by Lainey Reese
“Well, I took him up on the offer and one thing led to another—”
“Andie,” Jax said in a perplexed voice, “I didn’t exactly think you were a virgin. Why are you telling me this?”
“You see, well…” She hesitated and rubbed her palms nervously on her thighs. “God, I don’t know which bombshell to launch first.”
“Bombshell?” he asked with his brows raised.
“Bombshells,” she answered, nodding with an earnest expression. “I have two, and they are both doozies. I guess I’ll just give you the old one-two punch and be ready with smelling salts.” She sent him a smile that trembled at the edges as she tried to lighten the mood.
“Yeah,” Jax answered half joking. “Spit it out. What happened? Did he give you an STD?”
“Not exactly,” she hedged.
“Not exactly?” Jax felt a cold chill race up his spine. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“He gave me something, all right, but it’s not contagious—” Andie squinted at him and hunched her shoulders like she was bracing for an explosion. “—and I’ll be over it in about nine months.”
If she had told him she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra, she wouldn’t have surprised him more. Jax took the news like a physical blow and actually stumbled back a pace. “Wow, Andie. I did not see that coming.” With his mind racing, Jax had a million questions for her. The only problem was they were buzzing around in his head so fast he couldn’t latch onto a single one. They zipped too quickly for him to focus. Just as he opened his mouth for the third time with no sound coming forth, Andie landed that second blow she warned him about.
“My one-night stand was with Luke.”
Jax went rigid, and all his frantic thoughts froze in place. He whipped his gaze from where he’d been staring at Andie’s midriff to her worried face.
“Luke Baxter?” he asked, though he knew the universe was too unkind for it to be any other than him.
“Yes. That Luke.” She continued to look at him with eyes as big as saucers while his mind, which had been a nonstop whirl seconds before, was now as empty and desolate as a desert.
“How long have you known?” he asked while he felt as if he’d been gutted.
“I just found out today.” She made a move toward him with her arms extended as though she wanted to hug him. Jax didn’t think he had it in him to keep his cool if she touched him, so he stepped back with a tilt of his head that had her stopping in her tracks and whipping those hands behind her back.
“I swear, I didn’t even know I was late for my period or had any clue until today.” When Jax raised a brow at her in question, Andie continued. “I was on the phone with my friend Kiki, and I was complaining because of how tired and weak I’ve been feeling. Then all of a sudden, I just threw up for no reason. And it all fell into place.” She looked down at her feet then and said, “I ran straight for the drug store and took the test. Well, more than one, because I was hoping it was wrong. But it wasn’t. I’m pregnant.”
“I gotta sit down.” Jax added actions to words and fell into one of the kitchen chairs like his legs had lost the ability to hold him up any longer. “Did you…” He looked at her and dreaded the answer to his next question as much as he needed to ask it. “Did you tell Luke already?”
“Yes,” she told him as she pulled out a chair and sat across from him at the table. “I drove straight there from the drug store.”
“How’d he take it?” Jax asked, marveling a little that he wasn’t more freaked out. And there were so many things for him to be freaked over too. Maybe I’m in shock, he thought humorlessly.
“Better than I thought he would,” Andie said with a wondering shake of her head. “I was sure he would be mad or try to talk me into getting rid of it or something. He didn’t though. He was kinda great about it really. It was nice. Threw me for a loop, but nice all the same.”
“Fuck, Andie.” Jax looked her in the eye for five fuming seconds then dropped his head back to stare sightlessly at the ceiling. “Shit. What are you going to do? I really like you. But… there’s history with Luke and me, and Goddamn, this—” His hands lifted in the air for a moment then plopped onto the table. “—sucks.”
“Yeah,” Andie agreed. “It really does.”
That brought Jax’s head up, and he looked back at her. “Yeah?”
“Of course, yeah!” Andie said with an incredulous look on her face. “I’m single. Luke and I only had a one-night stand.” She sent him a withering glance. “Which didn’t end well, I might add. And now I’m dating you. And I was really starting to like you. Then this happens, and everything is crazy and unpredictable, and I’m scared. I was already scared about running the farm. Now, I’ve got a whole new truckload of things to be scared about, and if I think about it too much, I’ll go insane.”
