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I smile shyly at him. “I like them, Jaxon.” He gives me a quick kiss on the lips after I call him by his name. It came to me so easily, and it fits so well. “They’re a little strange, but they were really nice to me. Elliot was the only one who wasn’t.”
When Elliot’s name comes up, Jaxon’s jaw tightens as if he had been told to. There must have been something between those two, because I can’t believe Jaxon would get that mad at another pack member for saying something rude about me. Elliot didn’t even get close to me.
“He won’t ever talk to you again. If he does, you come and get me right away.” His voice is strong and there is no room for argument. Still, I argue with him.
“Why? So you can kill him?”
“Yes,” Jaxon says right away. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that Elliot would be dead if he looked at me the wrong way.
I yell at him, “You will not do that!” and push him away from me. I probably only pushed Jaxon an inch because I surprised him. He clearly didn’t expect me to react that way, judging by the look on his face. What did he think I would do when he asked me to kill him?
He tries to defend himself, but I don’t let him say much. “That’s crazy! You won’t kill anyone just for talking to me! Actually, don’t kill anyone! And don’t hurt anyone either! What you did to Elliot was so horrible to watch. Please, please promise me you won’t do that again.” I look up at Jaxon with tears in my eyes. My little rant got me really worked up, and now my feelings are coming out. I’m glad I’m saying what I think, even though I’m worried about how he’ll react.
Jaxon seems torn, but when his eyes follow the path of the one tear that falls down my cheek, he seems to have made up his mind. He wraps his arms around me in a gentle, comforting hug that brings us closer together. “I promise I’ll try to keep my anger in check when I’m around you. I can’t promise I won’t physically put someone in their place about you. I won’t lie to you. But I will do it less and control it more for you.”
I smile at him and give him a tight hug. He will work on it because he cares what I think. I can only imagine how hard my request must be for him, and I really appreciate it. I stand on my tiptoes and put my hands on his cheeks to show how much I care. I pull down a little, and Jaxon bends down to close the gap between our lips.
We kiss slowly this time, just enjoying how we taste. Jaxon kisses me with love and affection while holding my waist. Oh my god. Do I love him? Does he care about me? I need to stop thinking about these questions because it’s too early to be thinking about them. Telling myself not to think about something only makes me think about it more. I’ve never been in a relationship before, let alone one this big. Is it wrong to depend on someone else this much?
Jaxon suddenly stops kissing. He asks right away, “What’s wrong?”
“Uh… nothing! I’m fine.” I try to smile at him to make him feel better, but that only makes him frown more.
“Calla, I can tell something’s bothering you because you tensed up. What’s wrong?”
Damn him and his perfect ability to see things! I can’t even think about saying the “L” word, so I just blurt out the first excuse that comes to mind that might make sense to him.
“You smell.” I wish I hadn’t said it right away. He does smell like sweat and the outdoors, but I wish I had told him in a nicer way that he stank. I quickly put my hands over my mouth, afraid that I would say more dumb and rude things. Jaxon doesn’t get mad or hurt when I cut him off; instead, he just laughs and backs away with his hands up.
“Okay, I’ll go take a shower. If you want to shower after me or with me, I can get you some new clothes.” His evil grin gets bigger as my cheeks turn a darker shade of pink. I can’t believe you said you saw him naked. I’m sure he would be great. Me? No way.
“Baby, I’m just kidding. We’ll wait until you’re ready.” I want to be more intimate with him, but I need to take things slow. It makes me happy that he knows that and is okay with it.
He gets some of his smallest clothes for me to borrow after I promise to shower after him. They’ll still hang off of me, but at least they’re clean. He says I can shower first, but I talk him out of it by saying that since he’s still sweaty from training and it’s his shower, he should get to use it first.
I also call my mom on his phone to tell her where I am. She was surprised to learn that I wasn’t in class and had decided to skip today. She asked me to keep her updated. She’s still at home with Maisie, and thank goodness she said she doesn’t need the car today.
I didn’t lie to her when she asked me where I was. I told them I was at Skyler’s house, which is sort of true… It just so happens to be Jaxon’s house too. She won’t be hurt by what she doesn’t know.
Also, I’m an adult, so I can do what I want. I can sleep at my boyfriend’s house if I want to. I don’t want to tell her what we did last night because she’ll get too excited and make the wrong guesses. That would be a nightmare and a half.
