Page 44 of Anyone But Me

The festival was called “CryoRave: The Eternal Drop” and even though it was taking place indoors in a city where it never snowed, there was apparently fake snow that fell from the ceiling the whole time.

According to Jax, they also kept the temperature very low to try to make it feel more wintery, but it still ended up hot from all of the bodies.

I was glad I had decided to take Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off of work, so I’d have some time to recover from this insanity.

The four days I worked back at the office after the holiday break were by far my hardest ones yet.

The company was doubling down on its goals for the new year, which meant I had to work extra hard to find ways for us to reach those goals, and right now, I felt like I was failing.

I clicked on one of the videos on the website and couldn’t believe all of the people crammed into a small space, dancing as if their lives depended on it. “How do people last through the whole weekend?”

Jax leaned closer to me to watch the video. “Honestly… for most people, drugs.”

“Oh.” I don’t know why this surprised me, given what I had heard about music festivals, but it made me irrationally anxious. “Are… you planning on doing drugs?”

Jax laughed. “Have you met me? My nervous system is like a built-in drug. I have more energy than I know what to do with. I did bring weed gummies in case you wanted to partake, but I’m also okay with just having a few drinks if that’s what you prefer.”

I figured being high when I’m surrounded by a much bigger crowd than I’m used to would have a much different effect on me than it did on most people.

I had to imagine it would only make my anxiety worse.

Still, I didn’t want Jax to think I was boring when I had worked so hard to convince her otherwise. “Maybe. Can I think about it?”

“Carter.” Jax grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I can tell you don’t want to, so please forget I even mentioned it. And could you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

Jax’s stare was somehow even more intense than usual. “Don’t ever do something just because you think it’s what I want. All I want is for you to be happy.”

“You make me happy.” My mouth went dry as the words slipped out. This was the closest I had ever come to a confession of my feelings.

“Good, because I feel the exact same way.”

A few minutes later, we slipped under the covers, fully clothed, and I quickly fell into the most restful sleep of my life.

***

It was a good thing I slept well, because the next day was the complete opposite of restful.

I spent most of the morning contemplating how warm I should dress given the description Jax gave me, but when she came out of the bathroom wearing her outfit—which was essentially just a neon underwear and bra—I had to start all over.

Luckily, I had brought two bodycon dresses “in case of emergency.” It turned out not realizing how little clothes people wear to a music festival was, indeed, an emergency.

Jax of course told me I looked incredible even though she looked like sex in human form. I wasn’t the only one who noticed either. Ever since getting to the festival, she had been turning the heads of both men and women.

It was approximately two hours into the festival when I first checked my phone to see if it was over yet.

It became more bearable when Jax and I each took two shots and shared two very strong mixed drinks.

It became enjoyable when Jax dragged me up by the stage, stood in front of me, and danced against me.

I moved my hands to her hips and swayed to the music with her.

Who needed drugs? I couldn’t be higher than I was at this moment. Time passed by in a blur as I held the girl of my dreams close to me. This might not have been my scene, but I’d belong anywhere as long as I was with Jax.

“I need one of you to come up on stage!” the current DJ, whose name I didn’t know, screamed.

I’m not sure what came over me, but I started to jump up and down and scream.

“You!” The DJ pointed right at me. “Get up here.”

Jax and I turned toward each other, grabbed each other’s hands, and jumped up and down screaming.

A few seconds later, a security guard walked over and directed me to a part of the barrier that he then opened for me to go through.

Once I was through, he walked beside me to show me how to get onto the stage.

When I got onto the stage, the DJ immediately met me in the middle.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

He held the mic in front of me and something inside of me broke. It was the part of me that held me back and always made me feel limited. “My name is Carter Miller-Cooper!” I shouted.

The DJ chuckled. “Okay, Carter Miller-Cooper. I need you to do me a favor. Anytime the beat drops, I want you to yell ‘These are the best days of our lives’ as loud as you possibly can. Think you can do that?”

