“Pizza?”
“Yeah. You know me…always hungry, and you can bring Jerry too. He’s got a boner for the Italian sausage at Titos.”
Jax is already startled by my sudden appearance in front of him, but his eyes widen considerably more as he digests my invitation. He glances at Jerry, who’s already shaking his head. “Don’t mind me, boys. I have to get home. But thanks, Tanner. Maybe next time?”
“For sure.” I find Jax’s wrist and wrap my fingers around it, grounding myself in his flesh and bone. “See you around.”
Jerry walks away whistling, but I know him well enough to call bullshit, and I feel bad that I’ve rattled him. He doesn’t deserve it. Dude was like a father to me once upon a time, and now we can barely look at each other, and it’s all my fault.
Guilt creeps in, bonding with the anxiety I’m never quite free of. My vision starts to darken, but Jax grips my hand before panic takes hold. He squeezes it hard enough to bend my bones and the shock of it turns me toward him with little conscious thought.
Jax searches my face. Lord know what he finds. “You okay?”
“Yup. You?”
He frowns, and it sucks away the exhilaration he was cloaked in when I set eyes on him across the street. That’s my fault too, but I know if I sink into it, I’ll make it worse.
His hand is still locked around mine. I focus on his warm palm and strong fingers. The bad shit ebbs away, and I’m left with the tingling sensation I get when Jax is anywhere near me. It feels amazing. I want to kiss him. More than that, I want to drag him home and get him naked.
But most of all, I want to know what’s got him so excited. “Got time for that pizza?”
Jax blinks. His expression clears and he gives me a slow grin. “Sure. I need to get one with green shit on it, though. I’m carbed out.”
“Death by energy bar, huh?”
“And then some. If you cut me open, I’d bleed oats.”
I laugh, like I so often do when I’m with him, sudden and unexpected. Lighter than air. “That’s some image.”
“I know, right? But I forgot to grocery shop last night, so I’m still eating them.”
“You didn’t get dinner last night?”
“Nope. Fell asleep.”
“Breakfast this morning?”
“On the run. More energy bars.”
“That ain’t healthy.”
Jax shrugs. “It’s not the worst thing in the world.”
He’s right about that. We slope to my car and drive back to the lot behind V and V. The pizza place isn’t far and we’re settled at a table ten minutes later. I’m pretty much done for the day except some mild supervision of the bar, so I order a beer. Jax gets the cider he seems to like so much, and I get a kick out of the way his Cornish tongue wraps around the word cider, so it’s a win all around. There’s even a pizza on the menu with enough green stuff on it that he won’t get scurvy anytime soon.
When the server has gone, I lean forward and tap the iPad Jax has on the table. “What’s cookin’ on this? Something good come up on your trip? How did your leg hold up?”
Jax opens the tablet with his thumb and pushes it to me. “My leg is fine. The stitches dissolved already. As for the trip, it was kind of a bust as far as footage goes, but look what we found on the top static post this morning.”
I take the iPad and press Play on the video already open on the screen. It’s dark, and the weather hampers the powerful lens of the static camera, but I still can’t miss the pointy-eared feline padding across the ground, its large paws hitting the icy crunch with a spreading toe motion that creates a natural snow shoe. “Wow.” I let out a low whistle. “You got the lynx. That’s fucking awesome. And high up too. That’s what you get for listening to me, huh?”
Jax smiles like the sun. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. If I hadn’t listened to you, that camera would be on the other side of the ridge, and we’d have missed the whole thing.”
I take that in as I watch the magnificent creature tread its way to wherever it’s going off-shot. It’s carrying dead prey—a squirrel, maybe? I can’t be sure—but it feels good to see it with food in its mouth. It bodes well for future sightings and the survival of the species in general. “Can I snap that and send it to Gabi? He pretends he doesn’t care about Vermont anymore, but he’s lying.”
“Sure.”
Jax holds the tablet at just the right angle for me to take a picture on my phone without screen glare. Then he lays it back down on the table. “Jerry reckons we’re gonna get a ton of conservationists wanting to head up there before long to track them. It means we have to map a safe route up there before spring that can take more footfall than just the two of us.”