“Andie.” Jax looked across the table and felt a strange sense of déjà vu. “I’ve been in love once in my life. Luke got to her first too. This can’t be real. It just can’t.” With frustration and disillusionment swirling in his head like toxic fumes, Jax braced his elbows on the table and face-planted into his palms as he tried to sort out his thoughts.
“Luke told me about Christy.”
That brought Jax’s head up with a start. “When did you talk to him about that?” he asked. As far as he knew, Luke never talked to anyone about what happened all those years ago.
“Today.” She had an expression in her eyes that he was having trouble interpreting.
“Why’d he bring that up?” Jax couldn’t for the life of him understand why Luke would bring up the topic without a court order, considering his stalwart refusal to engage the few times Jax tried to hash things out with the guy.
“Because I told him about us.” At his barely audible “You did?” Andie nodded and went on. “I told him that you and I have been spending a lot of time together and I really like you. I also told him that if you were willing, I wanted to see where this might lead. I’m not going to sit at home alone every night just because this happened.”
Jax was instantly at war with himself at her words. He wanted more than anything to reach out and drag her across the table and finish what they started a moment ago. On the other hand, in the past, he’d been in love with the same woman as Luke Baxter, and the results had been disastrous. The fallout was nowhere near worth that first stolen moment of pleasure.
“Andie,” he started with his heart heavy as lead in his chest. “I don’t know what he told you about Christy, but I’m sure you don’t know the whole story.”
She reached a hand out and touched her cool, trembling fingers to the back of his. “I know he walked in on you two having sex in his house and that the two of you fought. Then you and Christy ran away together.” When Jax nodded solemnly at that, her fingers tightened in an encouraging squeeze. “I never thought for a second I had the whole story. I also want you to know that the man I’ve grown to know and care for isn’t the reckless boy Luke described.”
Humbled by her, Jax had to swallow a couple times before he could speak. “You have no idea what that means to me.”
“What?” Andie asked with a wrinkle on her brow.
“That you could say that even before you’ve heard my side. Only knowing the bare facts, and let’s face it, they make me out to be a Class A dick, you are still sitting there open and understanding.” He had to stop and take another breath to get his emotions under control. “You have no idea what that means to me. I grew up here. In this small, backwater, close-knit community where everybody knows everybody else. The whole town knows what happened, and not one of them understood or even cared to hear it from my side.” He locked his eyes on hers. “Until you.”
“That’s hardly fair,” she said and gave another encouraging squeeze.
“Luke and I had been best friends since grade school. I never got why he liked me at first. I was a scrawny kid. The dorky outcast who was usually the brunt of all the class pranks.”
“Um
m.” Andie had a look on her face that bolstered his ego far more than mere words could have. She looked incredulous and skeptical. “You? Seriously? How is that possible?”
“I’ll show you pictures some time. I was gangly and I sulked a lot. Things were not great at home. Jackass stepdad who liked to use his belt a bit too much and his fists a lot too much. Made me a quiet and angry kid.” At her sound of pity, Jax shrugged, having long ago worked through his anger over an unjust childhood. “But Luke somehow took to me. He was the golden boy from the first day of school. The whole town loves him, and they always have. Not just the teachers but the kids too. He was the ‘it’ guy, you know? And he and I just sort of clicked. He accepted me, never questioned me about what was going on at home, never looked down on me, even when I showed up to school in his cast-off clothes his mother donated to the church clothing drive one year. They were miles too big on me, and half the class recognized they were Luke’s, so naturally they told the other half. But Luke just took me as I was and wouldn’t stand for any of the other kids tearing into me.”
At the memories of those first months of Luke’s friendship, Jax felt the familiar warmth seep into him again. “I didn’t trust him at first. Thought it was a trick and one day I was going to go off in the woods with him and find the whole class there for some epic beatdown. But it never happened. For whatever reason, Harmony’s golden boy took me under his wing and became the closest thing to real family I’ve ever known.”
