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“Fine, fine, I was just trying to help,” he teases. “I was asking you what’s next though.”

“Oh, could I have your help lifting my mattress?” I ask, turning back into the bedroom.

“Sure,” he says.

My mattress is slashed too, so I can see some of the exposed springs. It wasn’t the best mattress in the world, but it definitely didn’t deserve to die like that.

Jax lifts it up and I lean down under the bedframe to get a shoebox.

“What’s in the box?” Jax asks as he drops the mattress back onto the frame.

“Just some of Summer and my important papers and some emergency money,” I answer, peeking into the box. I let out a sigh of relief when everything is still there. “Let me know if there’s any way I can try to pay you back for all the help you’re giving the two of us.”

“Hey, don’t say that,” Jax says, stepping up to me and pressing a finger against my lips. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Bu—”

“How about you look at it this way,” he says. “We’re a team. When you’re on a team you help each other. I want to help you, okay?”

“Okay,” I answer, smiling up at him.

This man has a heart of gold.

“Is that the last of it?”

“Yeah,” I answer.

“Alright then, let’s go head to the mall and grab you some stuff then.”

“What else do we need?” I ask, walking with him as he tugs me along and out of the apartment. I lock it out of habit.

“I was thinking of buying you a new phone,” He says. “I think the traffickers got your original one.”

“What? No. I have some money saved up, I can cover—”

“Team, remember? I can handle buying you a phone.” He grins down at me as he opens the door to his car. “Plus, if I get you a phone, that means I can finally get your number.”

I roll my eyes as I hop into his car.

“Thank you, then,” I say.

“Of course.”

We head to the mall and just like Jax said he would, he buys me the newest phone. When we’re at the store, we even manage to set it up with all my old info because I backed up my phone to the cloud.

He also brings me to a few other stores to buy me some new makeup and the shampoos and conditioners that Summer and I like using.

“Hey, what about this?” He asks me, handing me a scented body wash.

I take a sniff and laugh at the smell of mangoes that hits my nose.

“For who, you or me?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t be opposed to smelling like mangoes, but there are better ways of getting there,” He says, his voice low.

“Uh huh, tell me about them,” I say, leaning into him.

In the store full of a ton of products that smell like a million things, the only thing I can smell is his woodsy campfire scent. The only thing I can see is him and his calming gray eyes.