Chapter Eleven #2
“Jesus Christ, Jace.”
There it is. The horror. The disbelief that someone could live that way.
I rest my elbows on the counter and watch how her curls shift as she moves. I notice the morning light catching on her glasses when she tilts her head.
She’s beautiful.
The thought hits me unexpectedly. The kind that doesn’t ask permission before it settles in your chest and makes itself comfortable.
Not beautiful in the way girls at school are beautiful.
Not the kind who walk the halls with painted mouths and perfect hair, tits pushed up and lips pouted, waiting for a round of Jace Cooper’s cock so they can brag about it later to their friends.
That kind of beauty is superficial. Disposable. Forgettable.
This isn’t anything like that.
This is Lola Bellamy standing in her kitchen in yesterday’s clothes, hair falling loosely around her shoulders, and her skin pale from too many sleepless nights. Her world is balanced on a knife’s edge, and she’s still here, still standing… breathing.
She’s real. There’s nothing polished about her. It’s not a rehearsed performance.
“I hate that,” she whispers.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not your problem.”
Her eyes flash behind those glasses. “Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Shutting me out.”
I scrub a hand down my face, rough enough to hurt. “I’m not shutting you out.”
“You are.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being a coward,” she says and that lands like a punch.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.” She turns down the heat on the stove. “You’d rather freeze to death in that trailer than admit you need help. You’d rather suffer alone than let someone care about you. That’s not strength, Jace. That’s just being too scared to let anyone in.”
My jaw clenches so hard it aches. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” she says.
The quiet stretches between us, taut as a wire and ready to snap. The clock on the wall ticks too loud.
The smell of breakfast hits, and my stomach growls like I haven’t eaten in days. Which, to be honest, is probably true.
She glances away from me, plates up the eggs, and then the crispy bacon. She comes forward, hands me a plate, and slides into the seat next to me.
“I can’t stay here by myself, Jace,” she says finally, staring down at her plate. “You can see how quiet it is here without my—” She stops, swallowing hard enough that I can see her throat move.
“I get that,” I say.
She looks up at me through those glasses, and I can see the question forming behind her eyes.
“What is it, Bells?”
She hesitates, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, and filthy thoughts flood my mind. I try to force them out but my cock has zero interest in being appropriate right now.
Focus, you sick fuck.
She shifts slightly on the stool beside me, her scent drifting over. Something fresh and floral that shouldn’t make me think about wrapping my hands in those curls while she—
Damn it. There I go again.
I force my focus back to the plate. The untouched eggs and bacon.
“Could you stay?” She asks.
The air changes. Every molecule moves around those three words.
“In the spare room,” she quickly adds, rushing to clarify before my imagination runs wild. “Just until he’s home. Or until I can breathe in this house again without feeling like the walls are closing in.”
I blink at her. “You want me to stay here.”
“Yes.”
I glance toward the hallway at the family photos lining the walls in neat frames.
Her dad smiling beside her at a sun-bleached beach, both squinting into the camera with matching grins.
A younger Lola with braces and messy hair holding up a science fair trophy like it’s the Stanley Cup.
Family dinners. Holidays. Moments captured and preserved as if they matter.
This is real. This is the kind of home that has warmth, memories, and people who genuinely care. And she’s asking me to be a part of it.
If Aubrey and Sam lost their shit about me being in the passenger seat of her car, they will absolutely fucking explode if they find out she wants me sleeping under the same roof, breathing the same air, and existing in her space when her dad isn’t here to supervise.
The scandal will be nuclear.
“Are you sure?” I give her a way out, an escape hatch, because she should take it.
“Yes.”
“You’re not asking me out of pity because of how I live,” I say softly, needing to hear her say it. I have to be sure this isn’t charity.
“No, Jace.” Her blue eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that steals the breath from my lungs.
“I’m asking you because it’s too hard for me to be here without my dad.
Because it makes me think about him lying in that hospital bed with tubes, monitors and strangers deciding if he lives or dies.
I’m on edge waiting for a stupid phone call that can change my entire fucking life in the time it takes to say his name. ”
She pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m not asking you to fix anything. I’m just asking you not to leave.”
That hits somewhere deep. Somewhere I didn’t realize I could still feel anything.
She’s not trying to save or rescue the broken guy from his shitty existence. She’s asking me to stay because she needs someone.
