Bonus Chapter #2
“Before you get mad, I’d like to officially state that the cat found me, not the other way around.
I was selected. Also, you do not look grumpy.
You look aggressively unimpressed, which feels both more accurate and somehow hotter.
And if you’re currently pretending not to laugh at my jokes, I still deserve points for commitment. That’s all. Night, Sloane.”
My stomach does this weird nosedive thing as I lock the phone again.
Behind me, Sawyer is the first to pipe up. “Well? What’d it say?”
I rinse my spoon under the faucet, trying to sound bored. “Nothing. It was just a bunch of random nonsense.”
Faith hums. “So it was, in fact, the hockey guy.”
I shut off the water before turning around. “You’re all seriously exhausting.”
Sawyer squints at me. “Wanna know what I think?”
“Not really.”
“That you like him,” he finishes triumphantly.
A short, disbelieving sound escapes me. “Please.” I grab a piece of bread from the counter and tear off a chunk. “I can barely tolerate the man.”
“Uh-huh,” Faith says. “Sure.”
“False,” Sawyer adds.
I look at the ceiling and pray for patience. “You know what sounds false? That all three of you don’t have better things to do, like homework.”
“You’re in such denial,” Faith says with a shrug.
“I believe you, Sloanie,” Caleb says as he shoves another spoonful of soup into his mouth.
“Thank you.” At least one of them won’t get booted to the curb tonight.
The topic is thankfully dropped when Sawyer starts scrolling his phone and Faith gets a text from a friend.
What I hate admitting, even privately to myself, is that I don’t know what to do with Jax Wilder.
I know what to do with bills and deadlines. With overtime hours and school forms and grocery lists and exhaustion so deep, it settles into my bones. What I know best is how to survive and keep moving.
What I don’t know how to do is make room for someone who makes me laugh when I’m too tired to feel anything at all.
Someone who sends me ridiculous cat memes in the middle of a week that already feels too damn long.
Someone who looks at me like he sees past the sharp edges and doesn’t mind getting cut by them.
That’s the part that scares me most.
Not that Jax is charming.
He is.
Ridiculously so.
Or that he’s attractive.
Also annoyingly true.
It’s that when he shows up on my phone, in my head, or in the corner of a room wearing that ridiculous smile, that I stop feeling like the guardian of three kids with too much on my plate.
And for a second, I just feel like a woman.
At this stage of the game, wanting anything for myself feels pointless.
Especially when I’m just trying to tread water without drowning.
My phone rests against the counter beside me, silent for now. I don’t pick it up again. And I don’t delete the voice note either. Which probably says more than I want it to.
Across the room, Sawyer mutters about algebraic equations while Faith corrects him and Caleb digs through the drawer for a pencil.
The apartment is loud, cramped, and messy.
But it’s ours.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, beneath the fatigue, schedules, and the relentless pressure of being the person everyone in this family counts on, there’s this tiny, stubborn spark of anticipation I refuse to examine.
I already know where that road leads, and it’s not one I’m willing to walk down.
I don’t have time to want a man like Jax Wilder. Which is probably why he’s decided to pitch a tent and camp out in my thoughts.
Thank you so much for reading Keep Me Close!
I hope you enjoyed Cheyenne and Knox’s story as much as I loved writing it!