Page 38 of Ecstasy
Alex:I just want to talk.
A grin spreads across my face, and I wonder what my smile looks like. For a moment, I wish I could just pluck it off my head, hold it up like a Mr. Potato Head smile and look at it.
I ask Jax what his address is because I highly doubt Alex remembers this house, and the numbers and words he shoots back are full of soft, lilting music.
Lilting.
That reminds me of Eli.
But this isn’t Eli.
This is Alex Cardi.
I say his name out loud and Jax snorts. “Your ex, the great, beloved, champion quarterback asshole?” He laughs again. “Damn, Za. Get off his dick.”
I don’t let his words jar me. My fingers are already flying across the keyboard on my phone of their own accord with Jax’s address and then:Come find me.
I open my music app, put onIKnowI’mNotAHeroby The Virus and Antidote, then put my phone down on the table and meet Jax’s eyes.
He frowns at me. “I’ve been meaning to tell you. I heard he got into some trouble last year at some house party,” Jax says. He shrugs. “Almost got caught up in a rape scandal.”
I know this should be disturbing news to me, but I can’t really feel it. “Rape?” I mouth the word and it explodes with music, coming out like a musical refrain with an echo. Kind of disturbing, such a nasty word sounding so magical.
Jax raises a brow. “Yeah. I don’t know the details. Just some gossip or shit. You good with sleeping with him or should I make sure he stays off you since you two broke up?”
I see he’s shuffling a deck of cards on the table. I have no idea where they came from. Maybe out of thin fucking air. The cigarette is in the ash tray. I don’t remember watching him put it out.
I think about his question, and I can’t stop the slow grin spreading on my face as I think about Alex and Eli both almost fucking me.
“I’m good,” I answer him. It comes out like “goooOooooOoood” and I giggle, my hand over my mouth.
I think I need to ask him about this rape, but I don’t really want to. It kind of just floats away into the back of my mind. Instead, I lift my hands in front of my face, twisting and twirling my fingers. Jax keeps shuffling the cards and then I notice my phone light up like a Christmas tree.
A Christmas tree.
Mom always put a white one up every year, dragged her husband (whichever number) to a little decoration party with me as the sullen stepdaughter. Her husbands have all been pretty decent to me—save for my own father, who I have very few memories of and get a birthday card once a year from and nothing more—but one of them really hated Christmas. He refused to decorate, and Mom called him Scrooge as he pouted in a corner while we hung the ornaments.
I laugh out loud at that random memory as I read the text from Alex.
Be there soon, princess.
My heart flutters with those words.
“He’s so tall,” I say out loud.
Jax starts dealing the cards between us, even though I have no idea what he’s trying to play.
“Yeah, fucker is huge,” he says.
I giggle again.
11
Alex
By the timeI make it to the house, there are half a dozen cars in the driveway and more parked on the curb.
I back the Jeep into the next available space on the side of the street and when I get out, I can hear the bass from inside the house, but I can’t quite tell what’s playing.
