Jax by E. M. Moore
18
The next morning, everyone sleeps in. Max wakes me up by licking my face, and I have to admit, I love the little furball. We go through the motions of the morning. Jax ignores me, and I ignore him right back. Leenie and Finn are the only voices, and they don’t act like anything is off because honestly, it’s probably that way with them most of the time. Jax isn’t known for talking.
When I finish my yogurt, I sit there awkwardly. I have to tell them I’m leaving, and honestly, I keep waiting for Jax to tell me that I’ve overstayed my welcome anyway. Leenie, though, has other plans. “You and I are going shopping today, Sadie. The boys are going to do boy shit.”
I blink. When no one protests, I stare around the room, stopping on Jax. He’s still not looking at me, but he doesn’t tell Leenie no either. Shopping has never really been my thing but depending on where we’re going, I could take the opportunity to run away, so I reluctantly agree, not as if Leenie actually gave me a choice in the matter.
Twenty minutes later, we get into her car. Her eyes light up when she tells me we’re going to a thrift store. I wait until she’s told me all about this store and how she purchases her clothes and accessories there. “No offense,” I say. “But you’re with Finn. Can’t you afford to go to an actual store?”
Leenie chuckles. “No offense taken. They pay me a salary for running the Elite Boxing store, but I love a good thrift shop buy. Even if I had a hundred million dollars, I would still shop at this place. It’s kind of my thing.”
The longer the drive takes, the more the emotions whirl inside me. We’re well away from the Heights and the Flats. City streets turn into county and then a posh subdivision. We’re definitely nowhere near home.
Leenie smirks. “You’d be amazed at the shit these rich ladies get rid of,” she practically squeals. “It’s unreal. Jaz and I always come here.”
“You’ve talked about Jaz before. Who’s she?”
“My best friend. She had to get away for a while,” Leenie informs me, gaze darting away. “She had some shit to work through. But she’ll get back and then all three of us will come here. It’ll be fun.”
Her words offer a lifeline but she’s delirious. She has to see that I can’t live with them forever. “Just how long do you see me staying with you guys? I’m pretty sure Jax wants me out.”
Leenie waves my worries away and then she sits up in her seat, eyes bright. “We’re here,” she sings.
The shop is in a strip mall type setting with painted beige bricks. The cute sign over the door and the view through the front window looks like we’re literally walking into an upscale store. Leenie has a full-on smile on her face as we get out of the car, and she practically skips inside.
Leenie goes right to the women’s clothes section. She runs her hand over the many original store tags still on the clothes, and my jaw practically drops. “These are new clothes.”
“I know,” she squeals.
I follow Leenie’s lead, only looking at the racks she’s searching through though. A few things catch my eye, but I don’t let myself look too long. There’s no point when you don’t have any money.
Leenie pulls a shirt off the rack. “What do you think of this?”
I gaze at the draped front turquoise shirt. “That’ll look great on you.”
She snickers and rolls her eyes. “We’re not shopping for me. We’re shopping for you.”
I laugh. I can’t help myself. I didn’t think she was naive but apparently she is. “Leenie, I don’t have any money. Zero. None.”
She places the clothes back on the rack with an amused look. “Hmm.” She searches through her purse and brings out a wad of cash. “How about this hundred dollars that Jax gave me this morning then?”
I blink at it, sure she’s messing with me. “Jax gave you that money for me?”
She stuffs the bills back into her purse and continues to graze. “Something about him not wanting to see you in my clothes. I was insulted at first, I’ll have you know, but then he explained his thought process to me.”
My throat closes. We’d had a semi conversation about this right before he sent me into an orgasm, but I had no idea he was actually going to buy me clothes. Besides, that was before our argument. “I can’t...take his money, Leenie.”
“Sure you can,” she says, pulling another shirt off the rack. “You’re trying this on.” When I don’t move, she stares at me. “If you don’t pick out anything, I’ll choose everything, walk up to the counter, and pay for it myself. You should understand me well enough by now to know that I will.” My body deflates, and she sighs. “Listen, I heard the fight you guys had last night. There are a lot of hurt feelings. A lot of accusations. But if Jax wants to do this, let him. You know how stubborn he is, and if we come back home with no clothes, he’s going to be pissed at me like I should’ve convinced you. I know you’re new to the whole friend thing but that’s not a good way to get someone to like you.” She winks at me afterward and guilt slams me worse than it has before.
Why is she being so nice to me? Why is Jax being so nice to me? I’ve been planning all night to leave their house when apparently they had other ideas in the works.