Ten minutes ago, I probably would have said no, but now it was a resounding yes.

He handed me the mic, and I danced in place while I waited for my cue.

When it was getting closer to the beat drop, I searched the crowd for Jax.

Our eyes met and everything else around me disappeared.

It was just she and I screaming ‘These are the best days of our lives’ together.

That’s how it was the rest of the time I was up on stage. Even as I handed the mic back and made my way down, I kept watching her. When we were finally back together, she picked me up and spun me in a circle.

“That was so fucking cool!” she shouted over the music.

When she set me back down, I couldn’t stay still. I bounced from foot to foot and shook my hands at my sides. “That was exhilarating. Fuck yeah! Not so boring anymore, huh?”

Jax’s smile faltered for a brief moment that I would have missed if I wasn’t so attuned to her, because she quickly recovered and smirked as she leaned into me. “Wanna get out of here?”

I knew exactly what she was getting at, so I immediately agreed. The taxi ride seemed to go on forever as I anxiously waited to get back to the hotel. As soon as we were inside the door to our room, I grabbed Jax’s arms and started pushing her toward the bed.

Jax grabbed my arms back, but not in the same way. Not with the intensity which we normally did things during sex. “Hold on. I definitely want to do that, but I just wanted to ask you about something I think you said at the festival. Did you really make a comment about not being boring anymore?”

I dropped my hands to my sides. Where was she going with this? “Yeah.”

Jax dropped her hands as well and walked over to the bed. She sat down, then patted the spot next to her. When I joined her, she situated her body so that we were facing each other. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Have you ever not been?” I asked with a laugh, trying to act like I wasn’t anxious about where she was going with this.

“Touche.” Jax threw me a wink that eased some of my worries. “The truth is, I never thought you were boring. I suggested the list because it seemed like it was what you needed, but you’ve always been the most interesting person in the world to me.”

“Wait. Really?” My voice cracked as my eyes burned from the tears that were threatening to fall.

“Of course. You’re the smartest person I know. I love when you talk about things I don’t understand. I could literally listen for hours. You have so many layers, and you’ve always kept me on my toes, even before any of this started. You’re amazing, Carter.”

My heart was full for the first time in years.

I was pretty sure it would have burst if that was possible.

I didn’t have the words to express to Jax how she had made me feel, so instead I kissed her.

It was different from most of our kisses.

This one had more meaning behind it. This one was expressing all of the things I couldn’t say out loud.

Jax accepted my kiss and deepened it. Our lips moved slowly against each other as our tongues did the same. Fireworks went off behind my closed eyes and my heart beat rapidly as Jax carefully laid me down and brought her body on top of mine.

For the longest time, all we did was kiss, but after a while, layer after layer of our clothes came off.

My hand was between Jax’s legs and hers between mine, but there was nothing hurried about it.

I touched Jax while I watched her face, taking in every single change in expression, from the way she slightly bit her lip when I hit a particularly sensitive spot or how the skin by her eyes wrinkled as if it was taking all of her power to keep them open.

When Jax pushed two fingers inside of me, I had to fight to keep my eyes open as well. Her warmth against my own fingers as they slipped inside caused soft whimpers to escape through my lips. This moment was everything.

“Do you mind moving your hand?” Jax asked. “I want to try something.”

I did as she asked and as soon as I did, she situated herself so our centers were aligned. Her pleasure mixed with mine, and it was impossible to tell where she ended and I began.

Jax stared down at me. Her eyebrows were slightly furrowed, her mouth was a straight line, and her eyes—they held so much. There was fear, desire, and maybe even love .

“I’ve never done this with anyone,” she whispered. Her voice shook and sounded more nervous than it ever had before. “It always seemed too intimate. But I want to do it… with you.”

“Please.”

It was the only word I could get out, but it was good enough to make my point.

Jax moved slowly against me, but never removed her eyes from mine.

I pushed my hips up to get even closer to her and forced my eyes to stay open, so I never lost that contact with Jax.

