Wild Ones (The Lane) (5 page)

Chapter Five

So, that had to be a new record.” Jax was back in my doorway, and while he no longer looked horrified, he still appeared to be recovering from shock.

I sighed and scrubbed a hand across my face, my palms stinging from the contact.

“I got jumped, Jax.”

“Clearly.”

I peeked at him through my fingers and saw a half smirk on his face.

He was fighting back the exasperation and mild disgust that were warring for dominance of his features, but he was winning the battle. Just barely. “The real question is, how’s your ass feeling?”

“A little singed,” I confessed and was rewarded with a halfhearted snort. “I really was jumped.”

He raised his hand in a stop gesture. “I don’t need details.”

“Mugged, Jackson. That kind of jumped.” The words weren’t even completely out of my mouth before he was moving across the room, dropping down next to me on the bed. I scooted over to make room for him, slipping under the covers in the process.

He was all concern, any trace of earlier feelings lost in the moment. His hands hovered, a beat of hesitation, before he grasped my arms and hauled me up into a sitting position.

“Fuck, Jax. Don’t add to it.”

His face was all hard planes and sharp angles, a hurricane brewing in his eyes.

“What happened, Bri? How did it happen?”

His hands were roaming, skimming down my arms, flipping back blankets, running down my legs before moving back up to grab face. He was tilting it one side to the other before plunging his fingers deep into my hair and probing the back of my neck and head. He was gentle through all of it. His hands whispered, there but not, and I found myself remembering Brooding’s rough grip on me the night before. Until Jax slid over a spot that made me yelp, jump back and glare at him, effectively pulling me from my thoughts.

“You through, Nurse Young?”

He frowned and sat back, but his stormy eyes continued to roam in his hands’ absence. He wasn’t leering, despite the fact that I was nearly naked. He was taking inventory, assessing the damage no bartender was trained to see.

“Did you see who did it?” he finally asked and his voice matched his eyes, a storm of pent-up emotions threatening to spill out.

I wasn’t scared of his storm. I didn’t seek shelter. I hesitated, though, and that was all the answer he needed.

“Fuck, Bri!” He surged to his feet, hands that had only moments before been gentle with me running through his hair roughly. “Fuck! When are you gonna learn? When the fuck are you gonna stop for two damn seconds and just think?”

I was momentarily taken back, because while I was expecting a reaction, I wasn’t expecting this one. Not with the force of his ire directed toward me. Then I bristled, hackles raised. I was that feral dog let in to sleep at the foot of a nice man’s bed, now backed into a corner and no longer seeing the one who petted me over the years and fed me scraps from his hand. I saw a raised newspaper, the old tormentors, a threat that needed to be neutralized.

“I think all the time! Just because I don’t live like you think I should, I’m a dumbass?” I screamed at him. I didn’t work up to this volume, I started there. I was ready to fight because I was always ready to fight.

“I never called you a dumbass. But if the shoe fits!”

“Who the hell says that?” I sneered and I was aware that my lip was curled up. “‘If the shoe fits.’ Are you ninety?”

“I’m the one who looks after your ass!” His face contorted with rage. “I’m the one that keeps you out of trouble, only I do a shit job of it because I can’t seem to keep you from yourself.”

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. But I wasn’t done. Not even close. Throwing back my blankets, I stumbled out of bed after him, using my anger to block out the screeching protests from my entire body.

I found him in the kitchen, filling up a glass at the sink, his body shaking, a volcano ready to blow.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped at him and he didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge me, and Jax knew how much I hated that. I spent too much of my childhood ignored to stand for it as an adult.

“You really playing that card, Young? Really?”

“What’s it look like?” he shot back, and the knot I wasn’t aware was forming in my chest loosened. “I’m looking after your ass since you’re incapable of it.”

“Is that what this is about?” I threw my hands in the air. “Jax is pissed off because he thinks his job is my personal babysitter? Newsflash, Young, it’s not. No one hired you.”

“No one else wants the fucking job!” He whirled and thrust the glass and a pill at me.

I slapped it out of his hand. It hit the cabinet and exploded, a violent burst of water and glass that rained down on the scratched linoleum. “No one fucking needs it!”