When Jax looked up from where he’d been staring at their clasped hands, it was to see Andie gazing at him with eyes bright as jewels from unshed tears.
“It’s not as bad as all that. I doubt it’d make for an afternoon special on Lifetime anyway. But the thing is, from grade school on, we were a set. I was a late bloomer on top of everything else. I stayed small and scrawny while the other kids filled out and got deeper voices. It didn’t help that we live in a town where country music is practically the eleventh commandment. I liked angry metal back then. The harder the better. I wore all black and pierced everything I could think of. All through high school, my hair was either shaved into a Mohawk or dyed jet-black and scraggly. I never had a girlfriend or even dated. Luke was the only one I hung with. I was too shy to break out of my shell, even with Luke there encouraging me to try. Whenever we’d be out with his gang, I always hung in the background. Didn’t talk much and didn’t talk at all to the girls.
“Then Christy came into the picture. She moved to town when we were all about fifteen or so. Luke didn’t like her at first, thought she was spoiled and full of herself. I fell hard, Andie. It was like some stupid movie. I took one look at her, and it was like the world was no longer black. I started following her around at school. I’d just happen to be at her bank of lockers between classes, and I’d carry her books for her. I’d do stupid shit like write her poems.” At her “Aww” he smirked at her. “Really awful poems. Bring her wildflowers after she got out of church on Sundays. Shit like that. She didn’t exactly ignore me. Looking back now, I see she only gave me enough attention to make sure I didn’t lose hope and would keep clinging to her shadow. I don’t know why. Maybe she just liked having a lap dog; it boosted her ego or something. But whatever her reasoning, it worked, and I never gave up hope that one day she would see me. One day, she would love me as much as I loved her.”
Jax couldn’t sit still any longer and got up to stare out the window. With his back to Andie, he got the rest out while he watched the sun set in a blaze of oranges and reds that made him crave a Tequila Sunrise.
“I never told Luke how I felt about her. He was my best friend, but I wasn’t his only friend, and he never knew how I was mooning over her. Then one summer when we were at a bonfire, he saw her in cutoffs and a bikini top. He watched her stop some big kid from bullying a littler kid. It was probably the only unselfish thing she’s ever done, and it’s crossed my mind more than once since then that it was no accident it happened right in front of Luke. Anyway, he saw it and the rest was history.
“I’d been trailing after her for almost two years and got nowhere. He smiled at her once, and she skipped over to him like a trout on a line. And that was it. Worst night of my miserable life up to that point. Sitting at the bonfire watching Luke make out with the girl I’d been writing poetry to and dreaming about for two years. Moody, pouty kid that I was, I envisioned just throwing myself in the fire and ending it all right then.
“But… he was nuts about her after that. It wasn’t like when he was with the girlfriends he had before. He really loved her too, and I couldn’t hate him for that. And with all he’d always done for me over the years, I felt like it was only right he get the best girl in town. So I sat back as a third wheel and watched them get closer and closer. They were inseparable, and I knew he was gonna propose to her after graduation. The whole town knew it. Then she got pregnant.” He hadn’t thought about it for years. Not like this, reliving his emotions from beginning to end, and it was torturous. The crushing disillusionment, the devastating grief that only a mixed-up teen with unrequited love could feel.
Jax rested his forehead against the window and closed his eyes as he spoke words that still brought pain and regret in equal measure. “She hated being pregnant. And she was scared. Scared of frivolous things, girly things like stretch marks and swollen ankles. She was miserable and lonely, because all her friends pulled away. I didn’t see it then, but she was a shallow person who put herself first all the time, so the only friends she had were just like her.” He warily waved a hand then scrubbed roughly at the back of his neck before continuing. “They melted away like butter in the sun when her life got messy.
“So, she had me. Luke was freaked out too, but he stepped up and got his ass to work. He was determined to live up to this kid and make things work. Christy didn’t see it like that. She was sure he felt trapped and was working so hard just to avoid spending time with her. Nothing he or even I could say would make her see it any other way.” Jax wiped his hands on his back pockets and wished he hadn’t given up smoking; he could sure use a cigarette right about now.
