Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
KAI
Jax rolled off me at some point in the middle of the night, and I take that as my golden opportunity to get out of bed, cook us some breakfast, and confront him.
I shouldn’t have this intense of feelings for him, especially not this quickly, but I can’t help it. I feel like there was some sort of water on the bridge. So, what better way to a man’s heart than through his stomach?
I’ve cooked a bunch of shit, everything from bacon and eggs to another omelet, since he’s been eating quite a bit of those. There’s coffee using the beans from the little shop we discovered down the road and all kinds of fruits. Honestly, how can he say no?
I mean, I guess there’s a million and one ways, but that’s beside the point.
“Damn, it smells good.”
His voice startles me, and I flinch as I whip around to face him. Damn, am I happy I did. He’s shirtless, in low-hanging black sweatpants rolled at the top. He looks really fucking good, and I want to lick paths into his skin, kiss every freckle dotting it.
There’s a patch of dark hair that leads to this perfect spot below the belt, a path I hope I can take and really get to see first-hand where it leads.
He stretches and yawns, his muscles ripping even more, and I have to turn away to distract myself so I don’t back him into the bedroom right here and now.
“What’s all this for?”
“Well,” I start, taking a sip of my coffee and handing him his own cup.
He always takes a sip of it black to ‘enjoy the true flavor’ before he sweetens it up.
Lately, it’s been vanilla almond milk and some vanilla syrup we found at the market.
“It was an, uh, eventful night. Got to get our strength back up, no?”
I catch him eye fucking me just as hard as I was him, his eyes darting around and taking in all the ink covering my skin. I have some cool pieces; maybe one day, I’ll sit down with him and explain them all.
He coughs before raking a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I did work up an appetite.”
We serve ourselves before sitting down on the back balcony and digging in.
Of course, everything is delicious—we’ve been picking up fresh ingredients while we’re here and enjoying all the things we can’t normally find back in the States.
It really will be a shame when we have to go back to Seattle in a week.
As we finish our plates and take a moment to enjoy the scenery, I finally decide to break the silence.
“So, I really enjoyed last night.”
His green eyes find me, his eyebrows knitting together. “Uh, yeah. Me too. Why does this not sound good?”
“No. Fuck. No, everything is good.”
“Okay…”
“I just was thinking, why did you never give me that chance all those years ago? I mean, it could be really fucking stupid for me to be bringing this back up, like why didn’t I get over it, yada, yada, yada, but the question has always haunted me.”
He worries his lip, and I want to drag it away from his teeth. I want to ease whatever is causing the anxiety to build, because I haven’t seen him do it much this trip. Knowing I’m the one to cause him discomfort like this fucking hurts.
“Uh, well… Initially, it was because why the fuck would the college quarterback want the engineering nerd? We were too different. At least, that’s what I told myself that night.”
“Um, because we had a connection? At least, I thought? And because you were, are, stupid hot, and I wanted to explore the feelings.”
“Well, the feeling was mutual. I wanted to too, so… God, this sounds so desperate…but I wanted to give you my number on Monday because I did feel the connection. So, I hung out in the courtyard that morning to see if I would run into you, and, sure enough, your class was over there. Well, I heard you and your friends talking about but did you see him, and, honestly, I didn’t want to hear anything else.
I don’t look all bulky like your friends, I wear crop tops and paint my nails sometimes.
I look much more pop punk than who you were used to and didn't want to get my feelings hurt.”
I’m speechless as I sit there and gape at him.
“Jax—”
“No, it’s okay. Save it. I’m over it.”
“Well, clearly, you’re not.”
“No, we're good. Um, you know, I’m glad you asked. I’ve kind of always wondered what they actually meant by that, but, ya know? I don’t think I want to know anymore.”
“Jax..”
He cuts me off again, and I grit my teeth in frustration.
“How about we just go back to being boss and employee or whatever? Next week is stupid busy anyways, and last night was fun and all, but I need this job for at least another few months. So please don’t fire me. Let’s just forget it happened.”
He stands abruptly and walks back inside, leaving me reeling. What the fuck just happened? It was all good one moment, and the next, I’m just trying to keep up.
I don’t even remember the conversation he’s talking about, not really, but I do remember talking about how fucking stunning he was. And I wanted—want—him to be all mine.
So how do I go about convincing him he’s got this all wrong?
Right now I’m pretty fucking annoyed that he cut me off like that, clearly some sort of defense mechanism that he’s developed over the years, and something that we’re really going to need to work on.