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“Yeah. I’m jealous she got to do it and I didn’t.”
Jax drank as I gave him a secret once-over. He looked tired, sore, beat up. However long his shift had been, it hadn’t been kind to him. At the moment, he looked even more ragged than the rest of the patrons here.
Still…
There was something intrinsically sexy about this man sitting here at the bar, a cold beer in his hand at the end of a long, shitty day. Setting my hate for him aside for the moment, Jax was admittedly edgy. Refreshingly raw. He wasn’t trying to be something or someone he wasn’t, and made no apologies for the person he was. Ever.
We drank in silence for a while, as I tried not to remember our night together. I couldn’t help it, though. The coppery scent of him, the heat of his presence on the barstool beside me… these things just wouldn’t let me forget.
“So, what did you do to her?” I finally asked.
“Who?”
“The woman who rearranged your face.”
Jax slid a hand through his hopelessly tangled mop of hair before returning it to the side of his pint glass. Sighing wearily, he stared down into his beer.
“Yeah, well she was on PCP, and her boyfriend was ODing on God knows what,” he began slowly. “Then she started beating on me as I was trying to resuscitate him, and that’s when he threw up in my mouth.”
Every inch of my exposed skin broke out in goosebumps. I sat there in stunned silence.
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, he was there too,” Jax said wearily. “I know this, because the guy took every drug on the fucking planet and somehow he lived.”
I tried picturing the scene in my mind’s eye, but just couldn’t. Jax had been riding in ambulances for a long time. I hadn’t thought much about it before, but it occurred to me now that he’d seen some serious shit.
“Sounds like the guy lived because you saved him,” was all I could say.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“And he… he threw up in your mouth?”
“Sure did,” he somehow managed to smirk. “On the inhale, too. Worst care scenario.”
“My God…”
“Which reminds me, I’m gonna need at least one more beer to forget the taste.”
Jax drained his glass, ordered another, then slid from his stool. I sat transfixed as he crossed the bar and entered the men’s room. The door swung shut behind him.
Five seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen.
The decision to hop and follow him wasn’t a conscious decision at all.
~ 24 ~
HARPER
I knew where my legs were taking me, I just didn’t know why. Something told me it didn’t matter. This was something that just had to be done.
CLICK.
Jax looked up as I engaged the bathroom’s deadbolt, locking the door behind us. He was standing with his hands on the sink, staring directly into the mirror. His whole face was wet. His stubbled chin still dripped with water.
“Jax…”
His gaze shifted to mine, still within the confines of the mirror. But he hadn’t moved. I could see the stress coiled in his arms, his shoulders, even his face. I could see the battlescars on his cheek, and around his eye.
