Page 17

Jaxon
I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. Awhile. Long enough to know I shouldn’t be here. That I should do the right thing. Go home. She doesn’t even know I’m here. Neither does anyone else, really. I could just go.
Leave her alone.
With her gone, I was able to think things through rationally. Without the feel of her against me, the sounds of her, whimpering and gasping with every stroke of my cock against the center of her, urging me on, I can see things clearly.
I’m leaving.
I’m not coming back.
I can’t do this to her.
I pushed her out the back door and watched her stumble down the steps, looking as drunk and disoriented over what happened between us as I feel. I stood on the back porch and watched her cross the street to her car while my blood pounded in my ears, my arms crossed over my chest in an effort to keep myself together. Behind me, my mom walked into the kitchen, dropping her purse on the table.
For once in my life, we were over-staffed... is that Claire driving away?
Yeah. She stayed for dinner. Simon asked her to.
That’s nice...
I sit with her while she eats the plate Claire put in the oven for her, half-listening to her tell me about her day. I can hear her talking, I’m even participating in the conversation, but my mind is somewhere else.
It’s on Claire.
And even though I’m still telling myself to leave her alone, to let what happened be all that happens, I know I won’t.
I know I can’t.
As soon as I hear my mom’s bedroom door close, I take a quick shower, using Simon’s watermelon-scented shampoo because we share a bathroom and it’s just easier when your five-year-old roommate uses your toiletries as bath toys. Afterward, I scrawl out a quick note with one of Simon’s crayons and stick it to the fridge with one of him alphabet magnets—
Mom -
Went for a drive.
Jax
So here I am, standing on her front lawn while people I went to high school with are running around like wild animals. I’m getting a few errant, puzzled looks—like they see me but don’t really believe what they’re seeing. Like tomorrow morning they’ll say, I was so fucked up last night I thought I saw Jaxon Bennett.
I’ve never been what you would consider social. Could never really afford to be and to be honest, it never really felt like I was missing much. What could my peers understand about my life, anyway?
I think that’s what might’ve drawn me to Claire in the first place. Even before I started to think about all the things I wanted to do to her, I wanted to know her. Talk to her. Spend time with her. I hadn’t felt that way about anyone in a long time. If I’m completely honest, it’s what prompted me to suggest we ask her to be Simon’s sitter in the first place.
There’ve been a lot of nights I’ve laid awake, listening to Simon’s light snore across the sea of Legos and action figures, staring at her number on my phone. Thinking about calling her. Maybe ask her out to a movie. Take her to dinner. In the end, it always seemed easier to just leave her alone. But that was before. Before I felt her tremble and sigh under my hands. Before I listened to her say the one word I’ve been dying to hear her say to me.
Yes.
I can’t leave her alone anymore.
I don’t want to.
Cursing myself, I dig my phone out of my pocket and send her a text before I can come to my senses.
Me: I’m outside
your house.
Almost immediately, a light clicks on upstairs, reminding me of what she told me earlier. That she hates it when her sister throws parties and that she usually spends her time in her room. The thought of her hunkered down, hiding away from the drunk and swarming masses like it’s all some sort of natural disaster to be weathered, makes me smile.