She was right, I’d never thought of that. His voice was one thing, but his songwriting was something else. His lyrics were where he really shone. Beautiful and deep. They were what I loved the most about his music.
Jason looked at my painting photo last. When he handed my phone back, he stared at the side of my face. And he kept on staring.
Chapter 22
Jason
♪ Everywhere | Roosevelt
Where’s the bathroom?” Sloan asked.
“Second door down the hall,” Dad said.
“I’ll take you,” I offered, getting up from the couch. I wanted to get her alone anyway. As soon as we were out of view of the living room, I spun her and kissed her against the wall.
“Jason, your parents are going to catch us,” she whispered through a smile, looking back the way we’d come.
“I don’t care,” I breathed against her mouth. “Kiss me.”
They loved her. I’d known before I’d brought her that they would. She made me feel proud to know her, like having a woman like her care about me was its own sort of achievement. When she and Mom went to the living room after dinner, Dad had told me she was remarkable and David had asked me where the hell I found her.
When I pulled away, we were both out of breath.
“Why didn’t you tell me about the painting?” I asked.
God, how could she stop creating her own art when she had so much talent? She made me want to unravel her, take her by a corner and undo her.
“I wanted to see if you’d figure it out. Besides, you didn’t tell me you were Jaxon Waters, so now we’re even,” she said, biting her lip and glancing at my mouth. Then she looked back up. “Hey, what’s a meat raffle?” she whispered.
I chuckled. “It’s a raffle where you win meat as prizes.”
“Oh, I wondered why your parents ‘scored meat at a bar.’ That makes sense now.”
I loved seeing her experiencing my world. I wanted to show her everything. But it was more than that. I wanted to share everything with her. Like I didn’t want there to be anything that she wasn’t a part of. I wouldn’t have come this weekend if she hadn’t come with me. I would have stayed in California to be with her.
Distance from her was starting to feel like the tension on a bungee cord. The farther away I got, the stronger the urge to come back to her. And the cord felt like it was getting shorter. Like my threshold for not being with her was lowering.
What would I do if I couldn’t see her when I was on tour? It would kill me. And how would I even explain to her why she couldn’t visit? I messed around with some unstable, violent woman that I’m being forced to tour with? She might hurt you and I can’t make you safe? Here’s a song she wrote about me having sex with her, sitting in the Top 10? God, the whole fucking thing made me cringe. I was waiting to see if Ernie could get Lola off the ticket before I sat down to discuss the situation with Sloan. I wasn’t coming at her with this until I had some sort of game plan.
“You better go,” she whispered. “They’re going to think something is going on between us.”
I grinned. “Isn’t there?”
She squeezed herself sideways and out from under me and continued on to the bathroom as I watched her walk down the hall. She stopped in the doorway and made a shooing motion at me before she went in, smiling and shaking her head.
I stared after her, long after she’d shut the door, and I wondered offhandedly if this was what Dad had felt like when he met Mom…
And somehow I knew that it was.
Chapter 23
Sloan
♪ Into Dust | Mazzy Star
Jason staggered into the kitchen at 7:00 a.m. with Tucker and found me not only awake and caffeinated but showered, dressed, and cooking with his mom.
Patricia and I had coordinated the start time for breakfast last night, and I took my cooking duties very seriously. Apparently we were expecting a large crowd.
“Good morning, ladies.” He slid open the back door and let Tucker out. He poured himself a black coffee, looking unbelievably adorable with his messy hair in his eyes.
His plaid pajama bottoms and gray T-shirt made me want to wrap my arms around his waist to see what his chest smelled like. My heart picked up a little thinking about it.
He held his mug in his hand and came around to the stove and gave Patricia a peck on the cheek. Then he turned to me where I stood cutting a melon by the sink. “Did you sleep well?” he asked. Before I could reply, he leaned in and gave me a swift kiss too, only he put mine on the lips. In front of his mom.
I knocked over a container of blueberries.
Nothing was inappropriate about the kiss. It was kind of sweet, actually. I’d just been under the impression we were going to be totally hands off in front of his parents. He’d kissed me good night last night, but only after walking me to my room, and the hallway had been empty.
Patricia smiled down at her frying pan.
In typical Jason fashion, he grinned at the victory of catching me off guard. He popped a blueberry into his smiling mouth and then seemed to decide he’d embarrassed me enough for one morning and excused himself to take a shower.
“Sorry,” I said to Patricia, picking up blueberries from the counter, my face hot. “It’s like he has to fluster me once a day or a baby bunny dies somewhere or something. He’s very committed to it.”
She laughed heartily. “He learned it from his father. I think they like the color it puts in our cheeks.”
I smiled. Hanging out with Patricia was my idea of a good time. I loved her.
A half hour later, Jason came back in and helped with dishes and cleanup as Patricia and I cooked. He found any chance he could to put a hand on my back or to stand close to me. Patricia totally noticed it. She kept smiling at us.
People started to filter in for breakfast around 8:30. Two cousins of Jason’s, three of Jason’s friends, and a neighbor were joining the Larsen men to do some work around the property, and the deal for free labor included food.
After the men went to work, I kept finding excuses to go outside to see what Jason was doing. I found him on the roof pulling shingles.
He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
I was a lurker. His shirtless body had me creeping on him from the trees. I’d have used binoculars if I could have done it without being noticed. Broad, strong shoulders, six-pack abs, a defined chest that made me want to trace the contours with my fingers. I was my boyfriend’s stalker.
When the men pulled on their waders and started putting in the dock, it was almost lunchtime. I liked the dock project because I could see Jason from the sliding glass doors off the kitchen, though he had a shirt on now, so it was slightly less exciting.
When Patricia and I brought sandwiches down, we set them right on the wooden planks so the men could stand in the lake and use the dock as a table. They descended on the food. Jason grabbed two sandwiches and a beer and we moved to the end, away from everyone, and I sat down with my legs crossed under me so I could be by him as he ate. He stood up to his stomach in water.
“Are you having fun?” I asked him, my chin in my hand.