Confusion knits her brows. “What?”
“The third hanger in—the black dress with black jewels covering the bodice. If I were choosing an outfit for you tonight, that’s what I’d want to see you in.”
“And what makes you think you get a say in my wardrobe?”
“I know I don’t. It was a request. Do me a favor and grant me it?”
She scoffs. “Why would I do that?”
Lowering my gaze to the floor, I smile softly at my shuffling feet. “Because seeing you in a version of the dress you wore to my senior prom will have me feeling nostalgic, just like playing for you will now. It’ll be a full circle kind of moment.”
Chancing a glance, I look up at her. She tilts her head side to side before answering, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It will be a full circle moment considering the time you sprang a surprise performance on me while we were at the fair. Consider this a decade’s worth of payback.”
“Hey, look where it got us.” I take a moment to let those words sink in, and while our future didn’t work out for the two of us the way I’d planned, I could never regret that night and the success it led her to.
Taevin breaks our eye contact, gazing off to the side of the room and I take that as my cue to leave her alone.
As I suds up in the shower, I try to give myself a mental pep talk for our little private performance. Basically the only thing I can come up with is,don’t fuck this up.
Taevin
Yeah . . . so I fucked up.
I messed up in the worst way.
After I tuned Jax’s guitar, he came back into my room smelling so good it left me reeling—a mixture of his laundry detergent, his bodywash, and the cologne I got him as a wedding present. How is it that he still has it after all this time?
As he approaches the bed where I’m sitting with his guitar in my lap, I clear my throat and try my best to subtly breathe him in when he takes a seat beside me.
“You, uh, smell familiar.”
Jax quirks a brow, bringing the fabric of his shirt to his nose and taking a whiff. “Familiar in a good or bad way?”
“The best way,” I mutter under my breath but he definitely heard it if the cocky smirk he’s wearing is anything to go off of.
Looking over at him, I can’t help but ask, “How is it you smell exactly like the cologne I got you on our wedding day?”
“Because I still wear it. Well, lately only for special occasions so it doesn’t run out. When I got my first signing bonus, I bought a ridiculous amount of bottles because I heard they were discontinuing it.”
His cheeks heat in the most adorable way, so I question, “How many bottles is a ridiculous amount?”
“Twenty-five,” he murmurs.
My eyes widen. “Jax! That cologne was like two hundred dollars. You spent five grand on cologne?”
He grabs the back of his neck, looking so bashful it takes everything in me not to throw myself into his arms right now.I’ve never been able to resist him when he gets like this—the way he looks right now is like an aphrodisiac personalized just for me. “Yeah, I know. When Bennett found out because we were living together at the time, he just about blew a gasket and gave me the biggest lecture on being smart with my money. It was another example of me doing something to keep the memory of us close that he just couldn’t comprehend.”
“How many bottles do you have left?” I ask, my voice hushed.
“I’ve got plenty—I think I’ve only gone through about six or seven. But I wanted to be able to wear it for the rest of our lives, so when I realized I was going through about a bottle a year when I wore it everyday, I started to cut back and only wear it on game days and special occasions.”
“And right now is a special occasion?”
“It is,” he assures, nodding his head.
It’s only then I take in what he’s wearing. A familiar camouflage baseball hat I got him when we were dating causes another wave of nostalgia to hit. To anyone else, the simple combination of a camo hat and a spritz of cologne wouldn’t damn near shut them down and turn them on all at once. Well, if anyone saw Jax right now, they would definitely feel the same.
He’s paired his backward hat with an olive green Carhartt shirt, fitted light-wash jeans, and a pair of chestnut, square toe Tecovas.
