Page 102 of Jax
“Oh, we’re talking dirty now?”
“Keep testing me, glitter goblin. I will smother you with this face mask.”
From the floor, Maddy groaned. “If this isn’t friendship, I don’t want it.”
Bellamy threw the cards like confetti. “Girls’ night supremacy!”
We collapsed into pillows and fleece, punchy with sugar and wine, laughter echoing like war cries. My cheeks ached. My stomach hurt. And for the first time in too long, I felt soft. Notbuzzed, or numbed. Just seen. Teased. Included. Not once asked to shrink or explain.
The credits rolled in a slow wash of ‘90s nostalgia. Maddy had passed out mid-sentence about Heath Ledger’s cheekbones, one arm flung over her face like a fainting Victorian heroine. A smear of brownie clung to her mouth like a battle scar. Bellamy had claimed the couch like a monarch, swaddled in two throw blankets with one foot sticking out as a warning. Her glitter-covered cheek was mashed into a pillow that would never be the same.
I lay flat on the rug, pajama pants brushing my ankles, hand grazing the carpet. The warmth in the room had settled deep, the kind that made you realize you weren’t braced anymore. That you could breathe without it costing something.
A spoon clinked in a forgotten bowl. The playlist had ended, but the silence didn’t feel empty. It felt earned. The house itself seemed to exhale. Vanilla lotion, overcooked popcorn, and something more subtle, something sacred, lingered in the air like proof that softness could survive.
I exhaled. Not dramatically. Just full. Of sugar, air, and this strange new safety I hadn’t known I needed.
I never thought this kind of softness could exist in captivity. The kind that shrieked at rom-com tropes, and painted glitter masks on each other. That passed wine like communion and debated kink dynamics mid-popcorn fight. But here it was, real and alive, built of elbow nudges and shared blankets and dramatic sighs when the popcorn missed its target.
It would’ve overwhelmed me once, this much presence. This much emotion. Now, it just felt good. Like heat beneath skin. Like a silence that didn’t echo with regret.
They were chaos. Glitter-drenched, unapologetic, beautiful chaos. And somehow, I belonged here.
And I wanted that. Not just tonight. Not just the sugar crash and sarcasm. I wanted it to stay. To become part of me. To grow into something steady. Something that could live through the aftermath of survival.
I wanted Jax to see me like this. Not brittle. Not bound. Not pretending I had it all handled. Just me. Breathing. Present. Unscripted.
Maybe what Jax and I had wouldn’t last. Maybe it wasn’t love. But it was something. And I wasn’t ready to let it go.
I stretched one leg from the blanket cocoon, toes brushing the rug, eyes drifting to the ceiling. The sugar high had faded. The silliness, too. But something remained. Something quiet. Something good. Like maybe it was okay to want more of this, whatever this was.
Then came the knock.
Soft. Intentional. Not loud enough to wake anyone. Just enough to stir me. The kind of knock that wasn’t meant for the house. It was meant for me.
I sat up gingerly, careful not to jostle the blankets or disturb the two sleeping glitter goblins beside me. Maddy snored into her arm, face buried. Bellamy had vanished into her pillow fort, one sparkly foot poking out like a warning to would-be trespassers.
They didn’t stir. The room held its breath.
I pushed off the couch and padded to the door. When I cracked it open, the hallway light spilled in soft and golden around the man waiting there.
Jax. Hoodie unzipped over a black T-shirt, barefoot, hair tousled like he’d been pacing until the moment he felt me stir. He didn’t look surprised to see me. Like he’d already calculated the outcome and landed here on purpose.
“Glitter levels have reached a tactical hazard,” he murmured, voice dry and low.
I leaned against the frame. “And you knocked anyway? Bold move, Colonel.”
His smile curved, subtle and slow. “Risk analysis suggested the threat level was acceptable.”
“You’re not wrong. Though Maddy does own a glitter cannon, and Bellamy has no fear of God or consequences.”
He nodded solemnly, like he was filing it away for future consideration. “Noted.”
We stood in a shared quiet, the air between us humming with something that didn’t need to be named. He didn’t step forward. Didn’t push. Just watched me with that calculating gaze, like he was taking inventory, running diagnostics on every twitch of my mouth and angle of my stance.
“Security sweep?” I asked finally.
“All clear,” he confirmed, voice gentle. “Tree line’s quiet. Cameras are stable. Everyone’s accounted for, except the brownie thief, who may have initiated a secondary snack mission.”
