Page 5 of Somewhere Only We Know (Healing in Cincy #4)

NATE

COLLEGE, SPRING SEMESTER - MARCH, JUNIOR YEAR

M y vision goes dark and for a second I panic until the scent of jasmine and vanilla surrounds me and I know exactly who it is.

“Guess who?” The intruder with a voice as sweet as honey asks.

“Well, you’re definitely not my advisor,” I tell her to throw her off.

“I am most definitely not a sixty-year-old woman,” she agrees with disgust dripping off her words.

She’s right. My heart doesn’t skip a beat when I’m in a meeting with my advisor like it does when she’s around. My heart most definitely does not ache for her when she’s not around. Did you catch that sarcasm?

“I’m gonna guess, my best friend?”

My vision is restored and the light causes me to blink to clear the haze. “Lucky guess,” she huffs out as she pulls out the chair next to me and takes a seat.

Jax Rawlins sat next to me the first day in Biology 101 our freshman year and claimed the spot as my best friend.

Never mind the fact that we were strangers and I rarely spoke more than five words a day to her.

Jax talked enough for the both of us and she staked her claim that no one has dared to challenge her.

It’s been three years and we’ve been thick as thieves.

Jax, much like our freshman year, still does most of the talking.

But that’s okay. I like hearing her voice.

Coming to a university out-of-state, worried me in the friendship department.

I mean, I’d have my team, but I can’t hang out with them all of the time.

And the guys I grew up with back home went local or stayed in-state, so we’re not as close as high school made us out to be.

When she found out I’m not a local, Jax took it upon herself to make me come home with her on the days the campus shuts down.

And in that time, I’ve inadvertently become one of the family.

Although, I definitely don’t have familial thoughts when it comes to her.

Somewhere between the Biology 101 class to now, in our third year of college, my feelings have morphed from a spark of a crush to something uncontrollable when it comes to Jax that goes beyond friendship.

Every smile, every laugh, every teasing jab has made my crush for her simmer like a boiling tea kettle waiting to release.

But I can’t risk losing her or the comfort I feel when it comes to being her friend.

I can’t lose her. So I bury it. I let her rattle on and on about some guy in her marketing class that flirts with her and pray that she can’t tell how irrationally jealous I get that he’s even an option. Hi, I’m here!

“You’re done with class already?” I ask and tap my pen on top of my textbook.

Anything to mask the sound of my thumping heart and ragged breathing.

Jax makes me breathless in a way I've never been before. I also have no idea how she sneaks into the athletes only section of buildings and I’m not sure I want to know .

She nods and pulls her phone out of her back pocket and sets it on the table with a thud. “I had a marketing test that I completely breezed through. So that probably means I failed it.”

“Oh, hush. I’m sure you passed.”

That’s an understatement. Jax is a genius. Where it takes most people continuous repetition to grasp something, she gets it on the first go. Being around her genius mind is terrifying some days. Other days, I wish I had unfettered access to how she does it.

“You have too much faith in me, Nathan,” she says and her honey brown eyes clash with mine before darting away. In times like this, when our eyes meet and nothing is said, I wish nothing more than to know what she’s thinking.

“Someone has to.”

Jax quickly looks at me again and turns away.

I watch as her cheek lifts in a small, almost dismissive, smile in the reassurance that someone cares about her.

I think Jax is starved for attention. Not that she’s been neglected, but she’s mentioned her family-dynamic a handful of times.

And the times I spent with her and her family, I’ve never noticed any tension.

Her parents dote on her, so maybe it’s something she’s held onto since childhood?

Maybe repressed resentment? I do know she has a sister that I’ve yet to meet even though she now lives close by to Jax’s family’s house with her boyfriend.

Maybe they’re not close anymore? But maybe Jax has hidden what she’s felt for longer than anyone knew.

Fortunately for her, I'm a patient man and I can’t wait to uncover the rest of her.

She sits up and flips her curly hair to the other side of her head.

I shift in my chair as a whiff of the fragrance from her hair products floats my way and I wish I could bottle that scent up and save it for only me.

It makes me wonder what she would do if I buried my nose in her hair like a drug addict getting their next fix or twisted a spiral around my finger like kids do with the string from balloons.

“So are you done for the day? No practice later?”

It takes a second for me to respond but I shake my head, ridding myself of those thoughts because at this rate Jax and I will never happen. “I had my individual practice this morning so I’m free for the rest of the day.”

My time during the spring is exceptionally limited when the baseball season really gets going.

But we have a couple more days before our next home game series and the coaching staff agreed that tiring us out beforehand would be unwise.

We’ll have a full team practice tomorrow, but today I’m all done.

“Perfect. Let’s go get food.” She exclaims and pops up from her chair, grabbing her phone on the way.

