Peyton
The next morning,I tried to rush out the door early. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave. When I woke with Jet’s warm body, sprawled across me, I could have stayed in that bed for hours. But he’d already surprised me by inviting me to sleep over, and I had to keep reminding myself that he wasn’t the relationship type and that with Noah considered, one wasn’t possible anyway.
There was just no room for how I felt about Jet, even though that need that grew stronger every time we met up.
But instead of sneaking away, I got pulled back in. Jet whipped up breakfast, a spinach omelet for each of us and a plate of bacon and toast to share, then tried to drown me with coffee. Although I had a full day of work and I needed to get home to change before I made it to the office, it just felt too good to linger in his life like that.
Hell, he even rubbed my shoulders for a while. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had my shoulders rubbed like that before.
When I was cleaning up the dishes, I noticed him pop a pill in his mouth, then wash it down with coffee. I turned my eyes away, not wanting to invade his privacy, but Jet already caught my glance. He held the bottle up, “Adderall,” he said, then slid it back on the counter.
I nodded. “Right.”
Jet seemed to consider saying more, then continued. “I have ADHD,” he said. “I guess that’s a good thing to know about me.”
“Oh. I only know a little bit about that. Attention and focus, right?”
Jet wobbled his hand sideways. He was wearing a pair of basketball shorts, but he hadn’t bothered to pop on a shirt. “Kind of. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Of course.” I almost glanced at the time, aware I needed to be going, but I got a sense that he was getting ready to open up to me. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
He scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t about to get into it over breakfast.”
I shrugged and dropped the last mug in the dishwasher. “Breakfast is over.”
After another moment of hesitation, Jet took a seat at the small kitchen table. “It’s not a big deal. When I take my meds, I’m good. Without them, I can end up scattered and sometimes depressed, but I’ve had everything under control for a while.”
I nodded and took a seat across from him. “So the meds give you what you need?”
“Well, they help. I’ve learned to manage the other stuff.”
“Other stuff?”
Jet tilted his eyes away. “When things are hard, my instinct is to look away, not deal with the problems. And that means I sometimes struggle to think about the consequences of my actions. Not like I would do horrible things, just that my short-term thinking can block out my long-term thinking.” He let out a chuckle, then looked back at me. “If you ever see my place a total mess, try not to judge.”
“I honestly wouldn’t,” I told him.
Jet wasn’t acting ashamed or anything like that. Just like in the rest of his life, he was clearly not going to apologize for who he was. But I could still tell that he was taking a risk in sharing this with me, and I got a fuller sense of how hard his home life must have been growing up.
“Your family,” I shook my head. “I’m sure your parents weren’t very forgiving.”
Jet let out a sharp laugh. “They don’t even know I was diagnosed.”
I furrowed my brow. “Really? They didn’t try to help you out when you had trouble in school? Nothing like that?”
“Dad just told me I need a stronger will. But years later, when my impulse control kept causing havoc in my life, a friend convinced me to see a therapist. From there, I slowly worked things out, with my ADHD being a big part of the puzzle.”
“It’s impressive that you navigated all of that without your family helping.”
“Well, I’m sure if they would have realized a pill would get me to stop selling beer to the other kids in the high school parking lot, they would have taken me to see a specialist.”
I gave him half a smile. “It’s not the pill,” I said, reminding him of his own words. “It’s the work you did.”
Jet cocked up a smile back. “Thanks, Peyton.”
We lingered a little longer, talking over that small table in the kitchen, but soon enough, I really did have to go. With another kiss and plans to see each other again soon, I pulled myself away from Jet and headed into the city.
For the next couple of weeks, we found a rhythm like that together. The hookups turned into nights slept over, although never two in a row. We ordered food, then, soon after, started cooking together. Jet took me to his gym some mornings, and at night, we devoted long hours to exploring each other, but also sometimes just watching a movie, lying on the couch, or listening to music.
