Page 31 of Attraction & Repulsion

He rested against the back of his chair, never letting go of her hand. “You haven’t given me a chance to say anything.” There it was again, his mouth twitching with even more mirth than before.

Her own mouth opened to argue except thinking back on all their conversations, she had interrupted him over and over again. “Oh.”

“Am I allowed to talk now?”

She nodded.

“When I tried to kiss you by the river, I wasn’t thinking about your accident and what happened to Luke. I was caught in the moment. And I felt like a total asshole. When we were riding back to the truck, I knew that I needed to give you your space. Thenyoukissed me, and the way you kissed me said everything you’ve been trying to explain to me. I didn’t ask you to dinner because I expected something from you. I asked because I like being in your company.” He smirked at her. “You’re pretty cool.”

She blinked at his last statement.Cool?She was a total mess, and he thought she was cool? “Seriously?”

“The coolest.”

“You might be the crazy one,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“I think you’re more than just cool, Carson.” Jax’s deep-sea eyes caught fire, and flames spread to consume Carson’s attention. “I also don’t want this to be just a friendship.”

Ice froze her lungs. So Carson wasn’t imagining everything. Jax had feelings for her too. Suddenly, this scared her. A lot. All of her courage was gone. Disappeared. Goodbye.

She could never be with Jax. She could never be with anyone. Eventually they would want progression, and that meant exposure, mentally and physically. She could never open up to satisfy them—to satisfy Jax. And she couldn’t do that to him: a relationship with no next step, never moving forward, stagnant, keeping secrets, and telling lies. Would she do that to herself?

Why were they even talking about a relationship when Carson’s body and mind were so ugly? Jax deserved so much more.

Ripping her hand from his, Carson stood, the chair grating and makingher ears recoil. “Please forgive me,” she stammered. “I should have never done this to you.”

Not waiting for a reply, she spun and rushed past the old couple, who were now sharing a piece of carrot cake, and dashed out the door. The tsunami wave that had unfolded over the past couple of days now swallowed her up, and she was drowning.

“Carson, wait!” Jax called from behind her, his footsteps thumping down the wooden ramp and into the parking lot. Before Carson could open her truck door, he caught her. “What do you mean? Done what to me?”

She whirled to find creases sitting between his eyebrows. His mouth was open, confused.

“Led you on. You don’t want someone like me.” Carson’s words shook, distorted with shame and self-hate.

“What’s going on?” Jax asked. When his hand extended out to her, she shrank away from it, cowering. “Did I say something?”

It was the pain in his voice that stopped her. Carson was already hurting him, and they hadn’t even begun. “I can’t give you what you want.”

The lines on Jax’s forehead grew larger. “How do you know what I want?”

“I know you wouldn’t want this.”

“If you’re implying I don’t want you, then you clearly don’t know what I want,” Jax said, his eyes narrowing.

“I come with too much baggage. Trust me, I’m not worth it.” She spat the words at him like her mother had done to her.

“Baggage?” He almost laughed. No, he did laugh. “You think I wouldn’t want to be with you because you have baggage? Everyone has baggage. I have baggage. I have a gold-digging ex-wife that will always fight for mymoney. I had a father who—who . . . I had gotten myself into some trouble. If anything,youshouldn’t want to be withme.”

Carson drew back, shocked that Jax thought he had baggage. That was all minuscule luggage compared to hers. A carry-on. A wallet.

Jax had no idea what she was talking about. Tempted to blurt out the real reason, Carson bit her tongue. Maybe the only way she could convince him was by showing him her mangled scars. She bit her tongue harder.

“You’re jumping to conclusions,” Jax said. “We just met. There doesn’t have to be expectations.”

She exhaled from her nose, warming the tip of it. “Eventually, you’re going to have expectations and needs that I won’t be able to give you.”

“You’re crossing a bridge that hasn’t been built. It may never be built.”

“It’s built in my mind.”

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