Page 8 of Anyone But Me

The next morning, I woke up much earlier than necessary, especially after I had tossed and turned for a long time the night before as I thought about the last words Jax spoke to me.

She was obviously a hopeless flirt, but this felt different than the times she teasingly hit on me.

The words seemed more sincere, like she actually meant them, but how could she?

She barely knew me. If I shined so brightly, wouldn’t that light have caught her attention all the years she was friends with my sister?

I tried to fall back asleep, but after a few minutes, I gave up and got out of bed. When I left my room, I was surprised to find that Jax was already awake. She was sitting on the couch, drinking a coffee, and watching something that was playing softly on the TV.

I stretched my arms in the air. “You’re up early,” I said with a yawn.

Jax looked over at me and gave me a tired smile. “I’m used to working early shifts at the cafe, so a lot of times my internal clock wakes me even when I don’t have to be up.”

I nodded knowingly as I walked across the room to join her on the couch. “I normally can’t sleep in either. Sometimes, my mind is racing even before the sun comes up.”

Jax smirked over the top of her coffee mug. “Was it racing this morning?”

I nodded before I could think better of it. Jax’s next question would probably be what it was racing about and there’s no way I could tell her it was racing over her.

Jax’s smile grew even wider. “The list, right?”

“Huh?”

“You were probably thinking about the list. I have been too.”

List? Oh yeah. Duh. The list that will help make me exciting. “Yep. That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”

“Come up with any ideas?”

Shit. Definitely didn’t think that one through. “Honestly, no. I’m clearly very bad at this.”

“Lucky for you, I did come up with some.” Jax winked at me and sat up taller. “Do you want to start now, or do you need some coffee first?”

Wow. We were really jumping right into this. “You know what? Let’s jump into it before I can overthink it and decide not to do it.”

“Great idea.” Jax moved her feet underneath her butt and turned so she was fully facing me.

“Now, like I said, I have some ideas, but it’s up to you.

Obviously, it’s good to go outside of your comfort zone, but we don’t want you to do anything against your morals or beliefs or something that scares you so bad, you shit your pants. ”

I laughed. “Yes. I’d really like the new me to avoid any pants shitting.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Jax clapped her hands together. “All right. First question. How do you feel about tattoos? Do you have any? Do you want any? Are you very much so against them?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have any, but I’m not against it. I’ve actually thought about getting one, but I never have, because I want it to be meaningful.”

“That makes sense. You’re definitely better than me in that way.

One night when we were both buzzed, I convinced my tattoo artist friend to tattoo the words Your Name on my butt cheek.

I thought it would be funny to be able to tell people, ‘Hey! Guess what? I have your name tattooed on my ass’ to see how they react. ”

Great. Now I was thinking about Jax’s tattooed ass, and the thought had my face warming. How embarrassing. I cleared my throat as I tried to get myself to speak. “How many tattoos do you have?”

The tattoos of hers that I had taken notice of were the rainbow tattoo on her ring finger, the rainbow of dots across her wrist, the word equality across her other wrist, something written in cursive above each of her elbows, and the heart on her right shoulder that matched the one on my sister’s left shoulder.

“I have nine.”

She started by showing me all of the ones I already knew about. I learned that the cursive words were Mom and Dad , each written in her parents’ handwriting.

She lifted up her pant leg to show me a tattoo of a flower on her ankle.

“This is a flower I had my grandma draw. She was really against it at first, because she didn’t think I should be marking up my skin, but it definitely grew on her.

” Next, she lifted up her shirt to show me a bunch of words written across her ribcage.

“It’s a quote from one of my favorite books,” she explained.

“And then for the last one.”

When Jax jumped from the couch and brought her hands to the top of her pajama pants, I felt my face immediately go red. Jax laughed and dropped her hands. “Tricked you. We’ll save that one for another time.” Another damn wink.

“So, what do you think?” she asked as she sat back down. “Do you want that on your list? If you do, I can take you to my tattoo artist. She’s the best. She’ll do a great job. I might even get one with you.”

