But that’s not what I’m going to get to do. Instead, I’m going to pop in and spend the full two hours begging her to understand that I don’t have a choice. That I have to do this. That I’m not bailing on her three days before the wedding because it’s what I want to do.
As I throw my possessions into my suitcase, I pull out my phone and call her.
It rings and rings.
And rings.
I leave a voicemail, hoping she’ll be at her house when I get there. “Iz, I need to talk to you. I’ll be over soon.”
Chapter forty-four
Izzy
“Comeon,Lucille,”Isay to the seventy-four-year-old woman lifting weights next to me. “We both know you can do heavier than fives. I’m using twenty-fives.”
Lucille glares at me, but she switches her dumbbells out for eights. I let out a laugh and keep pressing the large weights above my head. Lucille secretly loves it when I give her shit.
It might be the endorphins finally hitting forty-five minutes into class, but I’m feeling great. I’m excited for Bryn’s wedding this weekend.
Things with Jaxon are going well—even I can’t pretend they’re fake anymore.
I know we need to have a real conversation about it, and I’ve been practicing non-cringe-worthy ways to approach it, but at the same time, it feels like we’re on the same page. And it’s fan-fucking-tastic.
“Why’re you so happy?” Joseph asks.
He's back to being the only man from town brave enough to show up for old-lady workout class—Jaxon never came back after that first time—and he always finds one of us to chat up.
“I’m always happy,” I reply. “A fucking ray of sunshine—sorry, Lucille.”
Lucilletsks, but I can tell how entertained she is by the whole interaction. I may be friendly, but I’m not sunshine. More like a cute cartoon rain cloud.
“Is this what happens when you’re sleeping with a rock star?” he asks, gesturing toward my face.
Yes. No. I mean, the increased number of orgasms in my life is definitely a factor in my happiness, but the truth is, it’s a very small part.
And it’s not a consistent one. Yes, Jaxon has made me come more times than any other man, but it’s still not a surefire bet. The first time we had sex aftertheorgasm…I was too in my head again, worrying about what it would mean if it didn’t happen that time.
Jax spent a LOT of time with his head, and then his fingers, and then his cock between my legs, his voice in my ear, before I finally gave up. He’d held me and told me stories, and made it seem like it wasn’t awkward or like I wasn’t still broken. He just seemed to…accept that it wouldn’t happen every time.
Then he’d woken me up with his tongue on my core, and I’d exploded into a million pieces in less than thirty seconds. Well, at least thirty conscious seconds.
“Are you asking me about my sex life?” I tease, tilting my head to one side before walking to the pulldown machine. “Why don’t you go flex in the mirror or something?” I joke. “Leave the heavy weights to us women. You just go make sure you look pretty.”
“Thank you for noticing I look pretty,” he says before flouncing off.
Ten minutes later, I leave class. I plug my phone into my car’s speaker system, noticing as my music app pulls up that I have a voicemail.
I mentally remind myself to call whoever it is back when I reach my house and then pull out of the lot, belting out the lyrics to one of Jaxon’s first songs as I drive.
My phone may be magical, because, as if I conjured him, Jaxon is sitting on my front steps.
“Why does this seem familiar?” I ask, as I climb out of my car, my athletic shorts sticking to the back of my legs.
The day is sunny and warm, and Jaxon looks like he could be shooting a cover for his next album the way the rays of light dance across his broad shoulder and through his hair. I almost tell him I love him, right there and then. I don’t know what makes me want to say it, but it takes all my control to not blurt it out.
Jaxon takes me in, his eyes tracing the line of my tank top, past my stomach, and down my bare legs, like he’s trying to catalog the way I look.
“Workout class,” he says like it’s the answer he’s been looking for. “Of course. It’s Wednesday.”
