by Serena Bell
The person who had appeared had been Chiara. He’d sent her a text letting her know he was at the hospital with Evan—and that was all it had taken to bring her to his side.
Jax was sitting on the chair next to his brother’s bed, watching him sleep, when Chiara walked in. He was so glad to see her that he couldn’t find any words except, “Hey.”
“Hey.” Chiara pulled a chair up next to Jax’s.
“You okay?” she whispered.
“Sort of? They’re saying he’s going to be fine. They think they know what’s wrong, now.”
“Yeah?”
“They did a million tests, and they’re still waiting on some results, but they think it’s Crohn’s disease. It’s a bad thing to have, but it’s better to know that that’s what it is.” He didn’t tell her what else he’d found out. That Crohn’s patients paid an average of twenty thousand dollars a year for medical treatments.
He was trying not to think about it. It was the only way he could stay sane.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” she said.
He looked over at her. She was so beautiful. Her hair was pulled back in a messy bun and her eyes were worried, but she was so pretty that it felt better just to look at her. Which felt wrong in its own way. His brother was sick, and maybe he shouldn’t be allowed to feel so goddamned happy to see her.
He thought maybe he should tell her it would be okay for her to go. Or that he was glad she was there. But he still couldn’t really say anything at all.
She didn’t seem to mind. She sat down next to him. Just sat. But it was miraculous how big that felt. Someone there, next to him.
They were silent, listening to the beep and hum of the machines in the room and the bustle of activity in the hallway.
“Where’s your mom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
He was completely sure that if Chiara or one of her siblings was in the hospital, her parents—both of them—would be right at their side. She had the perfect family. But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t judge and she didn’t pity. She was just there. And he was so fucking grateful he couldn’t stand the feeling. It was bigger than his chest. Bigger than his whole self.
“She’s an alcoholic,” he said quietly. He’d told her that a thousand different ways, but never straight out.
“I know,” she said. Then, firmly, “She’ll show up.”
She reached out and took his hand.
Hers was warm and surprisingly strong, and as soon as their fingers touched, a sigh slipped out of him.
“Kee.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you stay a little while?”
“Of course.”
He turned to look at her. She was looking back at him with those big, blue eyes, which were trying to tell him something. Or ask him something; he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he wanted to tell her Yes. Yes to whatever it was she wanted.
Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and need rushed through him. He needed her. He needed her mouth. It was wide and soft, her lower lip thicker than the upper. Her tongue came out, just for an instant to wet her lips.
He wanted—
He wanted.
He was very aware of the distance between their chairs. It was getting smaller. He was leaning toward her. She was leaning toward him, too.
And then he was kissing her, and even though there were so many more things than he could have guessed that were wrong with the world, everything felt exactly, exactly right.
After that night at the hospital, there was no turning back, of course. And there were so many more kisses that followed that first one, and then after the kisses there were other things. Her hands in his hair, under his shirt, on the bare skin of his back, on the smooth ridged skin of his belly. His hand, when she guided it there, on her breast. His amazement and gratitude.
And many more pleasures in the days and weeks after that. They were together. They were a couple. People at school knew. Maddie and all Chiara’s brothers and sisters knew.
Rich knew. And that was the only thing that cast a pall over Jax’s outsized happiness. Because although Jax could not point to any behavior on Rich’s part that had changed, something had. Rich had cooled toward him, ever since that night when he had caught Jax and Chiara almost kissing in the kitchen.
Invitations to dinner came now from Chiara, not Rich. And where once Rich had sought Jax out for almost any job that needed doing, Rich mostly gave those jobs to a new hire these days.
“He doesn’t like it,” Jax told Chiara, one night, early on.
“Who doesn’t like what?” she asked. They were lying together in the bed of Jax’s truck in the parking lot of an abandoned mill. They had kissed until Jax’s mouth felt bruised and swollen.
“Your dad doesn’t like that I’m dating you.”
“Why do you think that?”
“It’s the way he looks at me.”
She shook her head. “If he didn’t want me to date you, he would have told me that. He doesn’t pull punches. He’s the most honest guy I know.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” she said. “You’re just feeling guilty because of this.”
She indicated them, the two of them, alone, in the dark, what they’d been doing.
He shook his head. “Nope. Not feeling guilty. Not at all. You?”
She was quiet for a moment. “No. No. It’s funny. I feel—I feel free. I feel more me.”
Chiara had said a lot of things to him over the last few weeks. She was generous with words. She told him how much she liked him. How much she liked his hair, his eyes, his hands, the muscles she touched through his flannel shirt and t-shirt and then under his shirts, her hands on his bare skin. She told him she loved being with him.
But of all the things she’d said to him so far, I feel more me was the best. Because if there was anything he wanted, it was to give her the same sense of freedom and possibility she gave him.
“Me too,” he said. He rolled over and touched his mouth to hers again. And—he forgot to worry about Rich, or anything else.
