13. JAX – EASTER EGG HUNTING
JAX – EASTER EGG HUNTING
Walking onto the church field at the crack of dawn this morning feels weird. In some ways, it’s like nothing’s changed, while in reality it’s so different. Ms. Mary won’t be here this year, but we’re having dinner with her tonight and spending more time with her tomorrow. Beckett and Will volunteered to come over to the house and watch the pups tonight, and then Will said he would watch them tomorrow since he’s off, which is nice.
That guy from last year, Winston, is waving in my direction from across the field with a huge smile on his face. I look behind me, hoping to find someone else, but realize it’s just me.
He’s waving at me.
I don’t hate him, but I don’t like him either. His mood just grates on my nerves. He’s like Knox, but more annoying and less funny. Like he’s never had to deal with tough shit in his life and is just happy. Knox, on the other hand, has had to deal with a lot of tough shit and chooses to be happy despite it.
Oh God. Now he’s running over.
“Wilson. How are you?”
He stutters for a second, then smiles. “So good to see you again. I didn’t know you all would be back this year.”
He doesn’t even correct me when I say his name wrong.
“We’re here with Everlee this year.”
“Everlee?” His brow furrows as he looks around to find her. When the lines in his head soften, I turn to follow his gaze and see her walking down the hill with Callum and her mom. They seem to be in deep conversation about something while Callum just watches them with a smile on his face.
When I clear my throat, he looks back at me, a flush tinging his cheeks. “She looks happy.”
Before I can respond, they’re walking up to meet us.
“Winston.” Everlee smiles. “How are you?”
“Doing good. Doing good. Winnie and I got engaged.”
“Oh, that’s so awesome. So happy for you.” Everlee smiles.
“Your mom said you got married?”
“I did. Over Christmas.”
“Which of these men is the lucky one?”
I hadn’t noticed that Emmett and Knox had walked up with Beckett, Will, Tony, Lizzy, and the pups.
“All of them.” She laughs, but doesn’t elaborate.
“Winston!” Lizzy shouts. “What’s been going on, man?”
He looks confused.
“You don’t remember me from high school?”
Everlee’s brows twist in confusion.
“From high school?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t remember me? I’m hurt.”
“I’m… sorry. I don’t. But I feel like there’s no way… I’d forget you.”
She pats him on the shoulder. “I’m just teasing. I’ve never met you. Becks here told me who you were walking up.”
A chuckle huffs from my chest. She’s an idiot, but damn it, I like her.
“Are you running this shindig?” She loops her arm around his and guides him away.
It’s hysterical how completely baffled he is.
Donna claps her hands together. “Don’t you just love Lizzy? Such a light… that one. Take charge and get things done.”
“She’s something,” I mumble.
Everlee rubs my back, but I lift her into my arms.
“Jax!” she squeals out with a smile spread across her face.
“What?”
Her arms and legs wrap around me.
“Get a room, you two.” Beckett shoves my arm as he walks by to follow Lizzy and Winston.
“I love you,” I whisper, then give her a quick kiss before standing her up.
Laughter echoes through the air as Knox and Lizzy dump bucketfuls of plastic eggs into the pen, causing the puppies to pounce and playfully scatter them around. I can’t help but wonder if Lizzy’s little show a second ago was Lizzy being Lizzy or if she was running interference for Ev.
I’ve noticed this several times, but never mentioned it. It’s like she’s always on, scanning situations and protecting Ev or distracting others with shiny toys, or in her case, utter ridiculousness. She’s always so over the top that it’s hard to imagine her as being that calculating, but she does it time and time again. Almost like she’s always three steps ahead of everyone else. If it was anyone other than Lizzy, I’d actually be impressed. I chuckle to myself, garnering Ev’s attention.
“What?” she asks, grabbing my hand and leading me over to the others.
“Nothing.”
I’ll never admit that I actually like or admire her wild-child best friend. At least out loud.
“These cuties are going to make it impossible to focus and hide the eggs this year?” Winnie says, walking up and slipping her arm around Winston’s, leaving her ring on display.
That’s precious. She’s intimidated by our Ev.
She should be. Anyone would be lucky to have her.
“Winnie! Congrats on your engagement. Winston just told me!” Ev cheers, smiling.
“Oh my gosh. Thank you.” She brings her left hand up to her mouth.
Lizzy coughs before her eyes lock on mine. We pass a glance to one another and before I realize it, I’m smiling at her and goddamn it, she sees it. Her eyes get wider and she shifts from side to side like a rocket ready to explode, but she doesn’t say anything.
Fuck.
“What do you need us to do?” Lizzy asks, looking back at Winston. Her voice is the slightest bit shaky, like the happiness flowing through her is about to explode out in little beams and smack me right in the fucking face.
