30. Gray
Gray
Iwatch Jax walking around the apartment in my robe, unsure how to feel about her being here.
Actually, I know exactly how I feel, and that’s what’s freaking me out.
My overriding emotion is one of contentment. Like she belongs here somehow. She’s so uncomplicated—what you see is what you get.
Or at least I thought she was.
Now that the high of the sex has faded, what she told me beforehand comes into sharper focus, and I’m worried.
When I think back on what I saw that day in my mother’s house, her expression was more desperate than someone just counting money from a job. I’m annoyed that I let my own emotions run the show instead of thinking about it more deeply.
Could she be in trouble?
That question prevails above all the others. She said she lived in Irving, which is a pretty rough area. Could someone be threatening her? Or does it have something to do with the nightclub?
I watch her admiring the fish from where I’m sitting on the couch, her large eyes reflected in the glass.
Occasionally, she asks me questions and seems to be genuinely interested.
She keeps crouching down to check on Cordelia, asking what to feed an octopus and whether she’ll heal from her injuries.
Her concern makes me smile.
“Would you like a drink?” I ask. I don’t want one myself, but I’m not sure what to do with my hands. I feel on edge suddenly. She looked so surprised when I asked her to stay the night and she hasn’t confirmed that she will yet, but I desperately want her to.
Maybe I can talk her into shower sex in the morning. I feel my cock twitch at the thought.
“What are you having?” she asks curiously, turning toward me.
“I was thinking of an herbal tea. I’m ancient, after all,” I say, only half joking.
“Do you have any hot chocolate?” she asks, her face lighting up like a child.
“I think I could probably find some.”
I rise, walking through the living room to the kitchen. Jax pads behind me, the tapping of her feet a pleasing sound as she follows me through the door.
“Holy hell,” she says admiringly as I turn on the light. “This is amazing.”
The kitchen is wide and spacious, with dark blue cabinets along the walls and a blue granite island at its center. I had it commissioned to resemble the ocean.
“I’m glad you like it,” I say, glancing back at her as she makes herself comfortable on a barstool.
“This place is so fancy,” she says. “I can see why my brother wants to be like you now.”
I turn as I open a cabinet to search for hot chocolate. I have no idea if I have any, but if I do, it’ll be because of Ship.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Oh, he’s always wanted to run clubs like yours. He wants to have a successful chain under his belt and be able to live in a place like this, too. This apartment must have cost a fortune.”
I chuckle. “It did. A lot more than I could afford at the time, but I’ve paid off the mortgage now. I love this place, but it depends on what your idea of success really is. How does your brother measure success?”
“A good reputation, I think,” she replies.
I find some dark chocolate on one of the top shelves and take it down, turning to her as I raise my eyebrows.
“That’s an unusual answer to that question.”
“Well, you know how I said my dad is in prison?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to hear it.”
She shrugs like it doesn’t matter. “Flynn’s always wanted to be the opposite of him. Law-abiding, successful, and respected, you know?”
Something flickers in her eyes, and she looks away, her lips thinning.
What’s she scared of?
“And you said your club’s doing well?” I ask.
“It is. He’s trying to set up a new one in Low Ferry, though, so he’s working on that 24-7 right now.”
“Huh. Let me know how that goes for him. I’m looking over there myself, and the competition over real estate is no joke.”
“Oh,” she says, sounding surprised. “We’ve got the venue already.”
I snap the chocolate in half and drop it into a small copper pan. “Well, shit,” I say without much heat, “I’ve been trying to find a venue there for months.”
“Flynn’s pretty excited about it; he’s been working on infrastructure for a long time. But he’ll get the investment he needs; he’s really good at that.”
Her confidence in her brother shines through in every word, and I smile at her as she looks down at the pan, her eyes narrowing.
“Do you actually know what you’re doing?” she says. “That’s going to be the bitterest hot chocolate ever.”
“Well, if you can find sugar, feel free to add some.”