“I can’t do this,” I tell Leenie before I turn on my heel and run through the shop. The bell rings overhead as I push the door open, escaping into broad daylight with all the fresh air. I look both ways, panicking when I see that there really isn’t a bad choice to make. It’s not like there is a questionable homeless person to the left and a tatted-up gang dude to the right.
My indecision leaves enough time for Leenie to catch up with me. “Sadie!” she cries as she comes to a stop next to me. She grabs my arm. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving,” I tell her. “I’m not good enough for your friendship. Or Jax’s money. Or—” I cut off. Honestly, if I was going to make a list of shit I’m not good enough for, we’d be here all day.
“It’s only a few clothes,” she says, dumbfounded.
Panic sets in. No one has given me anything in years and not wanted something in return. “What is it?” I ask her. “What do you want?”
“Nothing,” she pleads. “We’re trying to be nice. You’re in pain. You’re hurt. Jesus, you’re still black and blue from a few days ago. I thought you might want new clothes because the others are all bloody and you probably don’t want to wear mine.”
My mouth hangs open like I’m a fish out of water. An alarmed horror still claws at me. “I can’t,” I tell her before I turn and start to run again. My borrowed shoes hit the pavement. My mind flits through different scenarios. Go back to Psycho. Or take this opportunity to get away from everyone. Psycho has no idea where I am… I automatically reject that notion though. He doesn’t know where I am, but he knows who I’m with. He’ll never leave them alone.
“Sadie!” Leenie calls out from behind me. “Fuck.”
I keep running, my chest aching. I haven’t used my body like this in a long time. All I know is that the fear yapping at my heels is what keeps driving me forward.
Tires squeal. I turn my head to find Leenie behind the wheel of her car. Her face is a mask of concentration. She speeds ahead of me and then turns the wheel all the way to the right. She drives up over the sidewalk, the vehicle bouncing as it blocks my escape. She scrambles out of the car and holds her phone up. “Sadie, it’s Jax. He wants to talk to you, okay?” She approaches me like a stray dog, hands outstretched. “Just Jax. You know you can trust him.”
I take her phone with shaking fingers. Jax is on the other end of the line asking what’s going on and if she has me or not. I swallow, heart thumping right out of my chest. “What?”
“Jesus, Sadie,” he barks. I close my eyes but he doesn’t give me time to respond with anything. “It’s only clothes. Get in the damn store and buy something.”
“But last night—”
“Fuck last night. Are you going to be the person I think you are? The girl who runs away when things get tough again and again? Or are you going to prove me wrong?”
I scowl into the phone and growl.
“That’s right, baby,” he says. “Get mad at me. Hate me all you want but prove me wrong. Go back into that store with Leenie, stick by her side, and when you get back, you might get a prize for good behavior.”
His playfulness sobers me up. Memories flicker by. “You’re an ass.”
Leenie’s concerned face lightens, and she hides a chuckle. I guess all is right with the world when Jax is acting like a dick.
* * *
I walk backinto the house with a stomach full of butterflies and acid. I don’t know where Jax and I stand, and that’s the most terrifying aspect of this whole scenario. At least before, I knew he hated my guts. There was nothing between us, and that was okay. Now? I have no freaking clue where I stand but I plan on asking him the first chance I get.
Finn and Jax wait for us on the living room couch. One look, and their solemn faces pull me even further under. It’s as if this very moment is going to burst the hope-filled bubble I tried like hell not to cultivate.
“What is it?” Leenie asks. She grips the keys to her car so tightly as she watches Finn.
“It’s Clive,” Finn murmurs.
My heart skips a beat. My gaze travels to Jax but his stare stays fixed ahead, looking anywhere but at me.
Finn runs a hand over his jaw. “He’s in the ER. He got roughed up pretty badly last night. His blood alcohol percentage was off the charts. He was barely coherent when they took him in. They found him on the boundary between the Flats and the Heights.” When Finny says this last part, his gaze flicks toward me.
My feet are rooted in the spot but my arms fall. The bags full of clothes Jax bought me hit the floor. Max jumps off the couch to sniff them but my mind is already working on what this means. Is it some sort of message for me? For the guys? Did they just want to fuck around with this kid?
With Psycho, there’s no telling, and I’m certainly not privy to his thought process while I’m here living out a fantasy, apparently. But it’s as I always thought. Whatever happens, this doesn’t end well for me. I’ve been speeding toward a disastrous finish line the whole time, but I didn’t want to see it.
Psycho grooming someone else.
He gave me this impossible task and didn’t listen when I said I couldn’t do it.
Did he know I couldn’t? Is he playing this out so I force his hand to do something to me?
Leenie reaches out to touch my arm. “Sadie. Are you okay?”