Sometime during the weeks that followed, Jax’s mother started dating Stan, but Jax’s attention wasn’t on Stan. It was on Evan, who needed more doctor’s visits and different kinds of foods and lots of new rules. And on Chiara, who he wanted to be with every second of every day. He wanted to touch her and kiss her and touch her again and in different places, all the places she invited him to—while he marveled at how she touched him back, generously and without fear. When they weren’t touching, they were together, working on the Adventures. Or they were planning for prom night and later that same night, when they would be alone together in a hotel room.
He just wanted to be with her, because—and he knew this even though he had no idea how he knew it—he was in love with her.
“I was so into you,” he said out loud into the quiet of the empty game shop, and saw her whole face go soft and bright.
He wanted to kiss her so bad.
But he also wanted her to know what had happened at his house, while he and Chiara were busy being consumed by their feelings for each other.
He was up and out of his chair then. Pacing. He couldn’t sit still, not for this story. It was bigger than him, bigger than his skin could contain. “I had no fucking idea what my mother and Stan were up to, you know? And then the next thing I knew he’d moved in, and he was around all the time. And then—”
He stopped, faced her. “Before I tell you this, I need to say something.”
She nodded.
“Evan told me I should tell you this. He wanted you to know.”
She shook her head, clearly not getting it, but he needed to get the thought out. It was Evan’s story, Evan’s suffering, and Jax would never tell anyone without Evan’s permission.
“He—Stan—was touching Evan—touching him.” He held her gaze. Swallowed. “And getting Evan to touch him.”
Her face went gray, bloodless. “Evan,�
� she whispered. “Oh, God, Evan.”
“I know,” he said, closing his eyes. “He was eight years old.”
He remembered the look on Evan’s face when Evan had finally told him. The guilt. The confusion. He would never forget that look. Never.
“He begged me not to tell anyone. That’s why I didn’t tell you then.”
Jax had been able to convince Evan to let him tell Rich. He’d pushed because he’d known how much his little brother needed an adult ally.
And this was where Jax had to tell his story very carefully.
He opened his eyes.
“I wanted to go to the cops. But I knew—or thought I knew—what would happen. Maybe Stan would get arrested, but maybe he wouldn’t. But for sure, child protective services would get called in. And if that happened—it wouldn’t take very long before they figured out that my mom was a not-very-functional alcoholic.”
“You didn’t know where Evan would end up,” Chiara said. Very quietly. Very gently.
All he could do was nod.
“I needed to take care of him. I needed to make sure he got into counseling as soon as he could. I had to get him out of there, Chiara. I had to get us out of there.”
Her eyes came up and held his. And held and held. “Of course you did,” she said quietly. “Of course you did.”
30
“God, Jax—I—I wish you’d told me.”
He was standing, turned slightly away from her, his whole body crooked away from her as if to protect himself. But when she said that, he turned back. He looked, suddenly, much older than twenty-eight. Old, wise, and sad.
“I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Evan made me promise not to, and nothing in the world was going to make me break that promise.”
It was funny what could turn your world upside down. Someone leaving. Someone telling you why he’d left.
He looked drained, like it had taken everything out of him to tell her. She stood and moved toward him, reaching out a hand and then dropping it at the last moment. She very much wanted to touch him—stroke his arm or his shoulder, pat his back—but she was a little afraid of herself right now. So she sat still, simply sat still, and let everything settle around her.
“It was smart. Leaving. And brave of you. You were eighteen, but you knew what you had to do.”
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “Well. I don’t know about that. But once it was in my head, the idea of leaving felt like absolutely the only possibility. We had to get far enough away that it wouldn’t be likely that Stan would follow us. Since he owned a bar in Seaside, I didn’t think he would.”
“Does he, still?”
Jax shook his head. “I kept track of him, obviously. He was killed in a drug-related shoot-out three years ago. The bar closed after that. I don’t think Evan would have come back here if he were still alive, no matter how nostalgic he was for his year of Campbells.”
“You think that’s what brought Evan back here? Us?” The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. If it had, she would have invited Evan to a lot more family dinners.
“What else would it be?” Jax asked. “It was just one of many places we lived before Bakersfield. He was reasonably happy in Bakersfield. So why here?”
“Because it’s a good place for a comic and game store?”
“Is it?” Jax asked, eyebrow raised. “I can think of about thirty West Coast locations I would have tried before this one.”
She had to admit, he was right. But the idea of Evan coming all the way to Tierney Bay because of what he’d experienced in the Campbell household…
On the other hand, she knew what his other “home” had been like, and with the addition of this new piece of info, she could understand why the safety and warmth of her childhood home might have held special appeal.
Tears pricked her eyes. For Evan, at eight. And for Jax, at eighteen.
“You’re a really good brother.”
He shook his head, hard. “I let him down, Kee. It was the only thing I could do.”
“You didn’t let him down. Stan abused him. That’s not on you. It’s on Stan. You got him out, you got him counseling—”
He didn’t try to argue with her, but she could see he wasn’t convinced. She wondered how big a piece of the puzzle that was. Was Jax still trying to atone for what he felt like he’d done—or hadn’t done sooner?
