Tanner:u can stay with me
Gabi:that what u really want bro?
He goes offline before I can reply, and he doesn’t come back, leaving me to contemplate the possibility that he’ll be home sooner than expected. It feels too good to be true, and I wonder if that’s how Jax felt the morning he left for his camping trip. If whatever he was feeling when he looked at me had felt like a cruel joke. Damn, he doesn’t deserve that. I don’t think anyone does.
I drive home and go to bed without letting myself dwell on it too much, and somehow I succeed.
My reward is a dawn text message from Jax.
Jax:Sorry, I crashed. Missed you. You wanna have breakfast?
Fresh relief tops up what Gabriel gave me when he came online last night, but it’s laced with disappointment. I can’t have breakfast with Jax—I have too much to do before I hand open mic night over to Rainn, including a meeting with my boss on a damn chicken farm.Thanks, Harrison.
Tanner:i can’t. work stuff. maybe later? lunch?
Jax:I can’t do that either. Gotta go to HQ and review some stuff. Don’t worry. I’ll find you tonight x
I don’t want him to find me tonight. I want to knock on his door with breakfast and eat it in his bed with him. But my life doesn’t work like that. I get up and drive to the chicken farm to have coffee and waffles with the best people on the planet, and the whole time they’re being nicer to me than I deserve, I want to be somewhere else.Hero.
It’s afternoon by the time I’m back in my car. I’d have missed lunch even if Jax had been free, but it doesn’t make the pull to him any less, and I happen to know that Jerry shuts his Wildfoot office at three o’clock sharp on Sundays, whether his staff wants to work longer or not.
Somehow I find myself there. I park close by and kill the engine. People are still milling around inside. My view isn’t clear enough to tell if Jax is one of them, but I hit the sidewalk anyway and find a bench across the street. My phone keeps me company for a little while. I have a million things to do on social media for the bar, including deleting the lewd comments Molly’s boyfriend has left beneath the video clip of her singing last month.
I’m still going when a shadow looms over me a few minutes later. I’m stuck on Jax enough to assume it’s him. “Can you block someone from a Facebook page?” I say without looking up.
“No idea. Ask someone younger.”
Damn. I know that voice and it’s far too Vermont to be anything like Jax’s melodic Cornish brogue. I raise my gaze to meet Kai Fletcher’s. He’s taller than me, but lanky enough that the winter sun still makes me squint at him. “You’re not that old.”
“Maybe not, but I spend too much time without cell service to understand social media.”
Of course he does. He used to be Jerry’s head ranger before he joined the state’s mountain rescue team. And seeing as we have nothing else in common, I’m guessing that’s what he wants to talk to me about.Awesome.
Uninvited, Kai takes a seat next to me. He’s dressed in the same clothes Jax wears to hike the trails, but despite his forest-man aesthetic, I don’t dig it. I’ve only got eyes for my ocean boy. “What do you want, Kai?”
“A favor, obviously,” Kai says with an easy grin. “Jerry told me to leave you alone, but I’m desperate enough to risk you kicking my ass.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m about to ask you to take a spot on the volunteer rescue team. We’re shorthanded till next summer. I know it’s not your scene anymore, but you have more experience than the rest of my guys combined. Hell, I could probably even swing a paid spot if you’d consider a full-time move.”
I stare at him as though he’s speaking Greek, but my conscience knows I’m being unfair. It’s not Kai’s fault even thinking about my old life makes me want to jump in front of a truck. At least, it used to. These days I’m better at handling extreme thoughts, but I’m still all kinds of not ready for this conversation. “Thanks, but I have a job already.”
“Dude, you work in a bar. That isn’t a job for a bad-ass mountain man.”
“Like I give a fuck what you think.”
Kai doesn’t flinch. He’s genuinely confused, and I want to remind him that mountain rescue in Vermont is nothing like the five-year stretch I spent in Alaska, but…I don’t care enough. Besides, people still die on the sweetest trails. If the last two years have taught me anything, it’s that. “Look, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m not about that life anymore. You might not want my job, but I’m not a man you want doing yours.”
“I don’t believe that, Reid. You had a bad run. It doesn’t mean—”
“Shut up, man.” As I speak the words, Jax and Jerry step out of the Wildfoot offices. He doesn’t see me at first, but Jerry does, and he looks like he wants to die. Or murder Kai. And I’m not okay with either of those things. I clap Kai on the shoulder and find an affable smile from the pit of my stomach. “Thanks for the chat.”
I leave him on the bench and cross the street. Jerry has stopped dead in the doorway of Wildfoot HQ, but Jax is still drifting forward, poking at an iPad with a flush of excitement staining his chiseled cheeks. I wonder what he’s squinting at, and he’s cute enough that the forced grin on my face settles in enough to be real as he walks right into me.
“Fuck. Sorry—oh, hey. What are you doing here?”
“Just passing.” I flick a glance at Jerry. “Figured I’d try my luck and see if you had time for pizza before the open-mic night.”
