanted him to know. I wanted him to see what it looked like when a woman came.
In all the years we’d been married, I did not remember a single time when he had made me come. For most of my adult life, I’d only known what an orgasm felt like when I'd given it myself.
Then I’d run home to push Jax’s face into a pillow and fuck her with a fake cock. In fact, the entire car ride over had been torture, with me barely able to keep my hands to myself.
My eyes lingered on Jax’s face. It had been a week or so since our first date. Both of us had been busy working and therefore had to reschedule some of our time with Claire. It had allowed us to stay in our little bubble.
This was exactly what I’d always wanted—a relationship where I could pursue my career and have someone to come home to and share it with.
And now that we had started going out on dates… I was loving it.
More than that, I was getting comfortable with her. More comfortable than I ever thought I would allow myself to.
Which was why I could tell there was something going on with Jax.
She’d been coming home later since that first date.
I didn't really chalk it up to much—except that she was stressed.
She was really good at covering it up, but I could see that whatever it was was weighing on her.
The bags under her eyes were getting extremely dark.
“Do you want to go to bed early?” I asked.
Her head swiveled in my direction.
“No, why? You don't like this?” A slight smile pulled at her lips. “Or is it that you want round two? Or is this technically three? Four?”
She’s not getting away with it that easily.
“You're tired.” I sat up and brought my hand to her face, my thumb tracing her eye bags. “Is it work?” I asked in a whisper.
“Um… sort of. I—”
I leaned over and grabbed the remote so I could turn off the TV.
“There. You have my full attention.”
I could've sworn that her eyes filled with tears.
“Work is… busy. My friend got into some shit with her deadbeat father last week, and now she’s… in the hospital.”
I gasped. “Oh my God. Is she okay?”
Her face twisted. “She looks like she's going to be fine, but her partner is taking on a lot of her work. And it's just a mess. And… Ugh. I don't really know if I can tell you about this.”
I tried not to let the words hit me right in the heart, not when I could easily understand what she meant. It wasn’t that I wasn't worthy of being told; it was more like something she shouldn’t share, given the privacy that surrounded some of her clients.
“Whatever it is, I won't judge or say anything,” I said and ran my hands through her hair. “If you'd rather not tell me, that's fine. But I want you to know that I'm here regardless.”
Her blue eyes found mine. “Do you promise? That you'll be here?”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. Before, my gut reaction would be to tell her no. Absolutely not. To remind her this shouldn't have happened between us in the first place and that we didn't belong together.
But the pain in my chest just thinking about that told me I couldn't fight this anymore.
“I should've moved out. A while ago. It's been two months.”
She nodded. “I understand. You've already dealt with me enough, and if you think this is where it needs to end—”
I covered her mouth with my hand. I only took it away when she gave me a look that told me she would listen.
“But I didn’t. I couldn't. I didn’t want to. I don’t want to. If you still want me, if you still want me here, I'll stay. And yes, my mind is still telling me that we're not meant to be and reminding me every single day that I am betraying my daughter.”
“You're not—”
“I am. And I know I’m going against everything society has deemed right.
My parents, if they knew… God, they already hated me so much for divorcing the man that knocked me up when I was seventeen.
Imagine how they would feel now? I worked so hard to separate the voice in my head from theirs, and even then, it took me too long to divorce him. But now—”
“Fuck society,” Jax said as she wiped the tears from my eyes. I hadn't even realized I was crying until then. “Fuck your ex. Fuck your parents. Who cares about what they think when they weren’t on your side when you needed them? But Claire… If you need to…”
“I can't leave you. And I don't want to. I'm going to deal with everything that comes from this. But I'm allowing myself to be selfish. I’m allowing myself to want you. To keep you.”
Her eyes were filling with tears, and she gave me a small laugh.
“So it's true? I can officially call you my girlfriend?”
I gave her a light smack on the chest. “Girlfriend sounds so… immature.”
“My partner. My love. The person who keeps my heart beating. Who lights up my soul. It’s a small list—you can choose which one you like best while I come up with more.”
Jax leaned close, her lips just brushing mine, as we held each other.
“I feel selfish too,” she admitted after a small pause.
Her hands wrapped around me, and she hoisted me up onto her lap.
It was a small, intimate gesture, but it felt so right at that moment.
I wanted to be as close as I could to her.
“My whole life, I've tried to be good. Even if it meant putting my needs last.” Jax took a deep breath. “I'm adopted.”
Her eyes sought mine, like she thought that would make her less in my eyes, and it added a little bit more color to what she’d said before. The need to be wanted. People treating her badly.
