Page 32 of You Were Always Mine
Jax slams his palm against my car bonnet. ‘That’s how you fucking do it!’
I climb out, chest heaving, sweat dripping down my back, and I smile at them — cold, feral — but inside, I’m burning alive.
No matter how many times I almost die, it’s not enough to kill the thought of her, and that’s why I was cold with her — because if I let myself be anything else, I’ll ruin us both.
The car still trembles beneath me, engine ticking down, heat bleeding through the metal. The night air is sharp, smoke and petrol hanging heavy, but all I can taste is her. Scarlett.
Jax is laughing somewhere off to the side, pounding the roof, telling me I nearly killed us all. I give him nothing — just a curl of my lip, a drag of smoke as I lean back against the seat. Let him think I don’t care. Let them all think I’m made of ice.
If I open my mouth, it won’t be jokes or banter spilling out. It’ll be her name.
I grip the wheel tighter, knuckles white, because every time I close my eyes I see her face the way she looked at me last night — hurt, ashamed, like I was poison. And maybe I am. Doesn’t matter. She still crawled into my lap, still ground herself raw against me, still sobbed my name like a prayer.
‘Cold bastard,’ one of them mutters, passing me another bottle. I take it, swallow hard — the burn cutting but never killing the ache.
They don’t know. They’ll never know.
That I’m not cold — I’m burning alive.
Every mile I just drove, every gear I slammed through, was to quiet the voice in my head. The one that whispers she’s mine. The one that tells me I’ll never let her go.
I feel it, even here, with the engine cooling and the night closing in — the drag of her nails down my back, the taste of her tears on my tongue, the way her broken little whisperit’s wrongonly made me harder.
I take another drag, smoke curling from my lips, chest heaving.
I should be talking shit with them. I should be fucking numb.
Instead, I’m counting the minutes until I can go back to that house.
Back to her.
‘Jesus Christ, Kai,’ Jax mutters, stumbling out of his car, his voice cutting through the reek of burning rubber and fuel. ‘You trying to put us in the ground tonight?’
I drag hard on the cigarette, the smoke clawing down my throat, and shrug. ‘You kept up, didn’t you?’
‘That wasn’t keeping up; that was you losing your fucking mind.’ He’s laughing, but there’s an edge to it — a shake under it. He pushes his hair back, still wired from the race. ‘Thought you were supposed to be the one with control.’
‘Yeah,’ I exhale, leaning against the bonnet, pretending I don’t hear the way Scarlett’s voice is still inside my skull —It doesn’t have to be like this.Pretending I don’t feel her nails still carved into my skin. ‘Guess you thought wrong.’
Rafe cracks open a beer and tosses me one. ‘Control’s overrated,’ he says, grin sharp. ‘Was fun watching you nearly take out that lorry.’
‘You think everything’s fun,’ Jax snaps at him, then turns back to me. ‘What’s your deal, man? You’re woundtighter than I’ve ever seen. You’re gonna end up dead or locked up if you keep this shit up.’
I take the beer, drain half of it in one swallow, let it burn down into the hollow that feels bigger every time I’m not with her. ‘Maybe that’s the point.’
Silence. Jax stares at me like I’ve just admitted to pulling the pin on a grenade and waiting for it to go off in my hands.
‘Don’t say shit like that,’ he mutters. ‘You’ve got responsibilities. Your mum, your dad, Scar?—’
‘Don’t.’ My voice is a whip-crack, sharper than I mean it, but I don’t take it back. ‘Don’t say her name.’
Jax narrows his eyes. ‘So that’s what this is.’
I look away, jaw tight, smoke curling out between my teeth. ‘This is nothing.’
‘Nothing doesn’t make you drive like you’ve got a death wish,’ he fires back. ‘Nothing doesn’t make you snap when I say your sister’s name.’
‘She’s not…’ The word’s out before I can stop it. I swallow it down with the rest of the beer, crushing the can in my fist. ‘Drop it.’