“Damn it, Bri! You’ve needed it from day one!” He was still clutching a glass that wasn’t there, its absence clearly not noted.

“So, what? I’m your good deed? Think they’ll let you into heaven when it’s all over? Is that what’s going on? Trying to find salvation?” My voice was cruel and sharpened at the end, designed to cut.

“They’ll let us both in. Because we’ve already lived in hell.” And his reply was so earnest, so fucking heartfelt, that I could feel the weightless knife in my hand, the one I had crafted with my words, slip and cut my own fingers.

We were standing there, glaring at each other, chests heaving, and I could almost feel the blood pouring from my fist, and it felt so real I had to stop myself from glancing down and checking to see if it was pooling at my feet.

The absurdity of it all hit me and before I knew it was coming, I busted out laughing, hard and unrestrained, but even I could detect the edge in it.

Jax struggled to maintain his heated expression and he was still holding that phantom glass, which made me laugh harder. I was howling, tears streaming down my face, and I remembered I was only wearing underwear and the thought of what I must have looked like with my bed head and smudged makeup and my damn panties with the little hearts all over the ass had me doubling over, clutching my sides. It hurt so bad but I couldn’t stop, and Jax apparently couldn’t help but join in. We were gasping for breath, struggling to speak and laughing harder when we couldn’t.

We both sank down to the floor facing each other, folding our legs Indian-style, knees touching as we tried to contain the laughter. Each time one of us managed it, all it took was eye contact to set us off again.

It was minutes, hours, before we finally were able to get ourselves under control, with only the occasional giggle or snort escaping. I lay back and stretched out my legs, careful to avoid the broken glass and puddles, staring up at the fluorescent light in our drop ceiling, noting the years of grease and dust caked on it. A second later Jax crawled over and lay next to me, shoulder pressed against mine. We were both panting, marathon runners who just crossed the finish line.

“You’re a lunatic,” he finally said, but there was no anger lacing his words now.

“Likewise.”

We lay silently for a few, until our breathing evened out and the last of the laughter died off. He turned his head toward me and I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye.

“So, how did it happen, Bri?” This time his voice was cautious, because he wanted to know and I think maybe he didn’t. “Will you tell me?”

“That depends.” I gave him a wary look.

“On?”

“Whether or not you lose your shit again.”

He shot me a crooked grin and held up his first two fingers. “You have my word. Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a Boy Scout,” I pointed out.

“True. But only because they didn’t approve of my over-the-top sex appeal. Made the other little boys uncomfortable.”

I burst out laughing, the cackling laugh I only allowed to escape in front of Jax. His responding smile was devastating in its size and sincerity, and not for the first time I wondered what kind of person I would have been had Jax and I been capable of feeling anything more for each other. If I could be better, if he could make me better. Would he bring me up or would I drag him down?

Even if there ever were something between us, I don’t think I could ever act on it. Jax was the only one in the world who didn’t expect anything from me. Who was my friend just because he was my friend. He was good.

Not that he was too good for me, but I was too much for him.

“So you gonna tell me?” he pressed and I sighed.

“I’m not sure, but Preach was involved.” I frowned, thinking of the wailing once again. “I think.”

“That old fuck!”

“Jax,” I warned.

He rose up on one elbow and leaned toward me. “I told you about them, didn’t I? Damn it. No.” He shook his head when I started to interrupt. “I’m not gonna ‘lose my shit’ but this deserves an I told you so.”

“You liked him too,” I protested.

“No, I pitied him. Because you pitied him.”

“I don’t pity him—”

He interrupted me before I could continue.

“Fine. Fine. Any less than negative feelings I had for the old fuck was only because you were so damned fond of him. But you can’t trust a crackhead, Bri. Preach might be your friend or whatever it is you consider him, but he’s a junkie first.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve said it all before. I know.”

He lay back again and reached down, taking my hand in his.

“No, you don’t,” he said quietly. “And it’s not even because you see the good in people. You just see the worst in yourself.”

“Going Dr. Phil on me now, Young?” I asked, squeezing his fingers.

He grinned at me, but the edges of it looked a little sad.