I wanted to hurt those people.
I didn’t say anything, though. I merely nodded, and she let out a shaky breath.
“I was scared that she would return me. But my mother…” She let out a laugh as a smile spread across her face and her eyes lit up.
“She is the most selfless person I've ever met. I love her. She raised me by herself, and she did it well. I never felt like I couldn’t step out of line.
She was artsy, a self-proclaimed hippie.
She didn't care about my tattoos or piercings as long as I was happy and staying out of trouble.”
I let her talk. My fingers found the ends of her hair, and I started twirling them. Her face told me that she truly did love her mother, but there was something lingering. Something she wasn’t telling me, and it was making me nervous.
I wanted to tell her she could trust me, but I also needed her to learn that herself.
“She sounds perfect,” I said. “I wish I could say the same about my parents.”
Her smile was bitter now.
“I was so happy when she adopted me. We hit it off right away, even though I was older than most kids, going into middle school. The foster families I’d had had been shit, and, to put it bluntly, I felt like she…
saved me. And I was afraid of being sent back for the first few years.
I thought that maybe she’d realize I was too much.
Too weird. That she’d made a mistake.” She cleared her throat, choking on her words.
“She loved me. Loves me. And it hurt when friends dumped me when they found out. There was even a time when someone pretended to be my friend to try to see what was going on inside my house. They chalked up my weirdness to her, and I felt bad for her because she didn’t deserve any of it. ”
The longer she spoke, the more pain I could feel radiating from her. It made me regret how coldly I’d pushed her away in the beginning. Obviously, I’d had my reasons, but now it felt like I had been too cruel.
How could anyone treat her like this? It was unfathomable to me. I knew kids were mean, both from my own experience at school and from watching Claire grow up. But hearing something like this happened to her made my eyes water.
“The universe only gave me a few years with her before… her condition became more apparent. She has Alzheimer’s.
She is not totally lost to me yet, but she does need to be in a facility.
After she started running out of the house scared, not recognizing the place where she had lived for thirty years, I had to step in. ”
Fuck. How does one person hold all of this in like she does?
My heart broke for her. I could feel the sadness etched into her voice, and all I wanted to do was to make it better, but I knew… I couldn't.
“I'm so sorry.”
She leaned into me, resting her head on my chest as if the weight of it all was too heavy to bear.
I couldn’t say anything else. I could only be there for her.
I let her take all the time she needed, focusing on running my hands through her hair, up and down her arm, anywhere.
Anything I could do that would help her relax into me.
I wanted to take all her pain so she wouldn’t have to deal with it.
“Me too,” she said with a long sigh. “And I've been trying to get better about visiting her, but…
she forgets a lot. She can be mean now and very unlike someone who always took such good care of me and treated me the best. She never even raised her voice at me, not even once, and now when she does it… it's just a lot. I just—”
“Was this what happened the other day? When I made dinner for us?”
Her voice broke, so I held her tightly.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Claire actually went with me. She goes with me often. Though my mother never remembers her.”
My heart swelled at the mention of Claire being there for her. It was such a hard situation, but I wasn’t surprised in the slightest that Claire would be the first to try and be there for her.
My daughter. Such a sweet, wonderful girl.
“I’m glad you can share this with her.”
“Me too. It’s hard. Especially when she snaps at me. She’s so sweet. And perfect. Never once has she ever said anything to hurt me and then—”
She couldn’t continue. Her voice was breaking off, and the light sobs were coming faster now.
“I know. It's okay. You're okay. I'm here.”
I let her cry against me. It was like all the stress and emotions that had been building up inside her were finally being let out. Her body shook as I slowly rubbed patterns over her back and brushed her hair with my fingers.
She held me tighter, almost as if she were afraid I would leave her.
It made me feel like shit. Jax… I hadn’t even thought about where she came from.
This whole time, I had been so focused on her being my daughter’s friend, so eager to put space between us, denying what we had, and I had no idea what that felt like for someone who was already losing as much as she was.
This solidified it. There is no way in hell I’ll ever bring myself to leave her.
I wanted to be here. For all of it. I wanted to be the one to help her when she felt like this. I wanted to soothe her when she needed me. I didn’t want her to go through a life like this alone.
I barely knew her. This was just the tip of the iceberg. My resolve hardened—I would do whatever I needed to learn anything and everything that was to know about her.
I didn't know what the future held for us, but whatever it was, I’d take it.
Right then, all I wanted was to stay in that moment and comfort her.
Because that was what she needed. And I would give it to her.
I would always be whatever she needed me to be.