Page 34 of Jax
“Did he do anything else?” I kept my voice low, even when it didn’t have to be.
She didn’t answer immediately. When she did, the words came evenly, but not unshaken. “He knew how to pick a fight I couldn’t win. Left bruises shaped like words.” The silence that followed didn’t sit awkwardly between us. It anchored. She closed the notebook without comment, stood, wiped her gloves on soot-streaked thighs, and looked at me with an expression stripped of posturing—unarmored, but not exposed. Just real.
“I don’t need to be rescued, Jax.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
Her mouth tilted in something too brief to be a smile, more flicker than feeling, and then it vanished. She turned back to the steel and lifted the rod holder like nothing had shifted between us. But we both knew it had.
She worked more quietly after that. Not still. She was never still, but more narrowed. Focused. The world collapsed to a point she didn’t let anyone reach. Sparks flared in bright, furious arcs as she bent to the work, body tight with something between memory and obsession. There was no flinching. No hesitation. Just fire and precision and the echo of pain turned into ritual. It caught behind my ribs in a way I couldn’t name. Not quite admiration. Not lust. Just that rare and dangerous ache that comes when you witness someone praying through motion.
I let myself speak without thinking.
“Small town in Iowa. That’s where I’m from.”
She didn’t look up, but her spine shifted—listening, not retreating. The arc buzzed a few seconds longer, then cut with a flick of her wrist as clean as breath.
“Farm co-op on one side. Motorcycle shop on the other. My mom ran the produce stand. My dad rebuilt engines in the barn. Good people. Faith, dirt, hard work. They just didn’t know what the fuck to do with me.”
Still, she didn’t answer, but her stance changed. Not defensive. Just wary, in that careful way people get when they’re offered something they didn’t ask for. Like she was waiting for the price tag.
“I couldn’t sit still to save my life,” I said, leaning against the bench. “Tested out of half my classes by twelve. Took apart a microwave at eight just to see how it worked.”
“And?” Her voice came from behind the mask as she reached for a fresh rod.
“Managed to blow the breaker. Melted half the fuse box. Dad grounded me for a month. Mom thought maybe I was gifted. I thought maybe I was broken.”
She flipped the mask up and met my gaze head-on. No softness. But no ice, either.
“Maybe you were both.”
Those four words hit like a mirror held too steady. There was heat in her tone, but no challenge. Just recognition.
“Couldn’t shut the noise off upstairs,” I said after a beat, tapping my temple. “I joined the Army thinking maybe someone else’s orders would drown it out.”
She adjusted the welder with practiced hands, her attention sharp, but not gone.
“And did it?”
“No. Just gave the noise better weapons.”
That earned me the ghost of a smirk. She tightened her gloves and didn’t speak again, but she didn’t need to. Her silence had weight. Agreement, maybe. Or understanding.
I watched her for another beat, then asked, “What about you? What dragged you into fire and steel?”
She hesitated for a half-second, then nodded toward the sculpture-in-progress. “Couldn’t paint. Too delicate. Too... pastel. Welding? Welding is visceral. Immediate. It lets me shape something that could cut you open and still be art.”
The way she said it made my pulse shift just a fraction. It wasn’t sensual. Not exactly. But it was intimate. Unapologetic. And that was hotter than anything else she could’ve said.
“I dropped out of college my first year,” she continued, brushing a streak of soot off her cheek with the back of her wrist. “Tried to make art work on canvas. It didn’t. I needed... resistance. Something with bite.”
I nodded slowly. “And the gallery stuff? You ever show your pieces outside of your own studio?”
She glanced down, fiddling with a clamp, the light catching the edge of her jaw. “Yeah. Once. A piece sold for four grand.”
I arched a brow at her sarcasm. “Right…”
She snorted. “My boyfriend actually had the audacity to say I owed him for all the ‘exposure.’ Took the check and paid off his student loans.”