“Nah, I’m way too good-looking.”

“And here we are. Back to your good looks and suffocating ego.”

He laughed. “Yeah, well. It needs to be stroked. Speaking of stroked. Luke Turner. How the hell did that happen?”

“Who?” I asked, eyebrows raising in confusion.

He gave me an incredulous look.

“Guy in your bed? Don’t tell me you guys were naked together and you didn’t bother to even get his name.”

“No. I mean, shit, Jax. I got bashed in the head. A few times. Him and his friends helped me out. We didn’t exactly stop for introductions.”

“So, he was just—there? That’s lucky. I guess.”

I didn’t have to be looking at him to pick up the skepticism oozing from his direction. “Apparently. And anyway, how did you know his name?”

“You know Scott? The bar back from Bar 9?” He frowned. “Of course you do. You knew him after a week.”

“It was two weeks actually.”

“Right. I forgot. You’re practically a nun. Anyway. They work out at the same gym. The Coliseum? Over in Old Town? Scott said he’s there all the time. Knows the owner or something.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I commented absently, thinking of his muscles and the way they flexed and rippled with every little movement he had made. Time well spent.

“Is his dick big?”

I looked over at him sharply to see his face poker straight. He shrugged. “What? We like to know that shit too. Sizing up the competition and all that.” He paused and grinned. “Pun unintentional but still fucking brilliant.”

I shook my head, laughing. “I don’t know. You saw as much as I did.”

He gave me a look that told me what he thought of that.

“All right! It’s, from what I could tell, adequate.”

He cocked his head to the side like a puzzled dog. “Adequate? That’s vague. I’m gonna need some comparisons here. Is he bigger than me?”

“For fuck’s sake, Jax, I don’t know.”

“Because,” he continued as though I hadn’t answered him at all, “I’m gonna be super pissed if he is. Motherfucker is built like a damned tank. The least he could do is have a baby dick so whenever I see him I can think, ‘sure, he could probably slaughter me with one finger, probably has the bitches scaling his mountain-sized ass begging to have his abnormally large babies, but at least I have a bigger dick so that makes me the clear winner here.’” He gave me a pleading look. “Come on, Bri. Let me have this. Tell me his dick is tiny and looking at it made you want to cry.”

I could barely breathe through my cackling. “I can’t do this with you, Young. I—” Laughter overtook me completely as Jax jutted out his lower lip and batted his eyelashes. “Oh, God, stop! You’re killing me.”

“Just say it,” he whined in a high-pitched voice, reaching over to grasp my forearm with both hands. “Say, ‘Jax, your dick is huge and Luke Turner’s, whose name I didn’t even know, is like a baby’s and seeing it made me weep.’”

“Yes, that,” I said through my uncontrollable giggles. “Whatever you say. Lord, just stop with the eyes! I’m dying!”

“Oh, thank God.” He slumped over to lie next to me again and looked down at his crotch. “We dodged that bullet, Thor. We’re still the champs.” He glanced over at me with a wink. “Oh, yeah. I renamed him Thor. Like the God of Thunder? I don’t think I need to explain why.”

I was still grinning so wide my face threatened to crack, laughter echoing in my chest. “Thank you for keeping me up-to-date on the latest happenings in your pants. I appreciate it.”

“Not a problem.” He took my hand once more. “I know how you like to stay informed.”

We spent another half hour or so like that, laughing and teasing and generally just being us, something I don’t think we ever really got to do away from each other. At least I didn’t. After a while, when my mind started to wander, Jax squeezed the hand still in his grasp to get my attention. I pulled myself from my thoughts, which kept straying back to Preach and the newly named Turner, to look over at him.

“Think you ought to go to the hospital?”

I shook my head firmly and didn’t have to elaborate further because Jax, of all people, knew. Servers don’t have insurance and they sure as hell don’t have the money to pay a hefty E.R. bill and still pay the rest of their bills. He didn’t offer me the money he didn’t have or say we could skip out on the electricity, and I was grateful because, to me, that was a real friend. One who accepted the situation and your decision and didn’t try to argue it. Even if they did have a misguided notion that it was their job to keep you out of trouble.