“Fast forward to a couple months after the baby was born, and I’m spending every day with her while Luke is working. I’m helping with the baby and keeping her company and watching the girl I loved more than anything cry every day about how sad she was. How neglected and lonely. And when she wasn’t crying and complaining, she was flirting. I’d never even kissed a girl before, and here I was day-in and day-out with the most popular girl at school. The girl I’d been pining for since I first laid eyes on her two years ago, and she’s flirting with me. She kept finding reasons to hug me, and her hugs got longer and became this full body press that set my heart racing like a jackhammer. She was always touching me too. She liked to trail her fingers in my hair, tell me how silky it was, shit like that. I was on fire daily. I jacked off so much I was afraid I was going to break the damn thing in two.”
“Jax.” Andie’s voice was rough with unshed tears, and he couldn’t bring himself to turn and face them with the old hurts and loneliness coming to the surface like this. He shook his head a little to keep her where she was and let him finish getting this out.
“She didn’t breastfeed Logan. She had a different excuse every time someone brought it up, but I think the truth was she was just too selfish to do something so intimate and selfless as breastfeed. But that day, she’s holding him and wearing this skimpy little sundress and says to me how she thinks she’d been wrong about breastfeeding and maybe she should try it.”
“Oh no,” Andie said, and he could hear both understanding and forgiveness in the two small words.
“Yeah. Oh no,” Jax answered. “She lowers her top. All the way so both her breasts are out, because she said she didn’t have any ‘fancy nursing clothes.’ Other than movies and the internet, I’d never seen naked breasts, and I couldn’t take my eyes away. She fusses and holds him to first one and then the other, and I swear to God it was the most beautiful thing
I’d ever seen. She finally puts the baby down, because of course, after months of nothing, she didn’t have any milk, and the baby didn’t know how to nurse on anything but a bottle. Then she takes her sweet time pulling her clothes back on.”
Jax lifted his hands out to his sides. “I snapped. I couldn’t take it any more. I’d had nine months of her telling me how Luke was forcing her to have a baby she didn’t want and then two months of her crying and clinging to me about how awful her life was. And then she was just sitting there, staring at me with one breast still exposed, and she bit her lip. Then I watched her nipple contract as she tweaked it on the strap of her gown as she was adjusting it. I pounced. I was all over her, and she was kissing me back and gasping out how long she’d been waiting for me to touch her, and I couldn’t have stopped if the house caught on fire.”
With the worst of it out, Jax was finally able to turn and face her. Andie had tears steadily dripping from her eyes; they rolled unheeded down her cheeks as she watched him. Sympathy for the misfit young boy he used to be was pouring out of her as clear to see as her shining hair.
“I’m sure Luke detailed the ass-whooping that followed.” He rested his backside against the windowsill and crossed his arms over his chest. “That night, she snuck in my window. She was sobbing, saying after I left he beat her. He didn’t, of course, but back then, I believed it and wanted to kill him. She told me he’d thrown her out, and since her parents wanted nothing to do with her since she’d told them she was pregnant, I was all she had. She begged me to take her away. So, I did.
“I had money saved up from having worked since I was fourteen at different odd jobs. I’d been saving to get out of town myself. So, we piled into my old beater and drove off in the middle of the night.” With a sigh, feeling like he’d aged about a dozen years in the retelling, Jax pushed off from the window and came back to his seat. “It was about six months when the money ran out and I realized I wasn’t any more to her than a free ride out of her responsibilities. She’d always wanted to be a dancer, so we went to New York, both of us sure she’d make it big. When she didn’t get even one job and had trouble just getting into auditions, she wanted me to take her to L.A. I couldn’t. By that time, we were broke, and she refused to get a job that wasn’t dancing. I could barely keep us in our rundown studio apartment in the slums, but she wanted me to pull money outta thin air and take her across the country.” He shook his head at the memory. Her spoiled selfishness and his complete lack of self-worth always baffled him in hindsight. How could she have been so callous? And how in the hell could he have been so blind to it? “Well, she found someone with deeper pockets than I had, and one night, just like she—we—did to Luke, she was gone and I never heard from her again.”
