“This morning, you mean. And no…not at the time anyway. I’m just tired, man.”
It’s the wrong thing to say to him, but for once he doesn’t shutter and silently freak out. He finds his ancient laptop and puts a movie on. Then he plays with my hair while I doze in his lap. At some point, he gets up again and brings mugs of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches back to bed. I inhale them like a starving man.
He laughs and makes some more.
Until he goes to work, it’s probably the best day I’ve ever had.
Chapter Seventeen
Jax
Time blurs by in a haze of long cold days out on the trails, and hot sweaty nights in Tanner’s bed. I’m not prepared for the intensity that comes with having sex with him. It’s so consuming some nights I go home and sleep alone just to contemplate it.
He doesn’t chase me. He lets me go and greets me whenever I come up for air as if we’ve been apart a few simple minutes. I love him for that.
I love him for a lot of reasons.
A couple of weeks after the violence at the bar, Thanksgiving creeps up on me. Eve’s invited us both to spend it with her and some girlfriends, but before we can enjoy whatever feast she’s prepared, we’re going to fetch Molly’s belongings from her ex’s apartment.
He’s not supposed to be there. He posted bail under the condition that he return to his parents’ place somewhere I’ve never heard of and stay there until his next hearing. He’s got friends in the apartment block he called home, though. Weed-soaked buddies who give me and Tanner hazy-eyed stares as we barge through the front door and rescue Molly’s things.
“They want to fight us,” Tanner says.
He sounds amused. I am too, until one of them emerges from the kitchen as we’re leaving.
He sizes us up and picks me to square up to. I don’t blame him. Tanner is…well, Tanner. But this idiot is a lifetime too late to land a punch on me.
He lunges.
I sidestep. “Fuck off, mate.”
But he comes again, and I slam him into the wall. It’s easy.Tooeasy. And he’s on his arse before I stop to make sense of chinning someone in a cramped apartment doorway.
Brave dude spits blood. “Brent’s gonna fuck you up when he finds you.”
“Give a shit.” I step over him and leave.
Tanner follows, chuckling. “You’re a bruiser, huh?”
I snort and open the trunk of his car. “Nah. Just a pub brawler. You have to be where I come from to survive the townies every summer.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, but Vermont is way more civilized than a British beach in high summer.”
“For real? You don’t all sip tea and play billiards?”
“No, we drink bad lager and fight about it.”
Tanner makes the face I see most often when he’s not sure if I’m taking the piss out of him. It’s adorable, and I enjoy not confirming either way far too much.
We take Molly’s stuff to her dorm. She’s still in Ohio, but her Dutch roommate hasn’t gone home for the holidays and lets us in. We put her stuff in her room and head back to the car.
Tanner tosses me his keys. “You drive.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to ogle you while you mutter curse words at other drivers.”