“So,” Jax said quietly. “That’s why we left.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she said. “Now I understand.”
Except he hadn’t just left. He had disappeared.
Maybe now wasn’t the time for this question. She could ask it later. There would be another time to probe what had happened after he’d taken Evan to safety.
But he must have seen it on her face.
“You want to know why I ghosted you. After—what—”
His eyes met hers, and she felt the truth of that long ago night pass between them, so real it made her shiver.
They had agreed to have sex for the first time after prom. She had booked a room at an inn further south along the coast, and he had driven two towns over to buy condoms so rumors wouldn’t spread among their family and friends. She’d planned everything exactly—candles, music, new panties and bra.
He’d teased her, as he often did, about her need for planning and order. “Making a list and checking it twice,” he said. “Make sure you put ‘feel good’ on that list, Kee. Wouldn’t want you to forget that part.”
She swatted him.
And then two weeks and a few days before prom, they’d driven to their favorite parking spot in his truck, and they’d curled up in the back together, drawing, storytelling, and talking. And then kissing. Brief sweet kisses that turned into long, deep, begging kisses. She was pure joy that night, absolute freedom. She didn’t think of anything—not the Stanford acceptance on her desk, not what would happen next year, not who she might become some day. Only who she was, right now, fully in her skin. Her joy was hungry. She wanted more of him. They were touching. Hands desperately seeking under clothes. Bodies clinging together, rubbing through clothes, his breath harsh against her ear, against her lips. Her skirt pushed up so she could feel the rough denim of his jeans through just the thin layer of her panties. She unbuttoned him, freed him, and then—it was pure impulse—she said, “Let’s do it. Right now. Let’s not wait.”
“But you have a list.”
“Screw it.”
He got very quiet. “Kee. I don’t want this to be something you regret.”
She shook her head. “I won’t. I promise. I’ve spent my whole life making plans and checking items on a list. I don’t want to be that girl tonight. I want this to be different. I want this to be just about us. I love you, Jax.”
It was the first time she said it, but it didn’t feel hard to say. It felt like the most elemental and obvious truth. Not saying it would have been a hundred times harder.
He looked at her intently, thought about it, and then nodded, like he knew. Like he knew exactly what it meant to her to throw out the list and the rules. How big she felt right then, too big for her own skin. She needed space inside his, too.
“I love you, too,” he said, pulling her close, kissing her like he wanted to stamp the words deep into her, and her whole body felt giddy with it. Then he drew back. “We can leave one thing on the list,” he murmured. “Feel good.”
And then he slid his hand under her panties and got her all wet and ready. He got one of the out-of-town condoms from the truck’s glove box, and he rolled it on, showing her so she’d feel safe. They made love right there in the truck in the dark, cool, late spring nighttime air, as close as it was possible to be, all the space they could make for each other, all the joy and freedom and possibility. They kept on most of their clothes, and they groped and fumbled and laughed and tried again. It was absolutely perfect. Way more perfect than any hotel room and all the candles and music in the world.
She felt like her life was starting.
<
br /> He held her till he had to take her home. When he dropped her off, he said, “You okay?”
“Way better than okay.”
“I don’t want you to regret it. Or feel bad about it. I know you had a plan.”
She shook her head. “No regrets. It felt so good to throw out the plan. It felt so so good.”
He leaned over and kissed her. For a long time. No more words.
She touched his face one more time, got out of the truck and walked into her parents’ house.
That was the last time she saw him for ten years.
She’d waited a decade to ask this question:
“I understand why you didn’t tell me why you were leaving. But what I don’t understand is why you ghosted me.”
What I don’t understand is how you could ghost me after what happened between us that night.
She didn’t say it aloud. She wasn’t ready to make herself that vulnerable, not yet.
At eighteen, she’d formed her own theories: because he hadn’t loved her, because he’d gotten what he’d needed from her and moved on, because it hadn’t been good for him like it had been for her. Because she wasn’t good at it, because she wasn’t what he wanted, because she wasn’t worth sticking around for.
She didn’t want those to be the reasons, but maybe they were.
Later, with the help of friends and family, she’d been able to layer a fuck you on top of those fears and worries. Only a dick would have ghosted her after that. He wasn’t worth her heartbreak. He didn’t get to tell her how to feel about herself.
Now, everything she’d thought she knew dropped away. Waiting for him to answer felt like the longest minutes of her life. For a moment she wasn’t sure he was going to. Then he said, “I know this sounds like the biggest bullshit answer of all time. But you have to believe me, Chiara. I had my reasons, and they made sense to me at the time. And you have to believe me about this, too.” His eyes, the greenest she’d ever seen them, pleaded with her. “I regret it so much, now. You can’t possibly know how much I regret it. If I could take back one thing I’ve ever done, it would be letting you think that night didn’t mean anything to me. It meant so, so much.”