I rest a hip against the counter in amusement as she enthusiastically hops off the stool and starts searching through my cabinets for sugar.
“What the hell is Bragg’s liquid aminos?” she asks, holding up a bottle of the stuff.
“Beats me, Ship must have bought it. She’s always trying to make me healthier.”
She flicks a glance at me, her eyes running over my body approvingly, and I can’t help grinning back at her.
“You look plenty healthy to me.”
“Why, thank you.” I feel my face flush.
“Ah! Here it is. Way in the back.” She reaches into the cabinet, giving me a brief flash of her thighs before she holds up a bag of sugar excitedly.
“A couple of tablespoons of this and you’ll be golden.”
“Tablespoons?” I ask. “Do you have a sweet tooth or something?”
“Definitely, it’s probably illegal how much sugar I eat.”
I pour it in as she stands by the stove watching me. The picture we make is alarmingly domestic, and I frantically try to think of questions to ask her to distract myself. I have an overwhelming urge to pull her against my side.
“So, you’ve met my sisters. How many brothers did you say you have again?” I ask.
“Four. Scott, Ben, Seb, and Flynn.”
“It’s funny we both have the same number of siblings,” I murmur. “I always thought that one would be the perfect number.”
She throws her head back and laughs at that, her eyes shining as she chuckles to herself. But suddenly her smile fades, and she looks at me in horror.
“What?” I ask, adding milk to the pan.
“Oh, god, I just remembered Lola invited me to her bachelorette party. I don’t really have to go, do I?”
I stir the pan thoughtfully. “I don’t know, do you want to?”
“It’s not really my thing.”
“Well, it would certainly keep them off my back for a little longer. Once they hear about Sarah, they’ll have a lot of sympathy for you, too. Feel free to paint me as the villain in that one.”
She laughs. “Noted. When is it anyway?”
“This Friday.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“You have other plans?”
“No, I just have nothing to wear. Again.”
I laugh, and she gives me her best offended expression. “Well, we can always go shopping in my car. I enjoyed myself a lot last time.”
“You’re not buying me any more sorority clothes,” she grumbles.
“Well, if you have something with sequins on, that’ll make Lola happy.”
“Sequins? I barely have something that isn’t black.”
“Okay, well, are you going to go or do you want me to make an excuse for you?”
She pouts beautifully as I take the pot of hot chocolate off the stove and nod to the cabinet where the mugs live.
“I don’t need you to speak for me, I’ll go. It’ll be good to get some dirt on you anyway.”
“Well, they have plenty of that,” I say idly, pouring the hot chocolate into the mugs and handing her one.
“Why don’t these have any handles?” she asks, looking at the hand-painted mugs she selected.
“They’re Japanese.”
“Of course they are.” She rolls her eyes at me.
We go back into the living room, and she curls up on the couch, her fingers hugging the cup gingerly. It’s suddenly turned chilly, and I throw her a knit blanket as I walk to the thermostat to turn up the heated floor.
“This is nice.”
I stop, my hand still on the dial, wondering if I really heard that. But when I turn, I realize she was referring to the hot chocolate.
She’s sitting, watching one of my fish swim lazily above her, her porcelain skin flawless in the blueish light.
“Which one of your sisters is the oldest again?” she asks as I head back toward the couch.
“Lola, then Maddy. My mom wasn’t well for a while, so she didn’t have any other kids until about six years later. Then there’s Erica, and Carrie’s the baby.”
“Carrie’s your favorite,” she says confidently.
“She is. Because she has a brain.”
Jax laughs, stretching out her legs onto the coffee table, and I throw over a cushion for her to rest her feet on as I sit down next to her.
“Is Flynn a lot older than you?” I ask.
She nods. “About ten years or so, but we’ve always kind of been the grown-ups, you know? Flynn’s sensible, but not good at planning. He’s always relied on me for that kind of stuff. Scott and I are twins, but Scott never plans ahead, always doing everything last minute. And Seb and Ben are idiots.”
