Chapter 160
“Arcadia Bloom. Doubt you’ve heard of them. It’s a band my friends are obsessed with.”
“Well, you don’t need more leave. Michigan’s only a four-hour flight from Seattle. I’ll book you a ticket, Friday evening after work, or Saturday morning. You don’t work weekends, do you?”
“No,” I admit. “Ziggler likes having the shop to himself on Saturdays.”
“Then it’s settled. Come. Your mother misses you. She may not mention it, but she does.”
It’s been over four months since I saw her. And I miss her too, terribly. “She definitely mentions it,” I say quietly. “A bunch.”
And I do miss home, I really do. The ache’s there if I stop to feel it.
But then....Jax.
A whole weekend away? I know it sounds dumb, borderline pathetic, but that’s a whole lot of fucking hours not near him.
“Settled then?” Dad asks,all chipper.
I swallow. “I don’t know. That’s a bit sudden.”
There’s a pause, then his familiar chuckle. “What, are you slowly turning into one of those kids who move away and only come back for Christmas?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s not that. I swear it’s not. I miss you guys. Heather’s literally saying full sentences now, and I’m missing all of it—”
“Then what’s the problem?” Dad cuts in smoothly. “Don’t tell me it’s jet lag. Because I haven’t forgotten the time you and your siblings booked a flight to Indianapolis just to watch that motor race. What was it? The Grand Prix? With school the next morning? You were zombies in class for a week.”
I laugh under my breath, shaking my head at the memory. The restaurant hums around me, but I can feel Jax’s attention right here, sharp and close. Watching me....waiting.
I don’t want to spend the whole date with my phone glued to my ear.
“Let me sleep on it,” I tell Dad gently. “I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”
“All right,” he says, warm but knowing. “I’ll book you a flight just in case. Worst that happens, you cancel. Think about it. Goodnight, son.”
“Goodnight.”
The line clicks dead. I set the phone back down on the table, exhale slowly. “Sorry,” I murmur.
“For what?” Jax asks, voice low, he glances at me. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I spear a piece of beef, chew, swallow, then answer. “My dad wants me to visit home in a couple of weeks. Just for a weekend.”
“Michigan...” Jax says more than asks.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“You gonna go?”
I hesitate, then shrug. “I don’t know yet.”
He just nods, the same slow rhythm, and goes back to stirring the pot. No comment, no press. But I feel the weight of the silence anyway. It stretches until Jax finally speaks. “Why don’t you know?” His tone is even, but I catch the genuine curiosity beneath it. “You’re always saying how much you miss them.”
“I do,” I say softly, almost before he’s finished. My chest tightens. “But I’m scared there’s someone I’ll miss even more if I go.”
He’s still turned toward the hotpot, chopsticks moving, shoulders set like he’s bracing against something. His gaze flicks to me, quick and sharp, then back down. I take a breath and let the weight lift from my shoulders a little. “I’ll think it over,” I say, quieter now, my knee brushing against his under the table. “Two weeks is a long time.”
After dinner, we step out into the night, the air cool against my skin. Jax has the takeout bag hooked in one hand, the other reaching out and resting on his bike’s handlebar.
“The food was really good,” I tell him, “We should come back here more often.”
He doesn’t answer.
Instead, he turns, the streetlight catching on his profile. There’s a look in his eyes....something caught between grit and surrender, like he’s holding back a war only he can hear. My chest tightens at the sight of it. I narrow my eyes, watching him, before my hand lifts almost on instinct. I thread my fingers through his hair, tug gently. “What is it?”
He gives me a look, stubborn and closed....but then his walls slip, just enough. “I don’t wanna be any more selfish than I already am.”
My brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
His jaw flexes. He exhales like the words burn coming out. “Having you like this, like I do, it feels like I’m finally taking something for myself. Something I want so fucking bad. And I’m ignoring every voice in my head telling me I don’t get to keep it. I’m holding onto you anyway. That’s already more selfish than I’ve ever let myself be.”
The words strike deep, coil heat and ache in the pit of me. My throat works around them, but nothing comes out. He shakes his head, eyes flicking down, then back up again, unflinching this time.
“I’m not trying to pile more on. But fuck....half the time I can barely make it through the few hours while you’re at work. Even when we grab lunch together, it feels like too long...”It strikes me more than the words themselves, the way he’s saying them. No dragging silence, no teeth pulled, no fight in me to pry him open. He’s just handing them over, unpolished and real. And that’s the part that undoes me. Because for Jax, speaking like this isn’t small, it’s fundamental. It’s proof that he trusts me enough to let me see the soft, unguarded places he keeps hidden from the rest of the world. It feels like standing at the center of something sacred, and all I can do is hold it carefully, like it’s more than I ever thought I’d be given.
“The thought of a whole weekend without you...” He stops, shoulders stiff, then lets out a low laugh, rough and uneven. He tips his head, glancing at me with something sharp and unguarded in his gaze. Then with a full on accusatory tone, he says, “You’re turning me into one of those people.”
My lips part, a little helpless. “What people?”
He smirks, but it’s soft at the edges, like the fight’s already gone out of him. “The overly attached kind.”