Page 85 of True Abandon

He lets out a breath and looks at his feet for a moment before staring into the horizon. “A new beginning. It felt right. It feels right.”

He’s right—it does.

We hop into the van and start the drive back to the Kauai Princess. He takes his phone and I glance at the screen. He has several missed calls from Dexter, his former manager and various other names I don’t know – many of them female.

As awesome as today has been, it’s only a day in the life. Jax has an entire life that doesn’t involve me. He has family, friends, his job and a home.

In two days, he’ll be gone.

I turn and face the window. My heart is in the van, but my mind is wandering elsewhere. I spent so long not surviving because of him. Now, I pray I’ll be able to move forward when he leaves me for the second time in my life.

Jax taps my shoulder and holds his phone toward me. I look at the screen and see he’s pulled up an episode of the Golden Girls. He places his arm around my shoulder and pulls me in. My shoulder nestles into the crook of his arm as my head falls against his chest. And with my palm pressed against his heart, I settle into the most comfortable spot in the world.

We spend the drive watching the where the girls got mistakenly arrested for being prostitutes. His warm chuckle vibrates in his chest when Sofia walks into the jailhouse and utters a line about how dumb the cops are to think people would actually pay to sleep with Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy.

With every hum, I feel more peaceful.

With every inch, he pulls me into him, I feel more grounded.

And when he leans down and kisses the top of my head, I feel more at pace in the present that I’m forgetting about the past.

Chapter NINETEEN

“Where the hell did you run off to so early?”

Kelli’s appearance on our sofa scares the shit out of me.

“Why aren’t you at work?” I ask as I drop my phone and keys on the table by the door.

She rises from the couch still in her pajamas. She still has on yesterday’s makeup, and the mascara is smudged around her eyes making her look like a sad clown. “I have the day off. Why are you dressed like you have the day off, too?”

I unzip my sweatshirt and throw it over the couch. “I went for a bike ride.” When I’m in the kitchen, I open the refrigerator door and add, “with Jax.”

“The plan is in motion.”

Taking a bottle of water out, I twist the lid and take a sip. “What plan?”

“The payback plan.”

I close the fridge and shake my head. “There is no revenge plot.”

Her mouth cringes in disgust. “For ten years you’ve complained how that man has ruined your life, and now he’s back for, what, three days—”

“Six,” I correct.

“Six!” She takes ten marching steps toward me and stops a foot away from my face. “He’s been here for six days, and you haven’t utterly destroyed him?”

“Well, I tried at first, but things changed.”

She points an accusing finger at my nose. “He’s manipulating you.” Her jaw is clenched as she shakes her head in disgust. “You let him get into your heart again. Don’t fall for it.”

I move her finger away from her face. “Why are you so hell bent on me hurting Jax?”

“You owe this to every girl who has ever been damaged. Men,” she crosses her arms in front of her chest, holding herself in, “are all the same. They use women and then just cast them aside. Someone needs to teach them a lesson.”

There’s something in the way she clutches the fabric of her t-shirt and bites the inside of her lip that seems oddly familiar. For years I’ve been so focused on myself, on my own pain, that I never really looked at Kelli. At this beautiful girl with a vibrant personality who gives herself so freely to pretty much anyone who pays her attention. She’s always been so in-tune with what I was feeling, I never realized that she, too, was fighting her own demons.

“Who hurt you?” My voice is soft, but from the way her dark eyes shoot up toward mine, you’d think I screamed at her.