Jax smiles and shakes his head as he ties his shoes. “And you kissed a boy by the bathroom?”
“No,” I screech, and he laughs as though he expected that to be my answer.
“How old were you when you had your first kiss?” I ask, then wave off the question. “I don’t even want to know.”
He grabs a sixteen-pound ball and I grab a respectable ten. “You probably don’t want to know.”
I type in our names on the electronic screen while a waitress comes over. I’m happy for the distraction. Comparing sexual conquests isn’t really a conversation I want to have with Jax. I’m pretty sure I know how I’ll stack up against him. He orders us a pizza, a pitcher of beer and two waters, and stops her before she leaves to add on an order of wings.
When Jax slides into the chair next to me, his arm brushes mine. For a moment, I wonder what would have happened if I had met Jax before Dylan. Would I feel differently?
“Ladies first.” He leans back, stretching both his arms long the back of the booth.
I stand, pick up my ball, and prepare as best I can to mimic what the couples with matching shirts a few lanes down are doing. As I walk up to the line, I pull back my hand with the ball.
“Man, you do have a great ass.”
My foot slips, my fingers almost lodging in the ball as I bring it forward to release it. A terrible scene flashes through my mind of me splayed on the wooden lane with my arm outstretched and the ball still attached. But at the last minute, my thumb pops out and the ball slides straight into the gutter.
When I walk back to wait for my ball to return, Jax is standing there. “Let me give you some pointers.”
“Is this your way of getting your hands on my hips?”
He smirks. “You’re smarter than I give you credit for.”
“Thanks?”
“I see what Phillips sees.”
I turn away from him and he grabs my ball before I can, showing me where to put my fingers. He walks me up the line with one of his hands on my hip and the other on my hand holding the ball. His palm is so big, it fits over my hand.
The ball careens down the lane and six pins go down. I jump up and Jax high fives me.
“See? Only good things happen when my hands are on your hips.” He winks and busies himself getting his ball while I sit back down and sip my beer.
Jax and I play two games while eating our pizza. He eats more wings than me and probably drinks more beer too. But I see why Jax and Dylan were best friends at one point. They’re so similar. They each put themselves last. Jax asked me five times if I wanted the last slice before cutting it in half and demanding we split it.
I’m on Jax’s back when we step out of the bowling alley because as I assumed my feet are swollen and I couldn’t get the boots back on my feet.
“Shit, it’s raining,” Jax says, raising his hand for a cab. “Looks like I don’t get the opportunity to have you on my back the whole way home.”
A taxi that was waiting down the street parks along the curb and I slide in, Jax joining me. He gives the driver the address of our apartment and I pull out my phone for no reason but to look like I have something to do. I sit up straight when I see the first text in an exchange in our group.
Knox: Dylan was in an accident. He’s headed to Memorial. One of you need to come because I’m still working.
A huge boulder lands in my stomach and my lungs stop working properly. I put my head through the open space in the plastic divider and the cab driver startles.
“We need to go to Memorial Hospital,” I say.
Jax glances at me.
“Dylan was in an accident.”
His face pales for a moment, but he quickly recovers. “That asshole will do anything to ruin my date with you.” He stares out the window, leg bouncing now.
I say nothing, tapping out a text to our friends to find out who is already there, but no one answers.
Chapter Thirteen
Dylan
“I’m fine. Let me go home,” I repeat to the nurse who says I need an MRI of my head.
“Just relax, will you? You’re making their job, like, ten times harder.” Seth sits in the chair to my right, watching The Bachelor and eating a bag of Funyuns.
“I’ll be back in a few,” she says and leaves the room.
“I hate hospitals. It’s bad enough I fucking broke my arm.” I lift my arm that’s in a temporary soft cast until some of the swelling goes down and they put on a hard cast. My left fucking arm. The one I write with, the one I wipe my ass with, and most importantly, the one I fucking tattoo people with. My head falls back to the bed. “I have no choice. I’m going to have to offer Jax a job.”
It doesn’t seem like Seth hears me when he looks away from the screen. “Do you think you could be on this show and kiss some girl one night and another one the next? Seems a little sleazy the way the guy leads them all on, no?” He chomps down on another onion ring chip. “That probably makes me sound like a pussy. It’s probably most guys’ wet dream.”
Knox walks in. Thank fuck I get a reprieve from Bachelor talk for a moment. He’s in full uniform, gun holstered to his hip. If someone had told me when I was sixteen that Knox Whelan would be a cop, I would’ve asked them when their rocket leaves for Mars.
“You’re being cited.” He hands me a ticket.
“You’re ticketing your best friend?” Seth asks.
“No. The other officer did. I’m just delivering the ticket.” Knox glances at the television, where the rose ceremony is beginning, and his eyebrows scrunch. “Failure to yield, which means this hospital bill”—he circles his finger at my arm—“is on your insurance, not the guy who hit you.”
My head drops back to the bed again. What has happened to my life?
Knox pulls up a chair next to my bed.
“Hey, Knox. Do you think you could be the Bachelor?” Seth asks.
Knox glances at the television again. “Go to exotic places and have twenty gorgeous women vying for me? Yeah, I think I could.” His tone says, “Is that even a fucking question?”
“So I’m the pussy.” Seth brings his Coke to his lips.
Knox leaves Seth to watch television. Knox has those same eyes I got when Winnie died. The same ones he gave me when I watched Jax make stupid-ass decisions and did nothing. Strike my earlier comment—Knox Whelan was meant to be a cop.
“The witnesses said you were reckless,” he says. “That with the rain, you took the corner faster than you should have.”
He’s telling the facts instead of asking me questions. It’s his way. He wants to know what’s on my mind. Out of everyone, Knox knows I don’t share my problems because people try to fix them and give me those damn looks of pity. That’s not changing now.
I could tell him it’s about business, which isn’t a complete lie. Add on this hospital stay and my insurance deductible, the fact that I’ll be out of work until my arm is out of the cast, and it all leads to one word—broke!
But the reason I sped through that light was because Rian was stunningly beautiful when she left our apartment to go out with another guy. And not just any guy. Not the smart accountant I always envisioned her marrying. My archenemy. A guy who hates me so much, he’ll do anything to hurt me. Jax is a smart guy. It probably took him five minutes in a room with Rian and me to figure out there are hidden feelings there. Jax also knows me well enough to know why I’ve never done anything about it.