Page 31 of Anyone But Me

“Where is my bestie-stealing sister?” Olivia shouted as soon as she walked into my parents’ house on Thanksgiving.

I rolled my eyes. She had been saying this same thing ever since I mentioned to her that I was going to Jax’s house after Thanksgiving. It was all playful. She had told me multiple times how happy she was that Jax and I had finally become friends since we were her two favorite people.

Jax was quickly becoming one of my favorite people as well. Ever since our talk, we had fallen back into our normal routine, which felt so nice. I did make sure to leave time for Annika too since we were friends now, but most of my nights ended on the couch with Jax and Speck.

Speaking of Speck… he quickly ran past me through the hallway, and a moment later, I heard my sister and Quinton greeting him. By the time I reached them, Speck was lying on his back, demanding belly rubs, which Olivia was happily giving to him.

When she saw me, she stood to her feet. “There she is.” She looked around the hallway. “Where are Mom and Mama?”

I pointed my thumb back toward the kitchen. “They’re too busy cooking like crazy to come greet you.”

Olivia nodded. “And is Ronan’s family here yet?”

I shook my head and looked out of the window by the door to see if their car was suddenly in the driveway. “Not yet, but they should be any minute.”

Olivia hugged me, then wrapped her arm around mine. “Let’s go say hi to moms and try to steal some food.”

I chuckled. “Good luck with that. I tried to grab one cracker from the charcuterie board Mom was setting up, and she slapped my hand away.”

“I’ll be able to. I am the favorite daughter now that I’m living closer.” Olivia squeezed my arm. “Speaking of being far away, are you excited to go to Vermont tomorrow?”

Excited was an understatement. Jax had left to go to her parents’ on Tuesday night before I was back from work.

I hadn’t been planning to leave for my parents’ until this morning, but ended up coming the night prior because my apartment felt so empty without Jax.

There was nothing I wanted more than to be back with her, even if our time together was going to involve me crashing and burning on the ski slopes.

“Just wait until you see her house. It’s huge .

” Always the dramatic one, Olivia emphasized the word huge.

“I’m not even being dramatic this time. They have an indoor pool.

An indoor fucking pool, Carter. I’m telling you this, because I’m sure Jax didn’t.

She never talks about it. I don’t want you to be completely shocked when you see it. ”

***

Shocked was an understatement when it came to my reaction to Jax’s house the next day.

The word huge didn’t even do Jax’s house justice.

I swallowed hard as I sat in the driveway looking up at it.

It sat on a huge plot of land, but was still three stories tall.

The house had a look of sophistication with its white siding and black shutters and door.

There was a three-car garage and a fence going around the back that looked like it probably held a pool, but that didn’t seem right since Olivia had told me the pool was inside.

After a few seconds of gawking, one of the garage doors opened and Jax came skipping outside. Before I could get out of the car, she skipped over to the passenger side and got in. “How was the drive?” she asked as she closed the door.

“Long.” That felt like the right answer since it had taken me over seven hours to drive here from my parents’ house, but the truth was, it had actually flown by.

I was so distracted by thoughts of Jax my whole drive that I was surprised when the GPS said I had arrived at her house. “But not too bad. Jax, your house is…”

“Gigantic?” She said the word as if it was a bad thing.

“I was going to say gorgeous, but it is pretty big.”

Jax shrugged and stared down at her seat. “My parents have a lot of money.”

I watched Jax as she picked at something on my passenger seat.

She looked so much smaller than usual. I was used to her taking up so much space with her giant personality, but right now, it was like she was shrinking into herself.

I instinctively moved my hand across the middle console and placed it on her knee. “What’s wrong?”

“I just get self-conscious.”

That was strange. I had a few friends growing up who didn’t like having people over at their houses because they were smaller than others, but I had honestly never met someone who was self-conscious about their house being big.

“What do you mean? What are you self-conscious about?”

Jax took a deep breath and let it out in a huff.

“My dad is a Pharmacist and my mom is a Pediatric Heart Surgeon. I see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them what I do.

They look at me like I’m such a disappointment for not following in my parents’ footsteps.

