Chapter Nine #2
Josie had thought long and hard about why she’d sent Pax away abruptly the last time he’d been in here. The appearance of the roses had been an excuse, not a reason. The reason was cowardice.
In that circle of the stove light, Pax had seen her. Certainly seen past the politeness and the deflection. If he’d found the next layer in, the uncertainty and apprehension that came with being a single parent with zero experience in healthy relationships, it wouldn’t have scared her off.
Anyone who navigated this world and didn’t second-guess themselves on occasion was a sociopath, enviable as that might be.
This man, though, could see past the uncertainty if she let him look long enough.
Whatever lay beneath, the unhealed wounds, the damage done by the lipstick lady in her brain, the reason she skittered away from memories as if they were a hot burner on the stove—not only didn’t she want Pax rummaging through there, but Josie would prefer not to have to look too deep herself.
The sound of metal sliding over linoleum sent Josie into the kitchen. There, Pax stood next to the oven and inspected the clock, checking behind its face to see if the nail holding it up had created any lasting damage.
“Are donuts your usual choice of supper when Amos is not with you?” he asked.
She set the brown bag down on the kitchen table, the paper wet and wrinkled where she had been clutching it. Denis’s interest in Amos had unsettled her. The pipes beneath the kitchen sink gurgled. Pax looked up quickly at her and frowned.
“He doesn’t have a good sense of boundaries, does he?” she asked. “Denis.”
Pax walked past her to the kitchen sink, where he washed his hands. Josie peeked but the only object on her kitchen table was the potted shamrock plant she’d bought at Wegmans yesterday.
Despite this, the scent of roses persisted, overpowering the fake lavender smell of her hand soap.
“I will speak to him,” Pax said as he dried his hands carefully on her Buzz Lightyear dish towel, holding it up to examine the characters. “Buzz Lightyear. He is a flawed hero.”
Was that a question or a declaration?
Pax folded the towel and put it back on its hook, then turned to face her, leaning back against the sink. A foot of space sat between them, but he was such a large man, the warmth of his body was palpable even from a distance.
“I suppose so,” she said, just to say something. His presence threw her off-kilter. You’d think Josie had never been alone with an adult male.
“Just like Spider-Man,” he continued.
Josie opened her mouth, then closed it. Maybe this was leading to something. Hopefully something interesting, not something weird.
Pax must have sensed her confusion. “Mr. Amos is enamored of Spider-Man, so I went to the library and did some research.”
She’d flipped the switch to the kitchen overhead light when she walked in, but the room remained dim, and the smudged hollows of Pax’s cheeks turned his skin the same shade as the dark oak cabinets behind him.
“You researched Spider-Man?”
He nodded. “I researched a few superheroes.”
“Because of Amos?” Her question came out as a whisper.
“It seemed important to him,” Pax said, his voice catching on the last few words. “I…am fond of Mr. Amos.” He glanced at the floor. “Fond of you both.”
Fond of you both.
He cleared his throat and looked up at her, all traces of softness now vanished from his face.
“Having become familiar with the classic canon of the two major producers of superhero lore, I agree with Amos’s choice of favorites.”
“You prefer Spider-Man to Superman?” Josie asked. Personally, she liked Black Panther and Scarlet Witch, but mostly because they would be superhot as a couple.
Pax raised his chin as if in defiance. “Peter Parker is a compelling hero. On the one hand, he has been granted superhuman powers of both strength and perception, but these powers were foisted upon him accidentally.”
“True,” Josie agreed.
Pax waited with one brow raised.
“No, really,” she assured him. “I want to hear your reasoning.”
“Well,” Pax said, slowly at first, “he was not tempered, as most heroes are, by fulfilling a series of quests to gain this reward.”
When animated, Pax’s face looked younger, despite the shadows darkening the lines at the corners of his eyes.
“Once in possession of the gift, he cannot reap the rewards of fame and gratitude for his actions. He must keep them hidden, even though this means he lives with embarrassment and rejection.”
Raindrops clacked on the windowpanes like the keys on a keyboard. Josie considered making a joke and breaking the mood. The earnestness in Pax’s voice disarmed her.
It made her soft. Soft meant stupid.
“Most men would never willingly show the world the weaker version of themselves,” he kept going, enthusiastic now, “but Peter Parker has a hero’s heart and sacrifices his ego for the greater good.”
If he’d delivered this like a spiel, arms crossed, self-satisfied smile, and twinkling eyes, Josie could have handled it. Most men had a bit they did like this, a tongue-in-cheek deconstruction of something so geeky yet so iconic it was cool.
Pax, however, showed no hint of irony. He’d truly considered the character of Peter Parker. He’d done it to better understand Amos.
He was fond of them both.
“That’s a generous interpretation,” Josie blurted to cover her nervousness. “I don’t know if it’s why Amos likes him best, but the way you see him…it certainly endears him to me.”
