Page 74 of Just Friends
What’s going on with you, man?I wondered.
His fitted v-neck shirt showed off his strong collarbone and broad chest, round pecs jutting forever upward. The curved bill of his baseball cap kept his eyes focused on the road—and hidden from me.
Hidden from me.
I really did feel like he was hiding something from me, and I didn’t understand why. Did he not understand howhardI was working right now to pretend things were normal …? Wasn’t that what he supposedly wanted?
I’d hoped he’d sense me staring at him. I’d hoped he’d lock eyes with me and, in a moment of sudden honesty, just come out and say it—whateveritwas, because there was obviously something that needed to be said.
Patiently, I waited. But he never sensed me looking. Or if he did, he simply didn’t care enough to acknowledge it.
Does he hate me now?
Tired of waiting for Jax to catch me staring, I looked away. And that, of course, was the precise moment he finally looked my direction.
Ugh.
We just weren’t on the same page anymore and I hated it.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass and stared out the passenger window. Riding high above the rest of traffic, I peered down at the tops of the other cars we zoomed past, losing myself in thought.
Fake it ’til you make it.
That was the mantra that compelled me to agree to go on this spa getaway. I’d had my doubts that things between us could go back to normal, but I could at leasttryand pretend that they were. Or so I thought.
Sure, faking it made me feel like a liar. Sure, every fiber of my being revolted when I interacted with Jax the same way we alwaysusedto. Why? Because now I realized how obviousit was: the light-hearted teasing and name calling, the glancing physical touches here and there, the ‘ironic’ flirting …
It was all just one giant cope.
Because yes, I’d wanted him all along—but I wouldn’t be happy just being some girl he merely took to bed occasionally; I wanted somethingmore,something that simply wasn’t ever going to be on the table with Jax. Being the “cool chick” friend was as close to being in a relationship with Jax as I could get without damaging our friendship.
But the moment Jax kissed me, all that changed. The second his lips touched mine, all that denial was vaporized in an instant. No longer could I deny it—I was now fully cognizant of what had been merelysubconscious before.
I couldfakeit, though … or try to.
And that’s the part that really ticked me off. Because I was prettygood at acting like things were normal.
Jax, on the other hand, was doing a superblylousy job of convincing me that things between us could be normal again. He was not pulling his weight atall.Earlier, he’d sworn his weird mood was just a lack of sleep, but he’d finished his thermos of coffee over an hour ago and there wasstilla strange, lingering quiet in his aura.
The longer his weirdness persisted, the harder it was becoming for me to fake it. And my resentment began to grow.
I picked up my phone and tapped out another text:
“He’s being weird.”
Paulina and I had been texting back and forth ever since I sent her a photo of the road and told her we were heading up to the spa resort after all. Of course, she was excited to hear the news. She immediately thought it meant something extreme, like Jax and I were going to start dating—but I’d been doing my best to paint the picture that, let’s face it, wasn’t exactly rosy.
I set my phone on the dash and waited for her reply. A moment or two later, it arrived with a friendlyding. Jax cast another side-eyed glance at me—strangely, the only time I could get his attention was when my phone went off. Did my textingannoyhim or something? It’s not like hehad much to say. Every attempt at conversation with him quickly went nowhere. In five years of knowing Jax, I’d never seen him like this.
“LOL, how’s he being weird?”Paulina’s message read.
“I don’t know. He just is. He’s been quiet and moody all morning. I’m trying my best to pretend things are normal again, but he’s really not helping.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Haha, why not?”
