Page 36 of Southern Storms

“Did you say Jax Kilter?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

No way.

It couldn’t be him…

It had been years since I’d last seen him, and hardly anything about the man in front of me resembled the boy I’d once known—except for those eyes. Those deep, dark eyes pulled me in the same way they had when we were children.

Marty scratched at his nonexistent beard. “Do you know him?”

“Yes. I mean, I did, I think…a long time ago. Gosh, it’s been years.” My eyes moved back toward Jax, and my heart tightened in my chest as tears welled up in my eyes. Could that really be him? It had to have been over fifteen years since we’d last talked. We were only children back then, yet seeing him now and knowing he was the same Jax from my childhood made my mind fly into a tailspin. For the shortest period of time, he had been my person. My summer camp companion. My best friend. We’d spent two summers growing up together, building a strong connection, right up until he disappeared from my life without a word.

“You know him?” I asked Marty before my teeth chewed into my bottom lip.

“Oh yeah. It’s a small town, so everyone is quick to know everyone. If I’m honest, I already knew everything about you before you sat down—all but your Social Security number,” he joked.

“Is he…nice?” I asked, ignoring the fact that Marty said he knew all about me. I was too concerned with knowing all about Jax. My question seemed idiotic, because based on my interaction with him, I knew the answer: No, he wasn’t nice. Well, he was kind of nice? A little…I thought? From what I’d observed, his actions spoke differently than his words, and I wanted Marty’s input on who Jax had become.

“Jax is…he’s…well, I’m not one to gossip. People already talk enough crap around these parts to giveDays of Our Livesanother decade of episodes, but Jax is an interesting fellow. A bit of a loner, minus his random relationships. He recently got out of a two-year relationship with Amanda Gates—not that they really seemed close. He’s a bit EU.”

“EU?”

“Emotionally unavailable. I’m surprised Amanda stuck around that long with him. His looks don’t hurt. I’m sure that and their bedroom affairs was enough to keep her attention. If I had the smallest indication that he was into Kens over Kennedys, I’d let my Marty wave his way because those eyes will swallow any human whole. But, alas, he plays for your team, not mine.”

I smiled. The more Marty talked, and the more comfortable he became with me, the more I liked him. His personality was beginning to shine through the clouds of his nerves.

“I heard he’s the town jerk,” I said.

“He is…but like the good kind.”

I laughed. “What does that even mean? The good kind of jerk? That’s an oxymoron.”

“No, it’s not. You know…he’s a jerk to the people who deserve it. At first, if he comes off as cold, it’s just because he doesn’t know someone. He has his shields up high, because he’s been hurt a lot. I can’t really blame him with the shit people in this town have put him through. I’d tag people as guilty until proven innocent too if I’d lived half the life Jax has lived, and I’m the token gay guy in this place plus I have OCD. Trust me, I’ve lived a life, but I wouldn’t trade it to walk in Jax’s shoes for a minute.”

My chest tightened at Marty’s words. If anything, Jax didn’t sound like the jerky villain in this town’s story. What it seemed more like was that he was the broken hero, the one who’d fallen apart so much he’d retreated toward the darkness over the light.

Very much like I had after tragedy found me.

“His life has been that bad?” I asked, hopeful that Marty would shake his head and say no.

Sadly, he nodded. “Jax has kind of a dark past. He spent a lot of years keeping to himself while caring for his asshole of a father, up until his father was placed in a hospice center a few weeks ago. Now, if you want to talk about assholes of this town, Cole Kilter was the head B-I-T-C-H. But Jax? Nothing like his father, not in the least, though he does come from asshole genetics.”

“What about his mom?”

Marty frowned. “Like I said, he has a dark past.”

Those words alone broke my heart. I knew how much his mother meant to him, and the idea that she wasn’t around anymore was devastating.

Marty crossed his arms. “Between you and me, I think Jax is the nicest guy in this whole town.” He rolled up his shirt and showed me a scar on his skin. “A few years ago, I got jumped by Lars Parker and his group of jerks. They were coming out of a bar drunk when I was finishing setting up the diner for the next day. They started harassing me about making them some free food, and well, long story short, they jumped me.

“News traveled fast about the incident, and a few days later, Lars and his buddies had their own battle wounds, black eyes and all. I came into work after that, and there Jax was, sitting at his regular booth, reading his paper with both hands bandaged up. He said he had an accident while chopping wood in his back yard. To this day he swears he had nothing to do with kicking Lars’ ass, but I have a feeling he had plenty to do with it. Afterward, he told me to let him know if anyone bothered me. I still thank him for it often, and he always tells me to piss off and bring him his order to go.”

Lars Parker.

The same jerk from when we were kids. Of course it was that same monster who’d come on to me. I knew I had a strange feeling when I met the guy. I wasn’t surprised to see he’d turned out to be the exact jerk he had been on the path to becoming.

Marty headed back to work, and I looked back over at Jax. He shifted around in his booth, and when his head rose up, he turned in my direction. Our eyes locked, and my heart began repeatedly pounding in my chest.

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