From the time I was in middle school, people started asking me which medical field I was going to go into.

It was like the only way a child with two parents in a medical profession could be considered successful was if they also went into that profession.

” A few tears fell from Jax’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away.

“My parents aren’t like that. They’ve never put any pressure on me to be anything other than exactly what I wanted to be, and I really appreciate that.

I just normally don’t tell people what they do or how much money they have to try to avoid the inevitable judgment that I was a disappointment. ”

It broke my heart that Jax felt this way. As someone who saw the way she lit up every time she was working at the cafe, I couldn’t imagine her working a job that would dim that. “Are you happy with what you’re doing?”

Jax nodded and wiped at her eyes again. “I love what I do. I have bigger dreams than what I’m currently doing, but I’d also be happy to do this forever.”

I squeezed Jax’s knee, ignoring the tingling sensation in my fingers from that one touch alone. “As I’m sure your parents have told you, that’s what really matters. You like what you do and you’re good at it. I would never judge you for that, and honestly, fuck anyone who would.”

Jax laughed through her tears, then quickly wiped them again. “God, I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional right now.”

“It’s okay.” I took it upon myself to wipe the next set of tears that fell. “You’re allowed to have feelings. You’re being vulnerable.” I lifted my eyebrows at her. “You should be happy. Now you get to mark another thing off your list.”

A small smile parted Jax’s lips. “I feel like that’s kind of cheating, though. It’s easy to be vulnerable with you.”

That’s what happens when you find your person.

Those words were right on the tip of my tongue, but I held them in.

Right now was not the right time for this talk.

Jax needed a friend, not someone with ulterior motives.

“I’m still counting it.” I made a motion in the air as if I was checking something off of a list. “Done!”

Jax laughed and the beautiful sparkle came back to her eyes. “Thank you. You always know the right thing to say.”

“I’m just speaking the truth. Now am I going to get to meet your parents or are you going to keep putting it off?” I teased.

“Let’s do this.” Jax hopped out of the car and quickly ran around the front to open my door for me. She did the cutest little curtsy as she held out her hand for me to take. “Please direct me to your bags, my dear.”

She dropped my hand much too quickly, but not before placing a kiss on it, which had my mind thinking about having those lips on mine once again. Not what this weekend is about, I reminded myself.

I opened my trunk and Jax grabbed my bag, as promised.

She led me in through the garage, which housed two cars that were very modest given how much money these people clearly had.

The garage opened up into a small mudroom that was just off of the kitchen.

A moment after walking in, two smiling faces greeted us.

The man, who was very tall and had short brown hair that was streaked with gray, held out his hand toward me. “You must be Carter. It’s so nice to finally meet you. We’ve heard so much about you.”

At first, I thought that meant Jax had been talking about me, but then I remembered that they had met my sister multiple times.

Since that girl never knew when to shut up, I was sure she had told them everything about our family.

“It’s so nice to meet you as well. I have also heard many wonderful things about you. ”

My heart pounded in my chest as if I actually was meeting the parents of my girlfriend.

In a way, if I ever planned on opening up to Jax about my feelings and she was receptive to them, this actually wasn’t much different.

I really wanted to make a good impression. I needed to make a good impression.

After dropping Mr. Michaels’ hand, I immediately turned toward Jax’s mother and reached my hand out toward her. “It’s really nice to meet you as well, ma’am.”

Mrs. Michaels put her free hand on her chest. “The pleasure is all mine, but you can call me Joy.”

“And I go by Bobby,” her father added.

I nodded at both of them. “Thank you so much for having me this weekend, Joy and Bobby.”

Joy watched me with adoration. “All of you Miller-Cooper kids are so polite. Your mothers must have raised you right.”

Jax turned to look at me. “They met Ronan once when he was visiting Olivia and they were visiting me.”

“Great guy just like the rest of your family,” Bobby said firmly.

“Oh wow. We have officially met all of you now, haven’t we?” Joy said with a laugh. “How lucky.”

Lucky for them . I didn’t feel quite so lucky. As if I wasn’t nervous enough about this weekend, now I had to deal with the fact that they would most likely be comparing me to the rest of my family, whether they meant to or not.