Fighting Ever After (Ever After #3) (10 page)

“Ky, come
on. Let’s go.” Chris called from the living room. I left her standing there,
still wringing that dishtowel.

“Oh and
Princess,” I said, stopping in the doorway and looking back at her.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll let it
slide for now, but eventually I’m going to get the truth from you.” She would
find out just how persistent I could be.

“So I know why I wanted
to come tonight, but I’m still a little unclear on why you were so insistent.
Family dinner isn’t usually your thing,” Chris pointed out in the car.

“It’s a free meal.
That’s it.”

“So if Kaylie had
invited you over for dinner you’d have accepted since it’s just a free meal?”

“Kaylie
can’t fucking
cook.”

“Not my point.”

“And I’m not the only
one coming tonight. Ace and everyone else invited themselves too.”

“Also
not my point.”

“Then what the hell is
your point?”

“You like Jaxyn,” he
said smugly.

“I like her more than I
like you right now,” I shot back.

“I don’t doubt that. I
think you like her more than you’re willing to admit.” He took his eyes off the
road to look over at me briefly.

“You can think whatever
you want.
Doesn’t make you right.”
I was glad the
others had decided to take Ace’s car. I didn’t need them listening to Chris and
giving me shit as well.

“No, but it makes you a
damn fool.”

“Why is that?” I don’t
even know why I was humoring him, other than I was stuck in this vehicle with
him and it wasn’t like I could just open the door and jump out onto the
freeway.

“Because, she could turn
out to be the best thing that ever happened to you, but you won’t even allow
yourself to consider it.”

“There’s nothing to
see.” My patience was running out. “You want the fucking truth? Yeah, I like
her. I’ve got fucking eyes so I’m attracted to her, and I can actually stand to
be around her with her clothes on, but it doesn’t mean what you want it to
mean.”

“Only because you won’t
let it,” he said, his frustration leaking into his words.

“Because
I don’t want it.”
His face pulled into a frown, but he didn’t respond. “I’m not interested in
what you’re talking about. I know you do that whole dating game, but I’m not
you. She’s just a girl. Despite how she’s caught my interest, she’ll never be
more than that to me.”

He looked like he was
about to argue, but I cut him off. “Before you get pissed off, I get that she
matters to you and your brother. I can even see why, and I’m not trying to
fucking hurt her. I want her, but I’m not going to lie to her or trick her into
bed with me. Whatever happens will be what she wants, but you need to let go of
the idea that if anything happens between us, it will be more than temporary.”

“She’s not the kind of
girl to do temporary, so you either decide to give her a real chance, or you
just leave her alone,” he issued his big brother warning not for the first
time. I wasn’t going to start a fight. I already told him that whatever
happened or didn’t, would be what she wanted. As sweet as she was, she wasn’t a
little girl. She could make her own choices. We could be friends and have a
little fun without things having to get complicated, and if she wanted to keep
it between just us, I would be fine with not having Bas and Chris trying to
fucking castrate me because they didn’t want to accept that she was a grown
damn adult.

“Ky, did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I heard you.
Loud and clear.
Don’t worry about it,” I told him.

“You say that, but I do
worry. I worry that you’re going to mess with her, and I worry that you’re
going to be this pissed off, detached, bastard forever. I mean, it works great
for the tortured, brooding rock star image, but eventually you’ve got to get
over it man.”

“I don’t exactly see you
in a lasting, committed relationship.” He had his own issues, which is why I
was surprised he was even pushing this.

“Maybe not, but I
actually have relationships. I get more out of spending time with a girl than
just getting off. Commitment isn’t my issue, but it’s got to be the right girl.
I haven’t found her yet.” I didn’t want to argue anymore, so I just let it go.
Neither one of us said anything else until we were pulling up outside Jaxyn’s
house. Ace was right behind us with Spade and Danny.

“Remember, there’s going
to be a child here, so watch the language,” Chris said before we went in.