Jaxon’s phone was open on the bed when I got off the phone with my mom. I can still hear the shower running, so I think it’s probably fine if I make one more call. I can’t stop thinking about the other relationships in my life that need fixing after making up with Jaxon. I can’t stop thinking about how sad Felix looked. He begged me to forgive him, but I wouldn’t. He did it wrong, but Jaxon can be a little mean when he’s mad too. Shouldn’t Felix also get the benefit of the doubt?
I pick up the phone and call Felix’s number without thinking about it. The only reason I know it by heart is that his number has 666 after the area code. I found it very funny that his phone number was the devil’s number, and my great memory helped me remember it.
I quickly called the number and hoped he would answer. After a lot of rings, the ringing stopped and a message told me to leave a voicemail. I hung up right away because I was too shy to leave him a message on Jaxon’s phone. When I get home, I’ll call Felix and listen to him. I need to know why he was acting so strangely. Now that I know he’s not a person, what he does could be completely justified.
A few minutes later, Jaxon comes out wearing nothing but sweatpants. His dark hair is even darker now that it’s still wet from the shower. The bathroom is full of steam, and the soaps smell so good that they stick to the air. I took a deep breath and smelled it. I had never smelled anything like it before.
Seeing Jaxon, especially without a shirt, makes me realize how lucky I am to be his friend. Water drops run down his washboard abs. I follow them down his body until they reach the bottom of his pants. I quickly turned my head away when I saw where my eyes were going.
I look back at Jaxon’s face, which is a better place to look, and he only has a smirk on his face. He definitely saw me staring at him. He slowly walks over to me, like a predator stalking its prey, and I don’t move a muscle. He kisses me on the lips and puts his warm hands on my cheeks. He lets me go too soon, and I make a pouty face because our kiss was so short.
“Go take a shower before I get too distracted,” Jaxon says in a husky voice I’ve only heard a few times. “You’re too damn alluring. You don’t even know what you do to me.”
I step away from him with wide eyes and go into the bathroom. The door closes with a soft “click,” and I’m alone. I think about locking the door, but if Jaxon really wanted to get in, he would be able to get through a locked door. I take the quickest shower of my life because I can’t wait to see him again and find out what our plans are. We’re going to be lazy and watch TV all day.
He needs to watch a lot of things with me, like Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, and Teen Wolf. I also picked those so I can ask him what’s real and what’s not. There is a lot of conflicting information about the paranormal, so it would be very helpful to have my own fact-checker.
I get dressed quickly after I take a shower. I look through his drawers until I find a hairbrush, then I start to untangle the mess of knots in my hair. When I see my reflection, I almost drop the brush. When I get closer to the mirror, I can see that I was right the first time I looked at my reflection. Big dark purple circles are still under my eyes. I’ve never seen myself look this worn out before. I do feel very tired, but I’ve never looked like this before. I guess that’s what happens when I don’t get enough sleep and the sleep I do get is full of bad dreams. I might take a nap later…
It’s been a few days since I made up with Jaxon. I texted and called Felix every day, but he never got back to me. I have class with him today, so I hope we can talk about this in front of other people.
Every night, I couldn’t sleep because I kept having the same nightmares. No matter what I did or where I was in my dream, Jaxon always died at the end. He always died, whether his head was cut off, a stake was stabbed through his heart, or he was pushed off a building. I always woke up crying, too. I realized that the dreams weren’t real, even though they felt real to me when I was awake. It didn’t make things any easier.
Jaxon is beginning to have doubts. Skyler even said that I “look worse than the undead.” I try to ignore my lack of sleep and stay away from the situation. I still drink a lot of coffee, even more than usual. I’m a nervous wreck, and I keep drifting in and out of lectures. I hope these dumb dreams go away before our first test. I can hardly do anything right now.
I finally get to my Ethics class, but Felix isn’t in his usual seat. The lecture goes on without him, but I miss his eye-rolling and arguments about morals. When it came to moral philosophies, we always disagreed with each other. It was always funny to me when he was so confused by how honest and fair I was when doing my homework. He could never understand why I would put my own health at risk for a stranger just because it was the right thing to do.
Without him, the class went by slowly. The teacher was nice enough to let us out early today, and I’m so happy about it. I was able to keep my eyes open for most of the lecture, but I did close them twice, and that was only when the professor showed us videos. I close my eyes and cover them with my hand to protect them from the bright sun that seems to be making fun of how little sleep I’ve had. I trip over my own feet three times just walking out of the lecture hall. When someone calls my name, I really trip and fall down hard.