Jax by E. M. Moore
13
Though I come down the stairs in someone else’s clothes, I feel more like myself than I have in ages. Leenie walks into the room with Max on her heels. She smiles at me, eyeing me up and down. She’s pleased her clothes fit me, and in reality, so am I. I haven’t had a decent pair of clothes in a long time. Everything I have is purchased for me for a reason. The revealing top to distract the guy so that one of Psycho’s crew can rob him. The demure sweater so that I can con the nice professor or the grandfather.
My life is a stage…and I’m just acting in it.
These clothes are different. They’re just…that. Clothes. They’re not for any other purpose than to cover up my body with something that looks reasonably good.
“You ready?” Leenie asks. “We have a big day ahead of us.”
That’s news to me. “We do?”
She nods. “I have to do some inventory at the gym and then we’re going to the Ring to help set up for tonight.”
I follow her out of the house while Max gets himself comfortable on the couch. She reaches into a cute purse and pulls out a pair of car keys. Shock ripples through me. I remember what a novelty it was when Jax and Finn’s parents owned a vehicle. “Wait. You guys have a car?”
“I have a car.” Leenie grins at me over her shoulder. “The guys don’t like to use it because my brother gave it to me.”
Her brother gave her a car? My brow furrows. Gang guys aren’t known for being wealthy. How in the hell can her brother buy her a damn car?
When we come around the side of the house, the black sedan is sitting close to the house. I don’t understand how I missed it before. It’s the newest thing in the damn neighborhood though I suppose it is obscured by overgrown tree limbs hanging over the rough driveway. In years past, their dad’s rusty old hatchback that sputtered sat in this same place.
“If they don’t like your brother...” I hesitate, not sure if I should get into their business. She may be acting like we’re friends but we’re really not. I’m still enemy number one in the house.
“Well, I don’t know. They don’t dislike him anymore. It’s more like a mutual ignoring of what the other is.”
She laughs to herself, and I shake my head. “I did think it was a little weird that Jax would let a gang member in his house.”
“Begrudgingly,” she acknowledges. “Trust me.”
I trail my fingers over the black paint on the car until I reach the handle. Leenie’s already inside and starting it up, so I pull the door open and get inside. The new car smell hits me in the face, and I have to hold myself back from asking how her brother afforded this thing. The question is on the tip of my tongue waiting to jump off but she’s the only one who’s been nice to me, so I keep my mouth shut so I don’t offend her. Maybe she’s different than I originally had her pegged. I only met Cole briefly—when he threatened me—so maybe they come from money, and I’m not getting how being a Dragon ties into it.
She backs out of the driveway and puts the car in Drive. We’ve only just started rolling forward when she begins talking. “I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice about Jax. One, don’t let him push you around. Two, he’s probably more broken up than you think he is. Three, he’s a really good guy, and if you do fuck him over again, I’ll kill you myself. No gang ties needed,” she mumbles as she takes the next right.
I turn toward her, her rapid-fire advice still hanging in the air. “Okay. Um...”
She laughs at my awkwardness but then gets serious again. “I mean it.”
I run my hands through my hair, feeling the same silky strands from years ago. It’s like I’ve shed my armored skin and can sit in my own again without feeling bad about it. Still, I’m waiting for the moment Psycho decides to check in with me. If I don’t tell him what he wants to hear, I’m in trouble. If I do hurt Jax again— I swallow. It’s not just about Jax anymore. It’s Finn and Leenie and all the other people they have depending on them. It’s the whole business they’ve built.
I wipe my palms off on my borrowed jeans and stare up at the ceiling of the car. I don’t see a way out of this where I get to save the people I care about.. and myself. In the past, I’ve always chosen self-preservation. It’s ingrained in me. “Noted,” I whisper.
“Damn. Did that work?” She smiles to herself. “Jaz tells me I can be scary when I want to be but I really thought you were going to laugh in my face.”
I chuckle softly, something I haven’t been able to do in a while. I know she’s serious though, so I give her a serious answer. “I don’t want to hurt Jax,” I tell her honestly. “I never did.”
She bites her bottom lip as we make our way into the heart of the Heights. We’re in the section of town that the Crew decided to clean up but pretty soon, we’ll be out of it and into reality again. Slowly, I watch the degradation of not only the bones of the city but the people too. In the nice section, people were walking around relatively clean. Now, there are people on the street using dilapidated buildings as back rests. Discarded trash tumbles past them, and I have to look away because it reminds me too much of the most horrible parts of my life.
The first was when I got to the Heights and knew no one and had nothing. A couple of blocks from here was where I hung out almost all day only to find myself back there as soon as K kicked me out of Crew headquarters. Being one of K’s girls wasn’t ideal. I was only a couple of years older than his son for crying out loud but it was better than living on the streets and wondering when my next meal would come.
When will I be able to have a comfortable life like that again but with someone who won’t use me? It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted but it feels impossible to obtain when it really should be a basic necessity.
Leenie and I are silent for the rest of the car ride even though I can feel her inspecting me all the way up until we pull into a small strip mall. I recognize it from a newspaper someone showed me. It was only a short blip with a grainy picture but I’d bursted with pride that day. Elite Boxing. Jax and Finn’s gym.
I stare up at the sign, my face heating, concentrating in the area behind my eyes as tears gather in the corners. It’s what he’d always wanted. The only thing he’d talked about aside from being a fighter himself.
Sitting here, it hits me then that I’m the weak link and always was. Jax and I were together. We were with it. And yet, who’s the one who actually did something with their life? Certainly not me. If I tell him everything I’ve done, he’ll never be able to look at me the same way. Like Leenie said, he’s a good guy with a heart of gold. He wouldn’t understand what I’ve done to survive.
