Page 19 of Anyone But Me

Jax’s eyebrows turned in as if she was trying to glare at me, but her lips quickly twitched into a smile. “At least I had my knightess in shining armor to save me.”

She lifted our still interlocked hands and kissed my knuckles. The sensation it sent through my body shot from my hand all the way down to my toes and caused me to gasp.

Jax quickly dropped my hand and looked away from me. “So, how do I know when the water is boiling?”

Her question snapped me out of my stupor. “Please tell me that’s a joke.”

When Jax looked at me once again, her mouth was open in a wide grin. “Yes. That was a joke.”

She was able to get the ravioli into the water, drain the water after they finished cooking, and add the marinara sauce without another near-burning incident. Thank god.

After the ravioli, we made chicken and rice, also on the stove.

Jax had no trouble setting the temperature or preparing the pan, but did have an oddly hard time flipping the chicken.

After watching two failed attempts, I slipped my hand over hers on the spatula.

A warmth spread through my body, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself it did, I knew it had nothing to do with the heat of the stove.

The third and fourth meals we worked on were also pasta dishes, so I let Jax handle those mostly on her own while I watched over her to make sure she didn’t burn herself (or let water boil over onto the stove, which was one of my pet peeves).

This was when I learned that Jax stuck out her tongue whenever she was really focused on something.

Add that to the list of things that are cute about her. Fuuuck.

The last meal we worked on together was the one that I considered the hardest, which was steak and potatoes.

The potatoes only needed to be seasoned and put in the oven, but Jax acted as though setting the oven was literal rocket science.

“We can’t all be as smart as you,” she said with a giggle as she pressed all of the buttons until she found the correct one.

“Steak is a tough one,” I told her as we took out another pan to make it on the stove. I preferred it grilled, but that wasn’t a possibility in this tiny New York City apartment. “I feel like I haven’t really perfected this yet. How do you like your steak done?”

“Barely,” Jax answered confidently. “I like it cooked just enough to not kill me.”

I had to hold back a gag, because that was the complete opposite of how I liked mine. If I saw even a hint of red juice, it was too much, and I couldn’t finish it. “That’s good. It’ll give you a chance to practice making it two different ways since I like mine on the edge of being crispy.”

Jax didn’t try to hide her distaste for my steak preference at all. She brought a finger to her mouth and fake-gagged. “Might as well just have a hamburger if you’re going to ruin it like that.”

“Whatever.” I splashed her with water from the sink. “At least I don’t enjoy my steak the same way as a serial killer.”

“Hey, that’s not very nice.” Jax pushed her bottom lip into a frown and wiped a hand over her apron where water got on it. As soon as her frown turned into a smile, she dashed around me and grabbed the sink faucet hose.

Right when I realized what she was doing, I tried to run away, but I was too late. A cold stream of water hit me square in the back.

I turned around and fought her for the hose, causing water to fly all around our apartment.

This normally would have caused my anxiety to skyrocket, but it wasn’t like that with Jax.

All I could focus on was the way she laughed every time I lunged for the hose and how my heart beat faster each time we accidentally touched.

When I finally gained control of the hose, I turned it on Jax, soaking her from head to toe.

“Fine. I surrender,” she said between big gasping breaths.

“Do you really surrender?” I asked as I held the hose away from her. “Or is this just a trick to steal it back from me?”

Jax laughed even harder now, throwing her head back dramatically as she did and showing off her very kiss… her neck… showing off her neck. A neck that did absolutely nothing to me. “Carter, I’m swimming in my own clothes. Of course I mean it.”

I stared at her for a few seconds and when she didn’t flinch, I brought the hose back down. “Okay. I believe you.”

I put the hose back in its spot on the sink, and Jax stuck to her word. She squeezed past me and tore off her apron. I looked away, because I refused to get lost in the way her T-Shirt clung to her chest and tight stomach.

“I’m going to go change quick and then we can get back to cooking,” Jax said before skipping out of the room, clearly not experiencing the same tension I was at the moment.

I forced my legs to move and carried myself to my room as well, where I also changed out of my soaking wet clothes.

I walked out of my room at the same time as Jax did, and as soon as she looked over at me, she threw her head back and groaned. “You’re still trying to get your revenge, aren’t you?”

I looked down at myself, but couldn’t figure out what she could possibly be talking about. “What do you mean?”

Jax lifted an eyebrow at me as if she didn’t believe me. “You’re telling me you didn’t know that pretty girls in gray oversized sweatpants are my kryptonite?”

I rolled my eyes, because she was obviously kidding.

I had stolen these sweatpants from Ronan three years ago, and they were a complete mess.

There was a hole in each of the knees and a stain down the one side from butter that had dripped out of a lobster roll I was eating last year.

The only reason I kept them was because they were the most comfortable sweatpants I owned.

They weren’t a pair that I could wear out of the house, but I wore them as much as I possibly could inside.

I was honestly shocked Jax hadn’t seen them before.

Honestly, she probably had, but had just chosen this moment to make a flirty comment.

“Wow. So smooth,” I said sarcastically. “I can only imagine how many numbers you get at the cafe using lines like that.”

Jax wiggled her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

I actually wouldn’t, but the reasons for that were much too complicated to think about right now. Or ever.

Jax was able to make the potatoes perfectly, but she ended up burning both pieces of steak, then insisted it was because she wanted to try it the way I liked it.

We worked together to store the food and clean up the kitchen.

It was late by the time we finished, and we still hadn’t eaten, so we ordered pizza and watched a movie.

The whole time we watched, all I could think about was my story.

As soon as the movie was over, I told Jax I needed to go to bed, which wasn’t exactly a lie since it was what I should have done.

Instead, I pulled out my laptop and typed away, completely captivated by my characters sharing cute moments together and falling harder and harder for each other, unbeknownst to both of them.

Idiots.