Page 45 of Jax
She didn’t answer. Just exhaled—one breath, jagged and tired. It wasn’t anger anymore. It was everything else. The weld wasn’t the problem. It never was. Frustration like that never started with steel. It built from the things you didn’t say. The things you tried to bury under heat and noise. The rope she’d hidden under her shirt. The weight of being caught. The look in her eyes when it happened.
I waited. Then offered her something better than comfort.
“Let’s get a little farther away from everyone,” I said. “Clear your head.” She didn’t move at first. Didn’t look at me. Just breathed, slow and deep, like she was choosing between argument and collapse. When she finally glanced over, it was sideways, her voice flat but laced with something brittle underneath.
“Sure. Are you going to drag me by the wrist again?”
I let one corner of my mouth lift. Not a smile. Just acknowledgment.
“Only if you make me.”
She didn’t argue.
That was the first shift. No sharp-tongued deflection, no bratty muttering. Just the barest nod, and then she followed. Out of the garage, past the tools she’d abandoned, past the twisted metal still cooling on the table. She moved beside me like it didn’t mean anything, even though it did.
Inside, the house buzzed with a normalcy that didn’t match the weight between us. Sully wiped down the counters in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, singing off-key to something loud and old. He glanced at Stella as we passed, half amused, half warning. She didn’t meet it.
Deacon stood near the window, sharpening a blade with steady focus. He didn’t speak, but his eyes tracked us. Maddy leaned against the island, eating an apple and scrolling on her phone. She looked up, gaze sliding from Stella to me, one brow lifting.
“Field trip?” She asked, tone light but knowing.
“Call it calibration,” I said, without slowing.
Stella didn’t flinch, but I could feel her awareness spike. Not shame, exactly. Just friction. She wasn’t used to walking through a room like it mattered who noticed.
We passed Niko at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, leaning against the wall like he’d been waiting. His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“I am taking Stella to my cabin.”
He stared at me for a beat too long. Then glanced at her. Then back.
“You sure?”
“I wouldn’t take her there if I wasn’t.”
He nodded, slow and deliberate, but the set of his jaw told me he still didn’t like it. That didn’t matter. He didn’t need to like it, just trust that I had a plan. Which of course, I did.
Stella never looked up, just kept her eyes straight ahead, and her shoulders locked. Her breathing barely changed, but her pulse had climbed high enough for me to register it without even trying. I didn’t say a word. She’d feel it more sharply if I didn’t.
We stepped outside together, leaving the press of the house behind us, the door creaking shut like punctuation. The forest muted everything immediately. Trees rose on either side, branches curving overhead, sunlight slicing through in tight golden beams. The cabin wasn’t far, but it felt removed, detached in the way she probably needed. I led us down the trail, gravel shifting under my boots, and didn’t look back to check if she followed.
I didn’t have to. Her footsteps stayed steady, deliberate, just close enough to be heard.
When we passed through a grove of pale birch, where the light softened and the undergrowth thinned out, she finally spoke. Her tone was dry, but not defensive.
“So what’s in this sacred cabin of yours? Let me guess. Leather furniture. A fridge full of protein shakes. Maybe a moose head over the fireplace.”
I let the silence stretch just long enough to make her second-guess whether I was going to answer. Then, dryly, “Wrong. Rope racks and a whiskey cabinet.”
She snorted. “For some reason, I’m not surprised. I bet your Amazon recommendations are fascinating.”
“Not anymore. I disabled the algorithm. Recommendations are just predictive models, and once you understand theweighting system for user behavior, it’s not that hard to manipulate them. Or shut them down entirely. ”
She snorted in response, rolling her eyes, then stumbled slightly, her foot catching on a root. She jerked to correct herself, but I was already there, hand wrapping gently around her elbow—steadying, not gripping. She went still, breath hitching. I didn’t let go. Not because she needed it, but because I needed her to register the touch. To feel the control that wasn’t force. She looked at me, wide-eyed and guarded, like she knew something inside her had shifted, but didn’t know what.
“You good?” I asked, voice low. She nodded, slow and deliberate, and didn’t step away. She was beginning to understand this wasn’t about the stumble. It was about what followed.
