I slide my hands into my pockets.
“How do you keep it so controlled down there?” she asks, voice low. “At the bar.”
I don’t answer.
She presses anyway. “You talk like you’re always one breath away from turning into… something. But down there, you’re just Jax. Pouring drinks. Like a normal guy.”
I exhale hard through my nose. “I’m not a normal guy.”
“Then what is it? I know you got powers from the tar, but what else are you not telling me?” she asks.
I finally look at her. Her leg’s propped up all wrong. She’s pretending it doesn’t hurt because needing help is a fate worse than death for her. And her mouth?—
I should get the hell out of this room.
Instead, I hear myself say, “People don’t notice because they’re drunk. They’re loud. In this city, everyone’s an expert at looking the other way.”
Her throat works. “So… you can hide there.”
I nod.
“And you can’t hide here.”
I swallow. “You don’t have to be afraid,” I say. “I can handle it until the next full moon.”
“I’m not afraid, Jax.”
I let out a short, humorless breath. “You should be.”
Her eyes flash. “You don’t get to tell me what to feel.”
The light above us flickers again—longer this time. She watches it, and then looks back at me.
“I’ll get your food,” I say, already turning away.
She leans back against the pillows too fast, winces, hides it by scratching Scotch behind the ears like the pain is nothing. It’s not nothing.
Behind me, her voice cuts in.
“And after I eat… you’re going to tell me whose blood it was.”
I stop with my hand on the doorknob. The tar inside me wakes up, stretches,like it’s fucking smiling.It knows what that answer will do to her, and it knows what it’ll cost me.
“Already answered a question today,” I say, not turning around. “Try again tomorrow.”
Twenty
THEN | SISK
“What are you doing?” I ask as Jax starts stripping right in front of me. There’s anger in his movements.
He doesn’t answer me. He simply unbuttons, shoves his jeans down, and thrusts the balled-up denim into my hands like this is the most obvious, most logical solution in the world. “Put these on.”
I stare at the pants in my hands, then at him. He’s standing there in boxers, all lean muscle and simmering rage, likethatisn’t somehow a bigger problem than me being half-naked in a parking lot full of people.
“I would tell you to go to hell,” I spit, “but walking home without pants feels a little too on the nose, even for me.”
He turns away like the conversation is already over and I tug the jeans on. They hang loose on my hips, pooling around my ankles because they’re obviously too long. The scent of him clings to the fabric,which feels unfair.“This is definitely not how you forget someone,” I say under my breath.