“Yes Dad, we’ll behave,”
Spade promised, but it didn’t sound the least bit reassuring. Chris shook his
head and then we all followed him inside. Sebastian was in the living room with
the Red Sox game turned on, watching with
Vi
and her
boyfriend Jake.

“What’s the score?” Ace
immediately asked, dropping into the recliner, making
himself
at home. Danny and Spade were standing around, taking in the room. I watched a
few minutes of the game, but it didn’t hold my attention. I found what I was
interested in, banging around in the kitchen.

“
Oww
.
Crap.” I watched as she jerked her hand away from the pan of food she
was trying to pull out of the oven. It crashed down on the rack and she held
her arm. I walked up behind her, noticing the way she stiffened as she became
aware of my presence behind her before I ever spoke.

 “Here, I got it.”
I placed my hand on the small of her back and reached around to take the oven
pad from her before she could burn herself again. I gave
her
a
gentle nudge to the side and then pulled the hot, foil covered pan
from the oven, setting it on top of the stove. Then I took Jax by the hand and
led her over to the sink. If her burn was bad, she needed get something cold on
it.

“How bad is it?” I asked
her, lifting her arm to examine it. She didn’t say anything, but I could see
the small burn marring the inside of her wrist. It wasn’t bad, but it would
definitely sting for a while. I turned on the cold water and then moved her arm
under it. I could feel her inquisitive eyes on me while I held her hand under
the cold spray. Her stare was intrusive and almost enough to make me squirm
even though it shouldn’t have mattered to me what she saw or what she thought
when she looked at me like that.

After a minute, I pulled
her hand out to look at it again. The area around the burn wasn’t too red, but
a small blister had already bubbled up. I dabbed it lightly with a dry cloth
and then lightly rubbed my thumb over the smooth skin surrounding it. She was
still watching me closely.

 “Stop staring
Princess.” She looked away and the color spreading over her cheeks matched the
dark pink of her burn. I realized I was still holding her hand and rubbing
circles with my thumb. I quickly released it and she pulled it to her side.

Just then Chris walked
into the kitchen.
“Smells good.
Is the food ready?”
Jax quickly shut off the water and finished drying her hand on the towel,
turning her back to me.

“It’s
ready,
we just have to wait for my brother and his family to show up. You can make
yourself useful and grab plates to set the table,” she instructed him. I had no
reason to be in there, so I turned and walked out, joining the rest of them in
the living room until the last guests arrived.

Watching Jax meet her
niece for the first time made it more obvious than ever that we were very
different from one another and wanted completely different things out of life.
It hadn’t taken her two seconds to fall in love with the little girl, and it
didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was the reason
Jax’s
brother got a pass for whatever had happened in the past. Even I could see that
Jaxyn was desperate for family, so willing to forgive her brother for whatever
his sins were and welcome his wife and kid into her life. From the moment that
little girl flashed her big, dimpled smile and boldly flung her arms around
Jax’s
legs, she hadn’t been able to quit smiling herself.
She’d scooped her up in her arms, holding her and looking at her like she never
wanted to let her go.

Someday Jax would have a
kid of her own. She’d get married and start popping out babies to fulfill her
little fantasy dream life and I would be little more than a memory from her
past. That was just fine with me, but I would make sure it wouldn’t be a memory
easily forgotten.

Throughout the meal, Jax
tried her hardest to pretend I didn’t exist, but every once in a while her eyes
would meet mine over the large table we were all crammed around, and in the
brief moments before she would look away, I could see the struggle in her eyes.
She was fighting this, probably telling herself it was wrong, that she
shouldn’t want me, that I wasn’t good for her. It was all on her face, but she
couldn’t stop looking over at me anymore than I could stop looking at her.

