Page 81 of Jax

That isn’t what I was expecting.

It had been almost four weeks now since Jax demanded we would talk about that night after the storm. It had been almost a month since then that Jax had rebutted my request for a talk. After two failed attempts, it wasn’t unsurprising that I had just accepted that the talk was never coming. Out of all the conversations Wolf could have instigated between me and Jax, this was not the one I would have guessed. Maybe something more on the lines of “Go home” or “You’re no longer welcome here.”

“Come back to me, Ronnie.” Jax chuckled, earning my attention.

“What?”

“You drifted off a bit there.”

Jax looked more amused at my daydreaming than I was as I looked down to see us sitting on a bench made solely of hay bales.

“All right then.” I sat up straight, giving my body a jiggle, the very faint tightness over my chest nothing more than a mild nuisance nowadays as I settled myself in. “Let’s talk.”

“Right.” Jax took in a deep breath, brushing his hair back over his head for the third time since I walked in. Was he nervous? I wasn’t sure whether I found that endearing or unsettling. “Where do I even start?”

“Well, there’s the sex. The foreplay in the barn. The kiss before you went on that “run” as you call it. Not to mention when you woke up in bed with me after that night of drinking. Half-naked, I might add.”

“You’ve compiled quite a list there.” Jax chuckled, but it didn’t feel honest. “And looking at it now, it seems I’ve done everything in the wrong order.”

“Are you saying I should have gotten smashed and woken up half-naked with you first?”

“Well, it is a step down from the sex, that’s for sure.”

“You were never a conventional man,” I quipped, earning a small, sympathetic smirk.

“That’s true….” His voice drifted off, more of a mumble to himself than to me, and his head sunk forward a little.

I waited in the silence, just watching him as his frown deepened and lips twitched. He was organizing his thoughts, his face unable to stay still or placid as his mind ran in circles. It seemed to be a trait we both shared. Looked like we both weren’t thinking people.

“Okay,” Jax breathed, back straightening with a slap of his thighs. “I’m ready.”

“All right, Superman, hit me.”

Jax’s tongue peaked from his mouth as he licked his dry lips. My eyes were drawn to the movement and I didn’t notice he had moved his hands to mine until I felt the roughness of his fingers. With a gentle move, he slid his fingers under my palms and pulled my hands until he could wrap around them, the tips of his hands reaching all the way down to my wrist. “When I said I wanted to be friends with you, Ronnie, I meant it. I wanted to repair the relationship we had.”

“Oh my God,” I gasped, feeling the words hit me hard in the chest. “Are you friend-zoning me?”

“No!” Jax snapped. “I’m not friend-zoning you, Ronnie.”

“You totally are!” I gasped, trying to jerk my hands back, but he grasped them tight. “You regret everything about our night together! That’s why you didn’t have sex with me again! That’s why we deescalated. You wanted to let me off easy. You wanted to—”

The taste of dry dirt and hay hit my tongue and my voice was smothered. I tried to scream and bite, and even resorted to licking the palm pressed against my lips in an attempt to get free, but Jax didn’t retreat. He held tight to my face, not letting another word escape.

“Goddammit, Ronnie, will you let me speak for once?” His impatience came through, and my body stilled. Frustration rolled off him in waves, and he gave me a hard glare, making my fight relent against him. Not all the way but just enough for him to give him chance to speak again. “I’m not friend-zoning you. I’m trying to tell you the exact opposite if you’d let me get a word in.”

The opposite of friend-zoning… that meant…

Oh.

Jax must have read some clarity in my eyes, because his hand softened against my face, giving me one last hard look. “I’m going to let you go, okay?” Jax warned. “But you’re not to say a word until I’m done. Understand?”

Waiting until I gave a nod, he let me go, the smothering scent of his hands replaced by the refreshing, humid breath of air. I opened my mouth, and Jax fixed me with a sharp glare.

I shut my mouth.

“When I said I wanted to be friends with you, I meant that my request was genuine. I did want to fix my relationship with you. But as much as I pretended that it was just friends I wanted, that it was just to have the same relationship with you that I had in the past, I couldn’t ignore the truth. I didn’tjustwant friendship from you, Ronnie. I wanted more.” Jax paused, reaching once more for the hands on my lap as he brought them into his own. His finger rubbed over the back of my hands, the motion repetitive and soothing. “I was a dick about it, I know. I wanted to believe it was only physical from you. Even after that night I got shot. But I wasn’t ready to accept that. But I was even less ready to tell you that and hurt you. That’s why I couldn’t talk to you. I wasn’t ready to accept whatever it was between us. I could see it in your eyes. See it in mine when I looked in the mirror. But I didn’t want to give you false hope. I didn’t want to hurt you if it wasn’t real.”

“That’s why you kept putting off our talk….”

---