The affection in her voice contradicts her words. It’s clear she’s crazy about all of them.
“It’s tough sometimes, being the one in charge,” I say absently, taking a sip of the hot chocolate and grimacing. “This is revolting,” I say, taking another sip as she smirks at me over the rim of her cup.
“I love it,” she replies as I roll my eyes. Silence falls between us for a little while, and then she lowers her cup to her thigh.
“Your dad passed away, right?” she asks quietly.
“Yep, like your mom.”
“It sucks,” she adds, her eyes hooded and tired suddenly. “I wish she were here to see what Flynn’s made of himself. She’d be so fucking proud, she’d lose her mind.”
“I’m sure she knows.”
Jax glances at me, and our gazes lock and hold for several seconds.
“Maybe you’re right,” she says finally and looks away, leaving my chest aching with a feeling I don’t want to name.
“Which one of your brothers is the most trouble, then?” I ask, hoping she’ll open up a little more about her home life. She goes quiet, but then she sighs heavily and sinks back into the cushions of the couch, almost disappearing completely.
“Seb and Ben are tied in that category. They’re always getting themselves into trouble. But whenever I need them, they always come through, no question. I’m lucky to have them, really. When they’re not being total shitheads.”
“And Scott?” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off her.
“Scott’s the other half of me,” she says with deep sincerity. “But he doesn’t always make good choices.” She sips her hot chocolate, frowning into the depths of it as she places it on her knee.
I have a thousand questions, wanting to delve deeper, find out what’s troubling her, and take it all away. Instead, I sip my drink, stretching out my own legs. There’s an inch between our feet now, her bright red toenails perfect against her pale skin.
“It’s not always easy being the grown-up,” I say softly as she looks up at me, raising her eyebrows.
“Relying on people starts to become impossible,” I continue. “You deal with all this chaos, becoming accustomed to the weight of it on your shoulders. After a while, asking for help stops being an option.”
She doesn’t speak, watching me, and I feel words rise up in my throat that I can’t push back down.
“Maddy has had some problems,” I confess. “She’s an addict. Started using drugs when she went to college.” I stare at a bright blue fish flitting to the top of the tank and back down again. “She OD’d on the floor of her bathroom when she was eighteen.”
Jax’s large eyes are wide as she stares at me. “Oh fuck, Gray, I’m sorry.”
“I thought my heart was going to explode when I got that call, that I would be telling our mother her baby girl was dead. But when I arrived at the hospital, Maddy was awake. She asked me to swear I would never tell anyone.”
I sigh, remembering that awful night like it was yesterday. “I said I would keep it a secret if she went to rehab. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.”
“Did you ever tell your family?” she whispers, her voice quiet and serious.
“No one knows except Lola. The third time Maddy got sick, I broke down, unable to cope with the pressure any longer. Lola took some of that burden from me without question. She started taking Maddy to the meetings every week to try to help, and thankfully, I had enough money to get her the support she needed. She didn’t deal with my dad’s death like the rest of us.
It broke something in her, and she’s never really been the same since. ”
Why did I tell her all of that?
“Is she doing better now?”
“Way better. She’s five hundred and thirty-six days clean.”
There’s a pause as Jax sips her drink, a little smile flitting over her face. “They’re lucky to have you,” she says solemnly.
“And your brothers are lucky to have you,” I say.
We raise our mugs, saluting each other as she finishes hers, and I lean forward, putting mine down.
“I should go.”
My head whips around as she rises from her chair, fussing with the belt of her robe.
“Why don’t you just stay? It’s late.”
She swallows, but eventually shakes her head. “No. Thanks for the offer, but I should get back.”
The disappointment I feel is all-consuming for a moment, and I watch her go collect her clothes, feeling stricken.
“At least let me get you a cab,” I call, hoping against hope that she’ll change her mind when she sees that it’s past one o’clock in the morning. But she doesn’t.
Ten minutes later, she’s gone, the only remnants of that quiet, gentle connection between us are the two discarded mugs on the coffee table.