Page 79 of Beneath the Hood

She sucks on her lip, her brows drawing in. I don’t expect her to understand struggles for money when money is all she’s ever known, but I’m thankful for her listening either way.

“So, he came home?”

I bob my head. “He came home. At that point, he was too weak to work in the garage with me, but he’d come out there, just... sitting in the sun and listening to me work.” I envision him on our cracked driveway, his eyes closed and his face smooth, finding peace in his choices. Accepting that he was about to leave us forever. “I wassomad at him. I avoided being home, because I couldn’t stand the sight of him.”

My hand pulls out his dog tags from under his shirt, my palm pressing into the metal. “And then on my sixteenth birthday, while I was at the skate park with my friends, I got a phone call from my mom. He had died.” I purse my lips, choking back the sting of tears. “I wasn’t there of course.” Regret ebbs and flows like a wave inside of me and I shake my head. “Three months later, my mom packed us up and moved us to Sugarlake, Tennessee.”

“And that’s where you met Alina?” She hesitates on her name.

“Yep.” I sigh, a small smile crawling on my face. “She pranced on my porch and shoved her mama’s banana bread into my hands. I was a dick to her, because I was just… buried in my grief.” I shrug. “But then a few days later, her neighbor Chase came around. And he, well—Chase saved me from myself, I guess.” The middle of my chest throbs from old wounds that never healed. “I doubt he knows it though.”

“How’d he save you?” Blakely asks.

“By being the asshole that he was.” I laugh. “He was so damn broody. He didn’t pry, never asked questions. Didn’t push me to deal with things I wasn’t ready to face. But he showed up in my yard every day and sipped on the beer I convinced Sandra from the corner store to buy us, and just kept me company.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “He gave me friendship when I had nothing and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

As I continue purging my past while Blakely listens, my feelings shift and change, my memory being lent a new perspective.

“So, this guy Chase, hecheatedon her and now they’re back together?” Blakely asks after I finish.

I nod. “Pretty much.”

“And he was your best friend.”

“Yep.” I smack my hands on my legs.

“So, Okay, I’m sorry.” Her palm cups her forehead, her eyes squeezing shut. “You’re telling me that you were there for this girl for years, held her up through the worst moments of her life. Meanwhile she was keeping major, life changing things from you? And then she picked the guy who not only cheated on her and had it posted all over social media, but broke both of your hearts?”

My chest spasms. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“And she just... expected you to be okay with it?” Blakely crosses her arms and huffs, her back smacking against the couch cushions. “No offense, Jackson, but she sounds like a bitch.”

I cringe. “No. She’s amazing.”

Blakely scoffs.

“She is. She’s just... not meant for me.”

Blakely’s teeth bite down on the left corner of her lip and she glances down before peering at me through her lashes. “And you’re okay with that?”

“If I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t be here with you.”

I’m not one-hundred-percent honest when I say it. Iamover my heartbreak. Being with Blakely has opened my eyes to all the ways it’s possible to feel for another person, ways that Ineverhad with Lee. But it doesn’t change the fact that, at least at first, I used Blakely as a distraction to get through the heartache. To bathe in her attention, while I tried to wash away the pain of not being anyone else’s choice.

And now…

I forgive Lee. But the thought of Chase is like friction on a rug burn.

It drives me insane knowing that he’s slipped effortlessly back into place, like he didn’t disappear for the better half of a decade. And maybe, my hurt and anger isn’t so much the fact that Lee didn’t choose me, as it is thatno onedid. They were both integral to me, but to them, I was just insurance. The spare tire that’s kept around, just in case.

And that’s one hell of a pill to swallow.

“Are they why you moved to Cali full time?” Blakely’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

I shrug. “It makes more sense for me to be out here, especially working for your dad. Easier to accomplish everything I came to do.” I wink, trying to lighten the mood.

She cocks her head, smiling. “And what is it that you want to accomplish, Jackson Rhoades?”

“Right now?” I lean in, ghosting a kiss across her lips. “I can think of plenty of things.”

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