The tiniest curve of Pax’s lips was another man’s blinding smile, and it sent zings of awareness through her veins. A cloud of giddiness rose in her chest.
“I’ve always rooted for the villains,” Josie confessed. “I stan the Joker and Harley Quinn, for sure. Those two are sexy.”
Not what Pax had expected to hear, obviously. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes as if he could see inside her heart. Or was he staring at her chest?
“You find evil attractive?” he asked.
Well, if he was trying to see inside Josie’s heart, he was out of luck. She hid that part of her anatomy from everyone but Amos.
“I find it attractive when men and women who are considered misfits or mutants, who live with their worst self painted on their faces, have the balls to go out in the world and demand something from it instead of hiding from the judgment of others,” she asserted.
The declaration surprised Pax. His eyebrows furrowed as he mulled over her answer, standing with his fists on his hips in a superhero-ish posture.
“You sympathize with them?” he asked. “Even though they do terrible things to people? To children?” His voice held a note of…was it concern?
Josie met his gaze easily but weighed her words carefully. She had the sense her answers carried an outsize importance, as if he’d asked her a different question than the one she heard.
“I don’t believe in heroes and villains,” she said at last. “These are archetypes we use to teach children simple lessons. We’re all a mishmash of good and bad, kind and uncaring—all the shades of gray. When you hurt other people, it’s usually because you’ve been hurt yourself.”
Pax’s gaze changed from assessing to something else. Something more intense.
“Would you forgive a villain if they believed their crime was essential to righting a terrible wrong?” he asked.
The lights in the kitchen flickered on and off, only stopping when Pax set his hand on the kitchen counter next to him.
“Could you forgive them for hurting someone you love if it were in pursuit of the greater good?”
A heavy sense of expectation weighted the air around them and Josie hesitated.
“We aren’t talking about superheroes anymore, are we?” she whispered.
What was Pax asking her? Had he committed some wrong in his past Josie would have to forgive in order to be with him?
Was he asking her to be with him?
“I suppose the questions facing superheroes can come up in the lives of regular folk,” he said. “You never know when you might be called upon to make a heroic sacrifice.”
“Well,” Josie said hesitantly. “What kind of sacrifice?”
When she crossed her arms, her elbows brushed his chest. They had inched closer while talking and the accidental touch sent a spark of electricity shooting up her arm. In response, Pax’s pupils dilated, darkening his eyes to a velvet black.
Oh dear.
This wasn’t a good idea. Alarms should be sounding—any second a robot would come in waving its arms shouting, Danger, Will Robinson!
The distance between them could be measured in inches. It felt like a mile. It felt like nothing. She ought to say something sensible, something to defuse the moment and send this man on his way, but her mouth was dry so she had to lick her bottom lip—a signal Josie had forgotten she could send.
Or not forgotten, because she didn’t step back or put out a hand to stop Pax from closing the distance between them to put his thumb on her damp bottom lip and pause.
He was waiting for Josie to be sensible and send him away.
Instead she gasped with surprise at how fucking amazing it felt to be touched by a desirable man. By this man.
The gasp was a sign of permission for Pax to sweep his thumb up over her cheekbone and cradle Josie’s face between his two large hands, his attention solely on her mouth while she trembled like a stupid girl.
Stupid, warned the angry old woman in her head.
Thinking with what’s between your legs instead of what’s between your ears.
The familiar warning drowned beneath the buzz of blood rushing through Josie’s veins when she grasped Pax’s shoulders, stood on her tiptoes, and brushed her mouth against his so lightly it was an exchange of breath more than it was a kiss.
They stared at each other and Josie could have sworn she heard the whooshing sound gas makes when a spark sets it aflame.
He held her like a piece of crystal in stark contrast to the force of his kiss. Teeth knocked, lips bruised, Josie wrapped her arm around his neck and kissed him back, just as starved.
His tongue twined with hers in an undulating rhythm with the slapping of the rain on the window and the low buzzing of the doorbell as counterpart.
Shit.
They broke their kiss, but Pax kept her face in his hands a second or two longer, unable to look away until the doorbell rang again.
Josie raced to the intercom. “Hel-hello?”
“I frowed up, Mom.” The words squeaked through the speaker and Josie pressed her forehead against the wall next to it, trying to remember how to fucking breathe.
“I will be right down, buddy,” she said, not moving when Pax walked by her, set his hand on her shoulder, then let himself out of the apartment.
Another second passed until Gloria’s voice burned away the last vestiges of lust. “Josephine, your son is covered in vomit. I don’t know what they fed him at daycare…”
Josie was out the door before Gloria could finish her tirade, not knowing whether she should be disappointed or grateful.
One thing she did know.
Her body had woken after a five-year lull, and it was going to be hard to get it back to sleep again.