2. Jackson
TWO
Jackson
My house feels foreign. I can’t really place what’s causing the feeling, but whatever it is, it’s burning a crater in the center of my stomach.
It’s the first time I’ve been back in California with the intention of staying, but I’m no stranger to starting over in new places. Growing up a military brat teaches you to not get attached. To make friends quickly. To bend but not break. Change is the only constant in life, so I can’t for the life of me figure out why this change feels so damn different. Maybe it’s knowing that this time I had a choice. That it was 100 percent my decision to finally move from Sugarlake, Tennessee, to California. And while deep down I know it’s the right one, it still feels like I’m leaving something fundamental behind. Something beyond a mom I’ll go back to visit and memories I wish wouldn’t linger.
Right now I’m sitting in my living room, a warm beer in front of me, fireplace crackling and ESPN droning while I relentlessly pore over those memories. The more hours that tick by without distraction, the more my heart screams inside my chest, begging to go back to the people who own it. Unfortunately, those are the same people who have a tendency to break it.
One person in particular.
Alina May Carson, known to her friends and family as Lee. The sweetheart of Sugarlake and my best friend for the past decade. I’ve been her sucker since we were kids—when she plopped down in my Mustang Fastback, grabbed my dad’s dog tags, and told me “real was beautiful.” The chain dangled by my heart, but her fingers tangled into my soul, and I wish like hell she’d loosen her grip. Realize that I need her to let go. It isn’t fair for her to hold on so tight when she doesn’t let me hold her back.
She has Chase for that now, anyway. And really, she’s always been his, no matter how much I’ve wished she’d pick me. Choose me.
I was just a stand-in. Her faithful sidekick. A pathetic sponge, absorbing her emotions and holding them when she couldn’t.
That’s all I ever am. An “in the moment” kind of guy. A distraction. A temporary fixture.
A second choice.
With everyone else, it’s a position I’ve mastered, grasping on to the title and wearing it like a crown. The resident charmer, the king of one-night stands. My legacy in Sugarlake is giving a good fuck—the best—one that provides them with whatever high they’re chasing and eases my own loneliness from being friend-zoned by the one woman who I’ve never seen as just a friend.
Sometimes it’s nice to feel wanted, to be the center of someone else’s everything, even temporarily.
But “temporary” erodes quickly, and if you don’t do something to fix the source, eventually, your whole damn soul will crumble. So leaving permanently was a difficult yet necessary step. I’ve been Lee’s Jax for so long, I don’t remember how to be my own.
My phone vibrates across my coffee table and I groan, leaning forward to snap it up. I forgot to call my mom and tell her I made it back okay, so I assume it’s her checking in.
I’m wrong.
Blakely:
Miss me yet, Jackson?
My teeth clench, irritation making my chest pull tight and my heartbeat rev. Blakely. Everything about the girl bothers me and I’m not sure why. I swear to God it’s her personal mission in life to get under my skin. She’s always just there , her sparkly iPhone at the ready, and her long-as-hell legs in my face. Legs that make my dick twitch and guilt spiral through my system because I definitely should not be attracted to a nineteen-year-old girl whose biggest asset is her follower count and her most genuine feature her inability to take no for an answer. So I lash out and she bites back, and I end the day feeling like a gigantic asshole, even when that’s the last thing I want to be.
My parents raised me right, taught me that respect is both something that’s earned and something to take pride in giving. And if there’s anything I strive to be, it’s someone my parents can be proud of.
My free hand reaches up, the pads of my fingers rolling along the metal chain of my necklace, the thought of my dad snapping my purpose back into focus.
He’s the reason I’m in California in the first place, after all. After he finished his military service, we spent his last days in a small two-bedroom house right on the coast of Monterey—every free second spent beneath the hood of some rusted-out car, turning a hunk of junk into a masterpiece.
I have a lot of good memories with my dad, but California is home to some of my favorites. If I close my eyes, I can still feel the rays of sun as they’d sprinkle in through the open garage, casting an orangey hue on oil-stained cement while he taught me how to jet the carburetor and see the potential of beauty in even the ugliest of shells. And at night, once the sun had slipped beneath the horizon and taken the last of our light, I’d sit on the concrete steps that led to the back door and watch in awe while he scrubbed Gojo soap on his hands, the water running black while he waxed poetic about our cars being on the big screen.
He was so sure in his conviction, I never doubted him for a second. But cancer ravaged his blood, taking him from this life before he was ready—before any of us were ready—to say goodbye.
So now his passion lives on through me.
And if working with the biggest producer in Hollywood, James Donahue, and letting his bratty kid annoy the hell out of me is what it takes to get my cars in the movies, then that’s what I’ll do.
But did I miss her?
Not even a little bit.