This was so much more than just sex, but then again, it always had been.

As I came closer and closer to the edge, the words Jax had said just a few minutes ago rang through my head.

I didn’t need to change myself for her, because she really saw me.

She had always seen me, and that’s all anyone could ever hope for.

My orgasm hit at the exact same time something else hit me—I was head over heels in love with Jax.

For the longest time after our orgasms subsided, Jax kept her body on mine and stared down at me.

She looked like she had so much to say, and I understood, because so did I.

I wanted to tell her exactly how I felt, but there was something I had to do first. My sister wasn’t just Jax’s best friend.

She was also mine, and I couldn’t move forward with this until I had her blessing.

It was a conversation that needed to be done in person, which meant I had to find a time to see her, and it needed to be soon.

I immediately started running through my schedule in my mind, trying to come up with a time that worked.

Jax rolled off of me, but she went onto her side so she could continue to look at me. “Are you okay?” she asked. “It looks like you have a lot on your mind right now.”

You don’t know the half of it.

“Is work okay? You’ve actually seemed pretty stressed out all week.”

So, that’s where she thinks my head is. It’s not like she’s completely wrong. That is where it’s been all week. “It’s been tough. VisuSphere is kind of stalled right now, as far as making any progress at expanding in popularity, and I feel like I’m failing at my job.”

Jax ran a hand through my hair. “You’re not failing. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can. What I’ve never understood is why they chose a name like VisuSphere. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

This comment made me perk up slightly, because there was a very good explanation for the name.

It was actually one of the things I loved about the company.

“The reason that’s the name is actually really cool.

Visus means vision or sight in Latin. Everything our company does is to connect people with each other and give them access to the rest of the world and all the knowledge that comes along with it, so you could say we’re providing them with sight. ”

Jax smirked. “I love when you talk nerdy to me. It’s so sexy.

” She ran her hand through my hair again.

“That does make me like it more, but I still think it could be shortened or like, given a nickname, for marketing purposes. Something like Vise or Vis U that grabs people’s attention and can have some catchphrase made out of it like ‘What’s your Vise?

’ I don’t know. Maybe that’s lame, but it’s just a thought. ”

“I don’t think that’s lame at all. I’m always so caught up on numbers and algorithms that I miss the important things. You’re very business savvy, you know that?”

Jax shrugged. “I should be since I was a business major and want to own my own business some day.”

“You do?” That was certainly news for me.

Jax’s cheeks turned the slightest bit pink. “Yeah, I don’t really tell people, but my dream is to one day have my own cafe. It’s why I’ve been working at Serenity Sips for so long. I want to learn the ins and outs of the business.”

I sat up when an idea popped into my head. “My Uncle Ethan owns a cafe, you know.”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember Olivia telling me that at one point. I had totally forgotten though.”

“You should talk to him. He started his cafe completely from scratch and was somehow able to make it a success in conservative small-town Maryland, even though it’s owned by a gay man and known as a proud LGBTQ+ safe space.”

Jax’s eyes lit up. “I love that. Do you really think he’d be cool with sitting down and talking to me?”

I loved how excited she was. Even if I thought my Uncle Ethan would be hard to convince (which he wouldn’t), I’d still find a way since it clearly made Jax so happy.

“Of course. He’d love it. We can even go down to Maryland if you want to.

I’ve been meaning to visit my grandparents forever anyway. This is the perfect excuse.”

Jax nodded eagerly. “Can we? That would be amazing! I’m so excited. How soon can we make it happen?”

Her enthusiasm was contagious, so I found myself unable to sit still either. “When is the next time you have a whole weekend off?”

“Next week!”

I was surprised Jax had two weeks in a row that she wasn’t working Saturday or Sunday. That was unusual for her. “You seem to be having a lot more weekends off lately.”

Jax wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. “I’ve kind of been requesting it, so I could spend more time with you.”

Fuck , this girl had my whole heart. “Road Trip to Maryland next weekend?”

“With you, I’d go anywhere.”