I took a deep breath and blew it out. This felt like a much bigger deal than it should—like this was the first step in moving toward my new self. I knew that was dramatic, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that way. “Okay. Yeah. I’m in. That sounds great.”

“Perfect. One down. Nine to go.”

I looked around the room. “I need to go get my planner so I can write these down. That way we won’t forget what they were.”

When I returned from getting my planner, Jax had a shit-eating grin on her face. She nodded at the planner in my hands. “I take it that thing is pretty packed, huh?”

I could tell she was getting a kick out of this, but her teasing actually didn’t bother me. “I mean, I don’t have a ton of plans, but anything I can plan, I do.”

Jax’s smile grew even bigger. “Perfect. That brings me to my next idea. I think you should go on a trip that you don’t plan at all.”

That sounded… awful. Even the thought of it made my stomach hurt. “What’s the point of going on a trip if I don’t plan out every last detail first?” My question was sincere. If I didn’t plan, I could miss out on something, and then I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

“I find it intriguing that you said that without a hint of sarcasm.” Jax tapped my planner. “Write it down. This one is a must.”

I brought my pen to the paper, but I couldn’t do it. I looked back up at Jax. “This one might actually make me shit my pants.”

Jax tapped the planner once again. “Even better. It’ll make for a great story.”

I sighed and wrote it down, because I knew there was no way I was getting out of it. “There. Are you happy?”

Jax smiled proudly, clearly satisfied with herself for winning. “Very. Okay, next one. How many one-night stands or flings have you had?”

“None.” I would have been embarrassed by this, but I didn’t sense any judgment coming from Jax.

“I thought that might be the case. I’ve always taken you as the relationship type of girl. I respect that. I really do. On the other hand, no-strings-attached fun can be very satisfying. How do you feel about it?”

“I’m not against it as long as it’s safe.” I didn’t believe it was necessary to want to marry someone to have sex with them. I just never felt confident enough to put myself back out there after Marcie broke my heart.

“Perfect. Another one for the list.”

I didn’t hesitate before writing this one down. Jax might have to help me figure out how to meet this fling, but I wasn’t against it. God knows I could use an orgasm that I didn’t give myself.

After some more discussion and a little bit of arguing, Jax convinced me to add skinny dipping and attending a music festival to my list as well.

She promised to go to the music festival with me and also promised not to join me for the skinny dipping.

She was trusting me to be honest with her about completing that one.

“Halfway done,” Jax said when I had those two written down in my planner. “Maybe we should take a brain break before we think of more.”

Normally, when I started something, I had to finish it, but since this was all in an effort to be a new Carter, I agreed with her. I flipped my planner back to the upcoming week, so I could plan it out while I waited to get back to our list.

After a minute, I felt a set of eyes on me and looked over to find Jax staring at me. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just planning out my week.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Aren’t you off this week?”

I nodded. “I have four more weeks off.”

“Then what are you planning?”

“Meals, clothes, goals. Things like that.”

Jax sighed loudly. “Since you’re clearly not taking a break right now, flip back to your list. I have another one for you.”

What Jax didn’t understand was that this was my form of a break. Still, I listened to her without complaining and opened the page with the list. “What is it?”

“Spend a whole weekend at home, in pajamas, doing nothing productive.”

That item definitely seemed to be in contrast to all of the others. How in the hell did Jax’s brain go from music festivals to staying home doing nothing? “That doesn’t really seem to fit the exciting theme we’re going for.”

“It’s exciting, because it’s something different for you. When I say you’ll be doing nothing productive, I mean absolutely nothing . That includes planning out your week.”

I had to hold myself back from gasping, because I honestly couldn’t imagine starting a new week without a plan.

“The only way that’s going to be the slightest bit possible is if I complete that one before I go back to work.

It’s going to be hard enough to keep myself from planning out one of those weeks.

There’s no way I could go into a work week without a plan. ”

“Noted.” Jax held her hand out toward my planner. “Could I see that?”

I reluctantly handed it over to her. I could only imagine her messy scrawl was going to stress me out, but I needed to get over that.