22. Jax #2
The rest of the walk to Boone House is filled with idle chatter, mostly Myles asking me an endless stream of questions about myself and my life. I already know almost everything about him, but he knows so little about me that I don’t mind, and I answer every one of them the best I can.
“Sorry if it felt like I was interrogating you just now,” he says when his dorm comes into view. “I’m just so curious, and I can get carried away when I get on a roll.”
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “It’s only fair you know as much about me as I do about you.”
“You didn’t have to walk me home,” he says as we approach the gate.
It’s wide open, as usual.
“I didn’t walk you home.” I pause as he taps his card over the sensor to log his entry.
“Huh?” He shoots me a confused look as we pass through the gate together.
“Walking you home implies that I’m dropping you off.”
“Aren’t you?” he asks as we make our way around the side of the building and toward the back entrance.
“No.”
“I’m so confused right now.”
“I’m not dropping you off. I’m staying over.”
He stumbles beside me. I catch him with one arm around his waist and steady him, not breaking my stride. “You are?” he squeaks. He clears his throat. “I mean, you are?”
“Yes.” I toss him a smirk.
“Why is that so hot?” he mutters.
“Why is what so hot?” I wait for him to activate the back door.
“You being all bossy. I swear any kind of heavy-handedness or people making decisions for me usually makes me stabby and is the best way to make me not do something, but it’s so hot when you do it.
” He shakes his head as we climb the stairs together.
“But then again, nothing about how any of this happened should have been hot, but here we are.”
“Here we are,” I agree with a soft chuckle.
Myles pushes the door to his floor open and holds it open for me.
“I still can’t believe any of this happened,” he says as he pulls his keys out of his pocket.
“It’s so crazy to think how much changed today.
” He sticks his key in the lock and twists it.
“I woke up in a bad mood, then I had a shitty day and almost got my head blown off by an overeager rent-a-cop all before two in the afternoon.”
I close the door behind us and lean against it as he stops a few feet into his room.
“Then I spent the next however many hours trying to convince myself that you’re my stalker while also telling myself it could never be you.
Then you show up in my room, and you show me your face, and we…
” His eyes flick to the bed. “And then I hung out with your friends like I was one of you, and now you’re staying over.
” He shakes his head. “I’m still waiting to wake up and realize this is all a dream. ”
“It's not a dream. And you are one of us,” I tell him.
He looks down at the floor. “Maybe eventually I will be?—”
“You’re one of us, Myles.” Stepping closer to him, I take his upper arms in my hands and loosely hold them until he looks at me.
“If you’re with me, then you’re one of us.
That’s how we work. It doesn’t matter how long anyone’s known you or if they’ve spent time with you.
You and I are a package deal, and they know that. ”
“This is so crazy,” he whispers. “My brain is telling me that literally everything about this is a giant red flag, and I need to run as far away from you as I can before I get hurt.”
“And what are your instincts telling you?”
“That this is the most real thing that will ever happen to me, and my brain needs to shut the fuck up and let me enjoy this.”
“I think you need to listen to your instincts.”
A little grin lifts the corners of his lips. “I think you’re right. My brain has gotten me in enough trouble over the years. Time for that bitch to step aside and let me live my life.”
“Reach into my left back pocket.”
Myles shoots me a curious look, probably at my habit of abruptly changing subjects in conversation but does it without questioning me.
He looks at the knife he retrieved from my pocket.
It’s a simple Karambit with a heavy black metal handle and a matte black blade with razor-sharp edges. It’s not fancy, but it’s lethal.
“Is this the real version of the training blade you gave me?”
“It is. I’ll show you how to use it so you can practice with the other one until you’re comfortable enough to carry that one on you.”
He looks between me and the knife. “Is it weird that this kind of feels like someone giving their partner flowers on their birthday?” His eyes widen in shock. “Not that we’re partners or these were supposed to be romantic or anything like?—”
I cut him off with a quick kiss. “You can call us partners or boyfriends or whatever the fuck you want. It’s not going to scare me away or make me want to run or anything like that.
And to be fair, me giving you blades really is my equivalent of flowers or another romantic gift.
I wouldn’t give you a way to protect yourself if I didn’t care. ”
He slips the knife into his pocket and loosely holds my hips. “I keep worrying that I’m going to say something wrong or I’m going to show you too much of myself, and it’ll scare you off.”
“Not going to happen.” I flick my gaze to the camera on his dresser, then to the one in the statue that’s still on his bedside table.
“I’ve seen you at your best and your worst. I know more about you than you can imagine, and nothing I’ve seen or heard or learned has made me want you any less.
You can’t scare me off because you can’t scare someone who doesn’t feel fear. ”
“And there’s more of that talk that should scare the crap out of me, but instead it makes me all gooey inside.”
“What about on the outside?” I cup his cock and smile when it goes hard under my hand.
“Definitely not gooey.” He leans in and brushes a kiss against my lips.
Sliding my hand under his hoodie, I hook my fingers over the waistband of his jeans and tug him toward the bed. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes, and we need to fix that.”
He follows me, a sexy smirk on his full lips, and lets me shove him back onto the mattress hard enough he bounces on the soft surface.
Hopefully Myles isn’t too tired, because one more time isn’t going to be enough tonight.