Page 27 of Jacked and Jaded

He knew his dad had every right to say what he did. He’d watched her grow up same as Jackson had. His dad might be a hard ass to most people, but he had a soft spot for Calliope and her mom.

“I know I’ve used the age difference to keep us apart, but I’m done doing that now. I hate that it took almost losing her for me to get my head out of my ass. Sitting in that hospital room watching her sleep, looking like she’d been worked over with a ball bat, I did a lot of thinking. I’m done fighting my feelings for her. So what if I’m eight years older than her. I know things are going to be hard in the beginning because I’ve kept something important from her, but I’m not letting her go. I’ll fight Calliope herself to keep her.”

“Glad to hear it.” He clapped Jackson on the arm. “Shouldn’t she be done by now?”

“Yeah. That was what I was just thinking. I’m going to see if she needs help getting off the toilet.”

9

“Calliope?” Jackson knocked on the bathroom door. “Are you all right? Do you need help?”

Calliope couldn’t believe she was going to have to have Jackson help her off the toilet. How embarrassing. Would her humiliation know no end? She’d been able to get herself down on the seat by letting gravity and her thigh muscles do all the work. Getting up, though, was impossible. Inwardly resigning herself to the fact that, despite her best efforts, she could not get off the toilet by herself, she sighed heavily and responded. “Yes. I need your help.” She watched the door knob turn and Jackson’s head peak around the door.

“Can’t get up?” He chuckled.

“No.” Even to her own ears, she sounded defeated.

He pushed the door open and came inside, leaving the door open behind him. She assumed the bedroom door was closed and was confident that Maverick wouldn’t come back this way unless one of them yelled for help. “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.” He leaned down, shoved his arms under her arm pits and lifted her effortlessly. It didn’t even hurt.

“Turn around so I can pull up my pants.” She appreciated that he didn’t take advantage and check out her nakedness from the waist to mid thigh. She waited for him to do as she asked, then tried to bend forward. She flinched at the sudden sharp pain her efforts caused.Son of a bitch, that hurt.She shuffled closer to the sink, intending to use it for support. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and was horrified. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess and it was going to take forever to comb the knots out of her curls.

Logically, she knew the pain she’d been feeling in her face meant she’d been hit, but seeing the damage for the first time with her own eyes shocked her. She’d seen women that had been physically abused on tv and in the movies, but never, not once, had she ever thought she’d be one of them. How had her life gotten so messed up?

Seeing that she looked like she’d been run over by a car, she wanted a shower in the worst possible way. Then she remembered the cast on her arm and her shoulders slumped. She could feel tears welling in her eyes. How was she supposed to take a shower with this thing on? That was it. She couldn’t take any more. The tears slipped down her cheeks and there was not stopping them. She must’ve made some kind of noise, a sniffle, a a moan, something, because Jackson spun around and the look of concern on his face did her in.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” He glanced down. “Can’t you get your pants up?”

“No,” she replied on a sob. “I was trying to use the sink to hold me steady while I pulled them up and then I got a good look at myself and I thought, Oh my God and I wanted a shower. Then I remembered my cast and I can’t take a shower with this stupid thing on.” She was wailing by the time she was finished, holding the offending cast up between them in case he wasn’t clear about what she was talking about.

Jackson pulled her into his chest and rubbed her back in soothing circles. She could feel his body shaking and knew he was trying not to laugh outright. She pulled back to see his face. “Are you laughing at me?”

He rolled his lips inward and shook his head. “No. Of course not.” She might’ve believed him if he hadn’t lost the battle and erupted in laughter.

She pulled away, not liking that he was finding the fact that she was standing in front of him with her hair in a rats nest, her face bruised and swollen enough she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror and, last, but certainly not the least, she was still had her pants below her knees with her ass hanging out. Couldn’t he see she’d reached her limit? She tried again to pull her pants up and once again failed. She whined in frustration and was about to say to hell with it and just kick her pants off and wrap herself in a towel until her mom got there.

“Stop. Stop. Calliope.” He pushed on her shoulders until she was standing straight again. “Do you want a shower?”

“Yes.” Her voice was hoarse from the tears clogging her throat.

“Okay. Wait right here and I’ll go get something to wrap your cast in. Then, I’ll help you with your shower.” Jackson quickly left to collect whatever he was talking about. He came back and found her staring at the shower like a long lost friend. Her pants were still halfway down her legs, but she’d found a towel and was holding it in front of her exposed area.

“Hold out your arm.” He slipped a freezer bag over her hand, then wrapped her hand, her cast and a little ways up her arm with plastic wrap, making sure there was no area of the cast left exposed. Next, he took what looked like medical tape and taped it at both ends of the plastic wrap, securing the bag underneath in the process. “There. That should do it.”

While she checked out his wrapping skills, he turned the shower on. She had to admit, he did a pretty decent job of it. Had she not been so emotionally stressed, she might have come up with something equally impressive. “How did you know how to do this?”

“When I was a teenager I thought I knew everything about riding a motorcycle. I mean, I grew up in a motorcycle club for crying out loud.” He reached into the shower and turned the water on. “I bought my first dirt bike and I immediately started jumping everything. I got cockier with each successful jump, and I got this idea in my head that I was invincible.” His shook his head as he laughed. “Needless-to-say, I found out the hard way that I was completely stupid and I didn’t know everything. One day I built this really big ramp and launched myself into the air. I went higher than I’d ever gone before. For about ten seconds it felt like I was flying. It was an amazing feeling. Being a cocky teenage boy, I didn’t think about how bad it was going to hurt if I landed in loose gravel, which I did. The bike slid out from under me. The bike went one way and I went another. Broke my arm when I went to catch myself. This is how mom wrapped me up so I could take a shower.”

She couldn’t believe he shared that with her. She could picture it in her mind and for a moment she felt like the eighteen year old who lived for moments like this, with him opening up to her. She mentally slapped her forehead, chastising herself for getting sucked in again.

“Now. Let’s get you undressed.”

Annnd, hello reality. She couldn’t believe she was going to require his assistance to get her clothes off and take a shower. Wasn’t it bad enough that he helped her off the toilet. This was so awkward. He hadn’t seen her naked in over three years and she remembered exactly how well that turned out.

“If you see me naked, is it going to cause you to run away and tell me later how you wished you never saw me naked? Because if this is going to be difficult for you, I can wait for my mom.”

Jackson bit into his bottom lip and nodded his head, his hands on his hips. “Yeah. I deserved that. I was a complete asshole that morning. I never should’ve have freaked out the way I did. But that’s something we can talk about later. Right now, we need to get you in the shower.” Without warning, he reached for the waistband of her leggings and finished pulling both the leggings and her panties down at the same time. She thought she heard him mumble something under his breath, but wasn’t sure what he said.

“What?”

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