I watched her with
stolen looks and listened as she got to know her sister in law. She was so
unlike girls I was used to. She got excited about books the way I got excited
about music. We must have listened to her ramble on for a solid ten minutes
while
she
geeked out over a book she was telling Lucy
about. Instead of boring the shit out of me, I found it entertaining as hell.
She also asked a thousand questions about Lucy and Izzy, and she wasn’t just
being polite to make conversation; she genuinely wanted to know them and to
have a relationship with them. Whatever she’d been through obviously hadn’t
been bad enough to make her jaded or guarded. It was just another way that we
couldn’t be more different. She was dying to love people and it came so easily
to her. I could see it even with Ace and Spade – how quickly she was warming to
them.

She shocked Spade by
hugging him goodbye when he left with Chris and Danny after dinner. She even
laughed and brushed it off when he took the opportunity to cop a feel, which
annoyed me more than it should have. She was comfortable with his touch,
whereas she was anything but with mine. I’d never fought over a girl before,
especially not with one of my best friends, but when his hand playfully slid
down her body, my first instinct had been to rip her out of his arms, and then
maybe rip his arms off.  My body was staking a temporary claim on her
whether I liked it or not. Until that desire was satisfied, I didn’t want to
see anyone else touching her, even if it was just Spade fooling around.

I also wanted to be the
one to make her smile and laugh the way she did when she watched Ace chasing
her niece around the living room not long after. Her kissable lips were split
into a full grin that lit up her face, reaching all the way to her eyes. It was
contagious, and I found myself smiling and laughing with the rest of them as we
watched Izzy terrorize Ace.

This is who Princess was
when she wasn’t being threatened by a violent asshole, or guarding against a
regular asshole who just wanted to get her into bed. She was relaxed and
carefree in a way that didn’t fit with the girl who worked so hard to put up
walls and control her thoughts and emotions around me. I liked her fire; I
enjoyed pushing her and seeing her push back, but watching her laugh with her
niece while they assaulted Ace with pillows was something else. I really liked
seeing this side of her, but it was unsettling for me, because I had no place
in this scene. I wasn’t good with kids like Ace, and I wasn’t the guy to make
her laugh and let go. I knew that, and yet it only made me want to be closer to
her, to hear her laugh more, to see that smile even if I wasn’t the one
responsible for it. I was more likely to be the guy to take that smile away.
Yeah, I was as selfish and greedy as they came, but I wanted her. I wanted what
she made me feel – excited and alive. Lately music was the only thing that did
it for me, and I was bored to death with the rest of it, the same girls and
parties. Princess was unexpected, but she was making life interesting, fun
even.

A high pitched giggle
tore through the room as Ace pretended to take a hit from the pillow Jax threw
at him. Izzy squealed and clapped her hands, then leapt from
Jax’s
lap and climbed onto Ace, who was sprawled out,
playing dead. I watched amused, until she lost interest in him and came
waddling over to me. I sat there, watching her as she eyed me curiously. Then
she took a step closer, not at all intimidated by my rough exterior. I frowned,
uncomfortable with the way she was smiling at me like she wanted to make me her
new best friend. She wasn’t at all discouraged by my frown and climbed right up
on my lap. I sat frozen, unsure of what to do. She started tugging on my hair
and giggling in between words that I couldn’t understand because they
definitely weren’t part of the English language.

I’d lived with my viper
of a mother for eighteen years, faced down dozens of scorned women, jumped out
of an airplane and been in more bar fights than I could remember, and I was
more terrified of this little girl than I’d ever been in any of those
situations. Was I supposed to talk to her? Could she understand anything I
said? What the hell would I say to a two year old? Or was she three? I didn’t
even know how old she was. What if I made her cry?

Her tiny fingers left my
hair and found the metal ring sticking out of my lip. She tugged on it and I
winced slightly. She giggled harder. Fuck, she was more likely to make me cry.
My eyes shot to Ace, silently begging him to save me from this tiny terror, but
he only laughed and gave me a look that told me I was on my own. Then she
placed her little hands on my cheeks, squishing my face between them. Then she
pressed her face right up to mine, our noses touching. Her big, innocent blue
eyes stared into mine and then she planted a feather soft kiss right on the tip
of my nose before pulling back.