Ev must notice because she looks at me and smiles. All I can do is shake my head and roll my eyes before I slip my arm around her.
Winnie doesn’t miss it and her eyes get wide with shock, but she doesn’t speak.
That’s right, Winnie. She doesn’t need your Winston at all.
Beckett climbs into the pen with the pups and plays with them, throwing most of the plastic eggs out so we can hide them. He saves one of each color for the pups so they have something to do and says he will stay with them.
“He’s just being lazy,” Will says, picking up a bucket of eggs as he follows me to the left side of the field. We have the woods, while Ev, Lizzy, and Callum are on the right side of the field in the woods. Knox wanted to join them, but everyone shot that idea down. Putting those three together definitely spells trouble because they’ll all think a stupid idea is a brilliant idea and get in trouble.
A noise pulls my attention and I find Knox riding Emmett’s back as they head down the middle of the field, with Tony following beside them holding all three baskets and laughing.
Several hours later, the field is full of kids from all ages lined up, baskets in hand ready to find the eggs. The volunteers organize the kids into sections based on age, starting with the toddlers first. Beckett, while in the pen with the pups earlier, did his duty and threw eggs onto the field. That was his version of hiding the eggs for them.
As I scan through the crowd, a wave of joy washes over me when my eyes land on Mason. As our gazes lock, his eyes light up, and a faint smile dances across his face. He looks like he’s in a much better spot this year than he was last year when we spoke.
He was having a hard time at his foster home because he was the oldest kid there, and one of the boys, who was the closest thing to a brother, had just been adopted. I was worried about him after Easter, so had Mrs. Mary do some digging around. She sent me the phone number for his house, so I reached out to him. A few weeks later, I sent him a phone so we could talk and text as much as he wanted and have kept in touch ever since. I told him I was coming into town this weekend and wanted to see him.
The whistle blows and the toddlers scurry, wobble, and fall, trying to pick up the eggs on the grass and the four to six-year-olds behind them whine that they’re getting all the eggs. Another minute passes, and the next wave of kids goes until it gets to the teenagers who saunter without a care in the world onto the field. Most of them clearly don’t really care, but they are out on the field because they have to be.
Mason walks over to me with an uneasy look on his face. “Hey,” he says, simply offering nothing else.
“Hey.”
I’d have to imagine it’s weird talking to me face to face again after it’s been a year. Sure, we’ve talked on the phone via video chat and text, but it still feels a little weird.
“You didn’t hide the eggs, did you?” He holds up his empty basket.
“I did, and I made sure to hide them extra hard for you.”
He laughs. “They never hide them hard. Plus, this is my tenth year doing it, so I know where all the good spots are.” As the words of his statement hit him, his smile falls. Ten years. He’s been in the foster system for ten years.
“Last year I had a lot going on, but this year… I hid them with you in mind.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I don’t lie.”
His eyes narrow as he watches me skeptically. “Fine. But I bet I can find them all.”
“All the eggs? You’ve already lost that bet because you’ve been over here talking to me. The others are finding them.”
“I’m talking about the tough ones you said you hid.” He puts air quotes around tough.
“I’ll give you a hint. They’re on the left side of the field.”
“Too easy. There aren’t great spots over there. You got a handful at best with the fallen tree and maybe in the hole that’s in the stump from that tree. Though I’ve never stuck my hand in there because Lewis got bit by a snake one year. No, thank you.”
“I didn’t hide it in the stump.”
We start walking towards the woods on the left side of the field.
“So how’s school going?”
“I don’t want to go anymore.” He sighs and kicks at a stick on the ground.
“You have to, though. You only have a couple of years left.”
He steps into the cover of the woods and lifts a small bundle of sticks and pulls up an egg and holds it up with an I-told-you-so face on.
“Not mine.”
“Sure.” He laughs. “Let me guess. Any egg I find in this section you didn’t hide, and the ones I don’t find will be yours?”
“I won’t lie to you. That one simply wasn’t mine.”
His eyes linger on me for another second before we continue walking, stepping further into the woods. He walks over to several other places and pulls up the eggs.
“See. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“Ok. Let’s save these for the others. Mine are a little further down, closer to the lake.”
We step over branches and twigs for the next few minutes in silence. It’s like I can feel the excited apprehension flowing off of him, seeking something new and different. Like it’s a reminder that things can change. Maybe it’s just finding Easter eggs for him, but at the same time it’s the same every year. Same people hiding them in the same spots. That was before me. Before a change. He needs change. He needs to know that it won’t always be like this.
“This is my section. Good luck.” I pat him on the shoulder.
His eyes light up a little, bringing a smile to my face. He moves with purpose, looking in all the usual spots, the easy spots, but comes up empty.
“Ok. I’ll give it to you. A little more difficult than usual. You didn’t go for the simple spots.”
