“How? Did Mo tell you?”
He pulls back, gripping my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Two and two together, remember?”
I can tell there’s something more he’s not saying, but as our eyes meet and hold for a long moment, my brain short-circuits.
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.
Too soon, his hand drops away, and he clears his throat. “How do you like your eggs?”
I take a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart. “Runny.”
“Do you like bacon?”
“Does the tin man have a sheet metal cock?”
Jaxon throws his head back laughing. “Now that you mention it…”
“The math checks out?”
He points at me with the end of a spatula. “Exactly.”
One after the other, he cracks two eggs into the hot skillet one-handed without any shells falling into the pan.
Am I in heat? Why was that so hot?
“You’ll have to be careful what you say around Emmy Lou. She’ll have you shoving your entire life savings into her swear jar if you’re not careful.”
I’d already heard all about Emmy’s swear jar from Evie at one of our book club meetings. I make a mental note to temper my language around little ears. I can scarcely afford basic necessities, let alone the luxury of cursing around a child, apparently.
“Noted. Anything else I should know about your family?”
“You’ve met most of them,” he says. “And Pops and Wilder are both pretty laid back. I’ll give you a tour later, and you can meet them too.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to turn him down, but the alternative is meeting them all at once, and that sounds like a nightmare scenario for my social anxiety.
Jaxon plates our food and carries them into the living room as the delicious scent of bacon and eggs permeates the air. We eat in companionable silence across from a roaring fire as I try to reconcile everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.
If it hadn’t been for Jaxon, I’d still be shivering in my freezing car on the side of the road in Willow Valley, doing mental calculations to justify the cost of breakfast. Instead,I’m in this beautiful home surrounded by warmth with a full belly and a man who’s been nothing but kind since the moment he walked into my life.
Jaxon
After breakfast, Callie takes our plates and washes them by hand. I stand back against the wall and watch her. This whole thing feels domestic as hell, and I’m not sure what to make of it. She looks good here. Too good.
She dries her hands on a dish towel and catches me staring. Trying to act casual about the whole thing, like I wasn’t just salivating over the view, I twirl my keys around my finger and push off the wall.
“Your chariot awaits.”
“Just give me a minute to grab a jacket.”
As she heads down the hallway to the guest bedroom, my phone chimes with a message from the family group chat.
Girls, Hayes, and Neighs
Griffin: Since when do you drive a shitty hatchback?
Jaxon: It’s Callie’s.
Griffin: Oh shit. Jaxy brought a girl home. Someone alert the press.