I shake my head. “I should go.”
Jax stands from the couch. “You’re not fucking going.”
His words nearly topple me off my feet.
“He’s obviously unhinged,” Jax clarifies as if he can’t believe his outburst himself. “For your safety, that’s not a good idea.”
Finn’s jaw hardens. “Sadie, we care about this kid. Tell us more about these guys you’re with. I don’t want them doing that to any more of our fight family.”
“I’m not with them,” I protest.
Jax makes a sound of disagreement but Leenie beckons me forward. She makes Jax move to the other part of the sectional while she sits next to me. An anchor pulls on my chest, threatening to take me out. Once Jax knows what I’ve done, he’ll never forgive me. And saying it out loud—here of all places—will undo me.
“I don’t think I can.”
“He won’t hurt you here,” Leenie reassures me.
I shake my head. “That’s not it.” I bite my lower lip. “I—fuck.” I blow out a breath in an attempt to fill my lungs with a fucking backbone.
“Just start small,” Finn urges. “Why don’t you tell us about the guy who was at the Ring last night?”
“Tiron,” I tell them. Tiron’s not a threat to me. He’s as imprisoned as I am. The only difference between us is that he fools himself into thinking that he likes it that way, and I’m smarter than that. “I told you he’s one of Psycho’s lackeys. Checking in on me.” We’re super close to the truth now, and I want to tell him why I’m really here once and for all. I want to come clean and not care what the hell happens next. If I tell Jax why I was sent here for a job, he’ll either kick me out or— Well, I’m not sure if there is an alternative because I’m pretty sure he’ll kick my ass out. “He trains with Psycho and the other guys in their shoddy, underground fighting nonsense. The real reason he came was most likely to leave you guys that note on the car that informed you of your fighter jumping ship. Psycho gets off on that kind of shit.”
Jax gives me a scathing look that curdles my stomach. “So, this was your boyfriend’s plan this whole time? If he couldn’t buy the Ring from us, he thought he’d get everyone to leave by winning against one of our guys? Is that it?”
Nerves skitter all over my body, and my foot jumps up and down. It was my idea to have the fight at the Ring. So, Clive ending up hurt is my fault. It’s not the worst thing I’ve done in Psycho’s name but I’m not proud of it. “I’m sorry,” I tell them, my voice breaking. I swallow my fear of telling the truth and zero in on Jax sitting to my left. “Psycho thinks he’s a bigshot fighter, but he’s really a con man. One of the best, actually. He preys on the unfortunate, and he uses his followers to do it. He shepherds us in with lies about family and acceptance, and then pretty soon, we’re all working the business for him. Once we’re in deep, we can’t get out. He makes sure we can’t get out. Any one of us could take him down with what we know, but we’d also be implicating ourselves in the process.”
He holds a breath in his chest and lets it out. “What are you mixed up in, Sadie?”
In a lot of ways, Psycho is far worse than K. At least K treated his girls nice. He would shower us with presents as long as we respected him back. Psycho isn’t like that. He’s morphed into the devil, and I never saw the transformation until it was too late. “So much shit,” I say, voice shaking. “I’ve done some truly horrible things. I’m in it too far to turn back.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Jax accuses.
“And go where? Live on the streets again? Wait for someone to come by and assault me because I’m all by myself? You know what it’s like on the streets.”
Derision rolls off him in waves. “I forgot who I was talking to. Little Miss Survive At All Costs. I guess that’s the plan even if you’re hurting someone else in the process.”
“Fuck you.” I stand, my hands clenching to fists. “Don’t pretend you know what it was like for me. Don’t pretend you fucking know what it’s like to sleep next to that fucker every night. To have to touch him. Fuck him. Please him in whatever fucking way he wants because you don’t know what the fuck he’ll do to you. You can’t leave because you have no money. You can’t call for help because who’s going to help someone like you? You can’t trust anyone. So fuck you. It’s really easy for you to judge me when you’re sleeping in the safety of this house every night.”
He stands, shadowing me in a second. “You could’ve trusted me!”
He’s so furious, he’s shaking. An angry red face with narrowed eyes peer into me like he can turn me inside out and gut me. I shake my head. “You can get mad at me for a lot of things, but don’t you fucking dare spout your bullshit about this. I survived in the only way I knew how, so keep calling me a whore like it’s some sort of joke. Like I’m so dirty no one should touch me. Trust me, I can take it. It’s nothing to getting a dick rammed up your ass when you don’t want it. Being so raw and bloody afterward that you can’t sit down for days.”
