“I have no idea either,” Jackson says. He rubs his hands soothingly over my shoulders. “Sky? What’s going on? You okay?”
I should really respond and reassure them both, but I’m just too captivated by the information on the screen as my eyes scan farther down the page to the percentiles for each of my MBE subjects.Civil Procedure: 97.8. Constitutional Law: 96.2. Contracts: 95.7. Criminal Law: 98.1…
“Are these supposed to be out of a hundred?” Steph asks, sounding completely lost.
“I don’t know,” Jax says. “These ones look good, but I don’t know about these.” He reaches past me to point at my essay scores. “Last time he got a score in the sixties he didn’t get out of his pajamas for a week.”
“I just don’t understand how they get that score from those numbers,” Steph whines. “Oh, I should have finished high school! I blame you for this, you know.”
“Gee, thanks, love you too, Mom,” Jackson says dryly. He squeezes my shoulders again and then lifts a hand to thread through my hair, prompting me to let out a soft sigh. “Babe, talk to me. I can never tell if something’s really fucking good or really fucking bad because you always have the same reaction for both. It’s very frustrating.”
This finally brings me out of my stupor and I let out a rumbling laugh, tossing my head back to grin at Jackson. “It’s really, really,reallyfucking good.”
He beams in return. “You’re a lawyer?”
“Hell, yeah! Top one percent in the country.”
“Oh my god! You little overachiever!” Steph squeals, nudging Jackson aside so she can wrap me in a tight hug. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”
I grin and hug her back. “I’m so glad you’re here for this.”
“Me too. And now I’m going to let go because I’ve just remembered you’re not wearing pants and it’s getting weird.”
I let out a wry laugh as she releases her hold on me and steps back, allowing me to shoo Rocket off my lap and stand up, throwing my arms around Jackson.
He presses a kiss to my forehead and draws back, eyes shining with adoration. “You’re incredible. You know that, right?”
“Because of you. If everyone who took the Bar had a Jackson there wouldn’t be any fails.” I think for a moment and then correct myself, “Well, actually, it’s a curve so I guess there still would be, but it’d be ridiculously tight.”
He lets out a soft laugh and ducks his head to nuzzle against my temple. “Love you.”
“Okay, I’m going to head this off before you forget that I’m here,” Steph says wryly. “How about Skyler gets dressed and then we go out and celebrate?”
I shrug and shift around to face her. “Sure. Let’s do lunch—I’m starving. And then Jackson and I have some… errands we need to do this afternoon.” I slide a conspiratorial glance toward him, which Steph clearly misinterprets based on her response.
“And I’m assuming you want me out of the apartment so you two can do these “errands”?” She raises her hands to make air quotes, a suspicious eyebrow raised.
“Um…no. We won’t be here,” I inform her. “We’ll be Downtown.”
Her forehead creases as she scrutinizes the pair of us. “So…you’reactuallyrunning errands?”
I shrug. “That’s what I said.”
“Then what was with this shifty look?”
“There was no shifty look.”
She places her hands on her hips and fixes me with one of her “mom” expressions. “There wassoa shifty look. Spill it.”
I chuckle with wry amusement and exchange a glance with Jackson. Then I turn back to Steph to break the news. “Jax and I are getting married. So we’re going to get the license this afternoon.”
“The wedding’s tomorrow,” Jackson adds.
Steph places a hand to her chest as her jaw drops practically to the carpet. Her expression seems to be caught between overjoyed and horrified. “But I can’t be in wedding pictures looking like this!” she cries, running a hand over her brown ponytail. “I have gray roots coming through!”
Epilogue
Jackson
