“Promise me, Ashy.”
“Sure.” I shrugged. Of course he would drive home that he wanted to be friends. He wouldn’t want me to think he actually wanted me. He wouldn’t want something embarrassing to happen like me throwing myself at him. Not that I would. I was still super in love with Lukas.
“Promise me,” Jax pressed as I climbed in my car. He positioned himself in the open door, one hand on the roof, the other hand on the top of my door, and he loomed over me, staring down at me in a way that made me feel small but not in a bad way.
It couldn’t hurt to have more friends, so I caved in and nodded. “I promise.”
My words made his face light up, and he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my mouth. A quick dusting of his lips against mine and he was gone again.
“Good boy,” he said, and then he went to his car and I had to drive home while thinking about why those two words felt so fucking good to hear.
SEVEN
JAX
Like the masochist I was,I had Lukas send me the footage from the screen test, and I’d spent too many hours to count since then watching it or thinking about it. It was almost an obsession now. But I couldn’t get it out of my head. I liked the way Asher felt against me. The way he was willing to let me lead. The way it felt like he needed me when he kissed me. Like he needed something more than just a kiss but wasn’t sure how to get it.
And then there was the footage of him and Blue. It was hard to deny that the two of them had dynamite chemistry. They looked good together. Maybe even better than Asher and I looked. But only barely. I remembered the way Blue kissed. He had a way of making you feel as if you were the only person on the planet when he kissed you. Like you were everything he’d been looking for, and he wasn’t going to let you go.
It was possible that I’d spent far too much time thinking about kissing, and I might have caved in and rubbed one out, butI’d have to put up with the raging boners until after the shoot. It wasn’t corny to save myself, and were it not for the fact that they called it a money shot for a reason, I’d have had no hesitation in jerking my dick raw over thoughts of Asher and Blue and me together.
I thought I’d made headway with Asher the other day when we went for a walk. It was easy to talk to him, and I liked being in his company. And the kiss we shared after had been every bit as fantastic as the kiss for the screen test.
But Asher had gone silent after. I knew he was back at work because Lukas had mentioned his return. He still wasn’t his regular old self, according to Lukas, but he had confidence that things would smooth out eventually.
I wasn’t so sure. Asher had some pretty big feelings all tangled up inside of him. I wanted to help him but wasn’t sure how. There weren’t many people I could reach out to for advice. I couldn’t look to Lukas, for obvious reasons. Blue wouldn’t be any help. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help Asher or that he didn’t know how, but there was another layer to this that I worried Blue wouldn’t understand.
There was one person who’d never let me down and I found myself on his doorstep bright and early Saturday morning. Dad lived in a ground floor condo, his yard no bigger than a postage stamp, but he spent every weekend morning out on his back patio, reading a book and drinking coffee.
That’s where I found him, reading glasses sliding down his nose adding a few years to his face. I let myself into his yard through the gate and pulled up a chair across from him.
“What’s in the bag?” he asked without looking up from his book.
“I brought breakfast for us. Just some sausage and egg sandwiches.” Digging into the bag, I pulled the sandwiches out and set one in front of him.
“Saves me from having to eat my cooking. You’re a good kid, Jax.” Dad slid an old receipt into his book to mark his place, then closed it and laid it aside. He took his glasses off and rested them on top of the book then carefully unwrapped the sandwich.
As hard as Dad had tried, he’d never really mastered the art of cooking. Growing up, food had been edible at best. When I was old enough, I took over the job from him. Not that I was any better at first, but eventually I got the hang of it.
“What brings you by, kid?” Dad bit into his sandwich and let out a moan. “God, that’s good,” he said around a mouthful.
“Breakfast brings me by. I figured you hadn’t had anything decent in a while.”
“One, you’re lying. And two, you can lie to me all you want if you keep bringing me food.”
“It’s just some boy trouble, Dad. Nothing major.”
We were quiet as we ate. Dad, because he was too busy devouring his food to get a breath in, let alone a word. And me, because I didn’t know where to start.
Dad balled up his wrapper and dropped it into the bag. “It must be pretty big boy trouble if you’re coming to me with it.” He paused to take a sip of his coffee. “Well, lay it on me. Wait, before we begin, did you get anyone in this story pregnant?”
“What? No. What are you talking about?”
Dad gave me a half smile over top of his coffee cup. “I’m down with the lingo. I’m hip. I know that some boys can get pregnant.”
“I didn’t get anyone pregnant, Dad. Jesus.”
“Well, good. So as long as you didn’t kill someone, your problem should be easy to find a solution for. Don’t make a life. Don’t take a life. Anything other than that is easy to handle.”