Jax roars. The vibration rattles the house right down to the windowpanes. I scream right back at him. The kind of primal, I’m-not-going-to-back-down, fists thumping off my chest cry. Yes, I fucked him over, but it’s not as if shit was all sunshine and roses for me. He reaches out, but I move just out of his reach. He pounces quicker, finally grabbing hold of me. He throws me over his shoulder and starts walking. Before I know it, he’s carrying me up the stairs. I kick my legs and hammer fist his back. Through it all, he’s as steadfast as a statue.
I get a peek of Finn and Leenie holding hands through my blonde strands that have fallen in front of my face. Leenie wipes her eyes before she turns into Finn’s chest. I close my own, all fight leaving me. This is one reason why I didn’t want to say anything. I don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy.
Jax takes me into his room and drops me on the bed. I bounce on the mattress before he’s climbing over me. For a frantic second, I think he’s going to come on to me but he doesn’t. He wraps me up in his python arms and squeezes. He holds me so close to his chest it’s as if he’s wringing out all the emotion from me. Before I know it, all my anger has subsided, and I’m sniffling. Then, I’m full-on bawling as he holds me even closer, squeezing me tighter when the sobs shake me.
I don’t know how long we stay like that. His touch drags it all out of me as I replay all the despicable, nasty, horrifying things I’ve done and that have been done to me in one episode. It turns me inside out, like the raw parts of me are showing. All my jagged edges. All my scars.
“He won’t touch you again,” Jax swears. His voice is so matter of fact that my eyelids flutter, and I glance around the room to make sure I’m in the right place. Sure enough, there’s Jax, staring down at me like he used to.
“I’m not dragging you into my shit again,” I say, a tear opening up in my chest. “Look what happened to you last time. The only thing I can do for you now is get the hell out of here and never see you again.”
His arm around my middle tightens, his fingers splaying out over my stomach. “Listen, we’re a pair of tortured fucking assholes. We—” His sentence cuts off abruptly.
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“Well, I was going to say something endearing, but we really are just assholes.”
I sigh. The two of us together could start a war. “Yeah, we are.”
“I’m sorry I said those things to you,” he mumbles. “I shouldn’t pretend like I know what you went through. Sometimes I can’t get out of my own fucking way.”
“I’m sorry, too.” I turn toward him, wrapping his shirt in my fist. The pillow my head lies on is soaked with my tears, so I move forward to a dry section.
“What’s this fucker want?” Jax asks. “Is it the gym? Is it something else? There has to be a reason why you’re here and he’s okay with it.”
Here it is. The part where I fuck everything up. “First, I want to say that I never would’ve gone through with it.” Tears fall from my eyes. “I mean, I like to think I wouldn’t have but—fuck.”
Jax reaches out to swipe at my cheeks. “Stop fucking crying. I can’t handle it. Just tell me what’s going on so we can deal with this.”
“Think about it,” I say. “You have everything he wants. A successful gym. A loyal, trained fighter-base. Money,” I squeak out. “People in the Heights don’t usually have successful gyms and bars unless you’re in the Crew.”
“The Dragons, you mean,” Jax corrects.
“Right.” I close my eyes briefly. It’s hard to get away from the past sometimes.
“So, he wants my money?”
I nod, the fabric of the pillow rubbing against my cheek. “I’m supposed to be looking through your computers, your files, anything so he can clean you out or hack your accounts.”
For a split second, the old anger shines through but Jax quickly reins it in. “How many times have you done this for him?”
“Too many,” I confess, my voice catching once again. It’s hard enough to admit what I’ve done to myself, let alone to admit it to someone who’s always loved me unconditionally until I fucked it up. Jax has always taken me, even with the scars and hurt. I just have so much more of that painful baggage now.
“So, he decided he’d use you because of our past?”
“I told him it wouldn’t work. That’s why I made that half assed attempt when I stopped by the house the first time. After we all went to the Ring, though, I think he formed his own plan.”
“He wanted me to see you get beat up, didn’t he?” Jax guesses.
I shrug. “I didn’t realize it until he left me there with you. It must have been part of his plan. If he’d asked me, I would’ve told him it wouldn’t work. I had no idea you’d let me come back.”
Jax swallows. Guilt fills his eyes to the brim. “Sadie... I’ve been pining for you for a long fucking time. You could’ve shoved a gun in my face and pulled the trigger and as long as I was still alive, I would’ve brought you back home with me. I’m as fucked in the head as you are.”
I bite my lip. Part of me wants to celebrate but the other part of me wonders if Jax and I are holding onto something that will be the destruction of us all. “This isn’t going anywhere good, Jax.”
He swallows. “You’re probably right, but when you’re right here in front of me, I can’t bring myself to care.”