“I told you. I’m changing it up. So. School.”
Mason walks over to a tree and puts his hand on the trunk, and looks up. “It’s boring.”
“Are your grades good?”
“Straight A’s. The classes are too easy.”
“Have you talked about getting put in tougher classes?”
He grabs the low branch and lifts himself up, and grabs the egg on the back of the tree, before he jumps down.
“Fine. You got one. Don’t get cocky.”
We continue to move. “I don’t know. I feel like they need to have a conversation with my family, but there’s never any time. Some teachers are also concerned because it’s my first year in high school, so they don’t want to overwhelm me. There are a few other ones who give me extra work.”
We move a little deeper into the woods, and I watch as he uses the stick he picked up a minute ago and flips over leaves, twigs, and bunches of sticks. He pauses at the fallen tree and looks over his shoulder at me with a smirk.
“I’ll save you the time. I didn’t put any here.”
The brows on his face raise and we keep walking.
“Well, it’s nice that you have teachers that want to challenge you.”
“Yeah, but for what? Next year, when I get to tenth, I’m going to be in the same boat. Repeating the same stuff. Then what happens when I’m a senior?”
“Maybe by that time they’ll have figured out another option for you. Let you start college classes or something.”
He snarls his lip.
“No? What do you want to do?”
He shrugs. “Maybe join the military.” Mason looks at me and his words soften to barely a whisper. “Like you.”
My heart seizes in my chest for a second. “Really?”
He shrugs and continues walking. The moment is broken.
When he gets to a clump of leaves, he uses his stick to flick through them and pulls up an egg. “Really? This is just lazy.”
A laugh erupts from my chest. “That wasn’t me.”
“Sure it wasn’t.”
I laugh again. “Mine are all above the knee.”
“Because you’re old and can’t bend down?”
I blow out a breath and give him a playful shove. “Old or not, I can still take you down.”
He laughs and we keep moving.
This kid. I like him. I see so much of myself in him. At least I had Callum, Emmett, and Knox, but man… this kid. I was drawn to him last year, and it’s just like… I don’t know. Something just fits with him. Like I was meant to find him and help guide him.
Minutes pass and the horn blows, warning us we have five minutes left. Mason has only found four of my eggs and has conceded that I’m a much better hider than others in the past.
Mason’s eyes flick over my shoulder, then back to me and I get a strange prickle on the back of my neck. A small twig breaks and before I can turn around, a body is leaping onto my back, wrapping their arm around my neck. I don’t have to look to know it’s Knox’s dumbass. He’s the only one that could’ve gotten that close without me hearing him. And the twig at the end was because he knew Mason gave him away.
“Knox.” I grab his arm and quickly spin out of his grasp, then sweep my leg, making him fall to the ground.
“Yo dude. Not cool. This is my nice shirt.”
“The don’t sneak up on people in the woods.” I offer my hand and he gives a little hop before he dusts off his pants.
“Who do we have here?” Knox asks, looking at Mason.
“Knox, Mason. Mason, meet the thorn in my side.”
Mason chuckles while Knox does a stupid bow.
“Emmett and Cal were looking for you.”
“Here I am.”
“Excellent. I’ll go report ‘here you are’ and that should clear it up.”
Mason chuckles again.
“Don’t laugh at him. It just encourages him.”
Knox bats his hand in the air. “It doesn’t. I’m like this, regardless.” He bows again. “Mason, pleasure.” Knox flits off, moving through the woods without a sound. He was always so good at that.
“He’s funny,” Mason says.
I roll my eyes. “He’s a pain.”
“You like him.”
“I bare him.”
“Nah. You like him.” He flicks his stick again. “I watched your face. You saw me look behind you and you knew he was coming up. You knew it was him.”
“I did.”
“How?”
“Because he’s an idiot who always likes to play around, and because he was quiet. No one can get that close to me without me knowing. Well, no one here. Except him.”
“Because of your time in the SEALs?”
“Yeah.”
“I want to be like you. Like both of you.”
“It’s hard.”
“So. I can do hard.”
“You can’t even find some Easter eggs.” I laugh.
His gaze sets on my face as he watches me for a second like he’s trying to figure out what to say, then a smile pulls across his lips and he starts walking. Within three minutes, he has found all of my eggs.
“You knew where they were all along?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you grab them before?”
“I enjoyed talking to you.”
“Mason. We could have kept talking, regardless.” I laugh. “Well, damn. I thought I’d done a good job.”
“You did better than most. I’m just good at finding patterns and irregularities. Again, I’ve been doing this for a while.”
When he says it this time, it doesn’t hold the weight of sadness with it.
“Can I hang around you today? I see the others all the time.” His voice is soft, like he’s almost scared to ask.
“Absolutely.”