I give a nod. “Okay.”
The tension leaves her shoulders in a sigh.
“Okay?” she whispers, like she can’t believe it.
“Yeah, I’ll stay.”
She finally exhales a long breath. “The spare room’s down the hall there,” she says, pointing past the kitchen. “It’s a disaster zone of boxes, mostly. But there’s a bed in there somewhere.”
I smirk. “I’ve slept on worse.”
One perfect brow arches. “Don’t I know it.”
“Hey. My house has feelings.”
“I’m sure it does,” she says. “And I’m sure they’re all begging for a wrecking ball.”
A laugh bursts out of me.
She turns back to her plate, but I see the ghost of a real smile at the corner of her mouth.
I live for this. That sharp tongue, that razor wit, still coming right back at me like nothing’s changed.
I’m the asshole who tried to poison this an hour ago. The one who got spooked the second things got complicated. My gut reaction was to build a wall, to shove as much distance between us that I could. And she just stood there unfazed, like she knew I was full of shit the whole time.
I shovel a forkful of egg into my mouth. It is so much better than any real food I’ve had lately. Much better than the expired Pop-Tarts I pull from the out-of-date bargain bin at the rundown grocery store at the end of my street.
“What will your dad think about me staying when he wakes up,” I ask, the words sounding odd.
Her smile softens, and I can tell she’s grateful I said “when”, not “if”.
“He won’t mind. He’s not like that.”
She pushes her chair back and walks over to the fridge, pulling out a carton of orange juice. She moves around the kitchen with an easy familiarity that I can’t help but watch.
“He never has a problem with anyone.” Her voice is casual as she grabs two glasses from the cabinet, not asking if I want any. She pours the juice and brings the glasses back to the table, setting one down in front of me. “And he would want me to be happy.”
There’s something effortless about being with her.
From the very start, really. The moment Noah claimed that spot next to Aubrey, Lola and I just fell into sync.
She’s not the usual girl I chase, but damn, if it meant staying like this, in this easy quiet, I’d chase her to the ends of the damn earth just to experience this.
After breakfast, she stands and gathers the plates silently.
“I’ll show you the room.”
We walk down the hallway, her leading, me trailing like a lost pathetic puppy.
Halfway there, she stops abruptly and turns to face me.
“You’re still going to school.”
I blink at her.
“Bells.”
“No.” Her tone leaves no room for negotiation. “You will not graduate if you don’t, and Miss Mallory is already on the warpath about it. You can’t draw attention to yourself right now, Jace. You just can’t. And you’re not skipping school because of me. Or because you hate it.”
“I do hate it.”
“I know you do.”
I run my hand through my hair, frustration creeping under my skin. “It’s pointless.”
“It’s not.”
“It seems fucking useless.”
Her eyes soften, just a fraction, like she’s seeing past the bullshit I throw up. “Do it anyway.”
For a moment, I want to argue, to tell her I don’t give a damn, that it won’t change anything. I’ll still be the screw-up I’ve always been. But she’s looking at me like I’m not the disaster I see in the mirror, as if maybe there’s something worth saving.
So I nod, swallowing my pride and my doubts. “Fine. I’ll go.”
She exhales, tension bleeding from her shoulders.
“And we’re moving tutoring here, this afternoon,” she adds. “I don’t want to sit in that library pretending everything is normal.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll pick you up from your trailer after school so you can grab some stuff.”
“You’re a bossy little thing after breakfast.”
She never misses a beat. “Someone has to be, since you’re clearly allergic to making good decisions.”
That pulls a smile out of me.
We arrive at the room at the end of the hall.
She pushes open the door and steps aside, letting me take it all in.
It’s cluttered, with boxes stacked against one wall, a desk buried under notebooks and random junk, clothes draped over a chair.
But there’s a bed—an actual fucking bed with clean sheets folded neatly at the end.
It’s more than I’ve had in months, more than I ever thought I’d get.
“You can make it less tragic,” she says lightly, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.
As I stand in the middle of the room, a thought suddenly hits me, one that should probably send me running for the hills. Staying has never been my thing. I’m the king of the exit plan, but this is different.
This is about wanting to fix my life because she’s looking at me. This is agreeing to go back to that high school bullshit because she asked.