“Come on,” Leenie urges. “Inventory time.”
Everything in me tells me not to go in there. The parking lot is safer, shielding all of my past wrongs and realizations. I’m the weak one. I’m selfish. There’s something wrong with me. Not them. Obviously.
Then again, Jax may not even have this if it weren’t for me. Big Daddy K didn’t like people playing with his toys. If I’d told him I’d wanted to have sex with Jax, the greatest man I’ve ever known might have ended up in that cemetery outside of town. He wouldn’t have all this if I’d come clean.
I click off my seatbelt and follow Leenie forward, across the parking lot and up onto the sidewalk. As we get closer, the familiar noises send me back to the storage facility. If I close my eyes and focus on the melodic thump of the pads, I could fool myself into thinking that I’m back there, listening to Psycho’s cold, cutting barbs he attacks his guys with.
Elite Boxing isn’t like that. It’s obvious from the moment I first step inside. It has a life to it that the storage facility doesn’t. It has ignition and fire and a pulse.
The crazed lunacy in the back room of the storage facility where Psycho and his guys train is more like barbaric pride accompanied by fierce competition. These guys are all rooting for each other. Words of encouragement fly around the room, and not only from Finn who’s standing ringside instructing. But from everyone.
I watch him for a while, smiling. In a way, I always felt Jax’s brotherly love and affection for Finn like it was my own. Only a couple of years separate them but Jax did everything he could to shield him from the horrors of the Heights and look at him now.
“He’s pretty great, isn’t he?” Leenie asks.
When I peek at her, she’s not looking at me. She’s staring at Finn much like I used to watch Jax. Pride and love and an intangible emotion that’s hard to define illuminates her face. “I’m happy for them. And you.”
She nods her head once and then reaches out to grab my hand to steer me toward the store area. As we make the trek across the gym, she points at a guy. “Your custom wraps are in.”
“You’re the best, Leen.”
“I know,” she calls out over her shoulder. When we arrive at the counter, she drops her stuff on it before turning to me. “This is my domain. Don’t let anyone else tell you differently. If anyone—anyone,” she emphasizes, “...tries to come back here, we beat them back at all costs. I have a system.”
I watch her work for a few minutes, busying herself behind the desk, before asking if there’s anything I can do. It beats watching the nosy fighters appraise me like cattle on an auction block.
Before Leenie can answer, a voice booms out, echoing around the interior of the gym. “Get back to work!”
I jump out of my skin and then find Jax a few feet away from a door in the corner glaring at me. I hadn’t even known he’d left the house. After a short second where no one does anything, the fighters all jump into various modes of training once more. Grappling, stretching, punching bags. Everyone keeps their heads down and their mouths shut.
Leenie snickers to herself. “Someone’s jealous.”
I lean against the counter, avoiding Jax’s frightening gaze so I don’t have to think about the cruel words he said to me this morning. Or the fact that he basically used me for a blowjob…and I enjoyed it. My stomach tightens. I turn to Leenie. “Put me to work before I lose it.”
She pulls at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Are you opposed to dusting? It’s my least favorite thing and as you can tell...” She wipes her fingers over the counter and apparently sees imaginary dirt. “...it needs it.”
I stand straighter. “Sure. Whatever you need.” It’ll give me something to focus on other than the way Jax still does it for me when he’s clearly only messing with me.
“You’ll find towels and rags in the little closet next to the bathrooms. Here.” She fishes through her purse and hands me a set of keys. “It’s the small one.”
I press my lips together and turn to get my bearings. I noticed a bathroom sign earlier, so I walk along the wall and turn the corner where there are three doors. Two of them have Men’s and Ladies’ signs so I stand in front of the other and use Leenie’s clearly marked keys to open it up. The one that fits this door reads Supplies. When I slip inside the room, I inspect her whole keychain. One of the many keys is clearly for the car but the ones that look like regular keys read Front Door, Side Door, Office…
Bingo.
This right here might be all Psycho needs to con Jax and Finn. He can have a look through their files, both physical and digital. He could use his computer guy to hack into their bank accounts and take whatever he wants. He’s done it before.
Leenie just gave me access to the one thing Psycho wants, and she doesn’t even know it. She has no idea of the job I’m here to do. How easy would it be to slip this key off? She probably wouldn’t even notice.
I’m still standing in the middle of the room staring at the keychain, debating with myself, when the door bangs open behind me. I nearly jump out of my skin for the second time when Jax glares down from his impressive height. I slowly lower the keys in my hand, making sure I’m not holding the one key that might make him suspicious and stare up at him.
“You find everything okay?”
Despite me trying to look cool and comfortable, his gaze narrows as he takes me in. Not that I can blame him. He doesn’t trust me for anything.
I peek around the room, spotting the items I need. I gather them up and brush past him as I make my way back out to the gym. “Got it,” I tell him.
He locks the door behind me, and I place all the things on the shop counter with my heart in my throat. My eyes shudder closed as a war reigns supreme inside my head. Taking deep breaths, I talk myself out of the easy thing to do. The things I do out of fear. I’ve done that before, and it got me nowhere. Self-preservation is always the least painless path and following that route is in our nature.
Leenie’s far too trusting, only reinforced by the fact that Jax follows me into the store area. He plucks Leenie’s keys out of my hand and waits until Leenie pops up from behind the counter to hand them to her. He gives her a look, and when she peers at me questioningly, I shrug like I have no idea what happened. I certainly wasn’t eyeing the office key like it could be the answer to my problems. Nope. Not at all.