I pack up my things and follow her out of the athletic wing like a man on a leash.

I’m not sure when my one-sided crush started.

Do people really write that down? Because if you asked me, I would tell you there was never a time that I don’t remember feeling something for Jax.

My crush for her wasn’t instant and I never went into our friendship with the intention of more.

But Jax—something about her pulls me to her.

The way she laughs, her horrible dance moves, how she doesn’t care to carry a tune when a song that she likes plays…

my crush for her rolled over me like the gentlest wave.

Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning in my feelings for her.

But then she’ll so something that pulls me above the surface to where I’m finally able to breathe around her again.

It’s weird. Being friends with a girl and never acting on those feelings to want more.

I’m sure people have things to say about the two of us.

And I mean, I won’t lie and say that I’ve not thought about when the right time would be to tell her.

But I’m also fearful that if I do say something about my crush and she doesn’t feel the same way, could our friendship recover?

My feelings for her have always been strictly platonic. Until they weren’t.

I hold the door open to the union and follow her inside and together we hop in line, moving forward inch by inch. When Jax puts our food on her tray, I go to grab my card to swipe for our food, but she beats me to it.

“Stop doing that,” I growl in her ear. Is it my imagination or was that a hitch in her breath?

She turns her head which puts her lips dangerously close to mine.

“Be faster.” Jax says and pauses when she notices our position.

I don’t miss the way her eyes flicker to my lips and a flush covers her cheeks before she’s turning around and stepping forward.

My heart continues to thump heavy in my chest. Like that moment before a kiss where the nerves are so apparent, but it’s clear that you’re both on the same page.

We’re quiet as we finish going through the line.

That loaded moment sits heavy in the front of my mind.

If she would have made the move first, I would have followed.

Is she thinking the same thing? Can other people tell we just had a moment?

Or is it that my imagination keeps playing tricks on me?

I keep thinking I have a neon sign flashing “I have a crush on my best friend!”. But maybe that’s just my imagination.

Jax and I have never once crossed that friendship line. Sure, we’ve teased each other. But we’ve never had a moment like the one minutes ago.

Once our food is paid for, we bag it and head to the spot that only we know.

Maybe it’s not actually a secret spot. But it’s become, what I like to call, mine and Jax’s spot.

Really, it’s just an abandoned picnic table behind the football stadium with zero shade.

It’s a bitch to sit at in the late summer when the semester is just beginning.

But when it’s spring in Philadelphia, like now, it’s nice to have the sun warm our bodies after days of snow and windchill.

We eat our food in silence. Silence that I usually love, only now it makes me want to pluck each piece of hair out of my head.

The sound of cars driving and honking on the other side of the tree barrier is a low hum and that’s the one thing that I can hold onto as I try to find a way back to normal.

At least a normal where I stop thinking about our almost moment.

When I’m done, I crumble up my trash and put it in the paper bag.

That minimal noise is comforting as I let out a heavy sigh.

Noise. Noise. Noise. That’s all I need because this silence is suffocating.

I clear my throat and break the silence. “So, that was?—”

“Different?” Jax finishes for me.

I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. I turn my head to look at Jax who’s currently mastering the art of avoidance and gathering up her own trash.

“Weird different? Or a good different?” I fish for more from her. I keep my face blank as I ask her this because I’ve been known to have a terrible poker face.

“Nate, we can’t,” she says, almost defeated and still avoiding eye contact.

“Why not?” I ask through what feels like glass in my throat.

“Because you’re my best friend and I would be destroyed if I lost that. ”

I rear back. “Who said anything about losing something?”

Jax finally turns to look at me and it’s like the hopeful feeling I felt before has been snuffed out by the mournful look on her face.

“I saw firsthand what happened with my sister when friendship lines were crossed and I don’t want that for me. For us.”

I turn away from her and look towards the breezeway under the stadium. The pathway is dirty from decades of shoes traipsing along, squished gum, and a few pieces of trash littering the area.

“So it was a good different?” I ask again.

“I won’t answer that. I won’t ruin a friendship like my sister did.”

“You know, I hear a lot about her and you. But what about you and me?” I’ve never once gotten angry or been angry with Jax. There was never any need to. She makes it too easy to be happy around her. But now?

“There is no you and me, Nate. There can’t be.”

Jax refusing us is something I should just accept.

My parents have told me that when a girl refuses you, you don’t push.

But that look we shared earlier was not one-sided.

It’s clear Jax is scared. But I can’t hold her hand through the fear.

I grind my back teeth together in an effort to keep from blowing up at her.

With a short nod, I gather my things and hear her gasp.

“Okay, then. I have to go. I forgot I have a study group session to get to. I’ll see you around, Jax. ”

“That’s it?” she shouts at my back. “You’re just gonna walk away?”

I turn around and look at her. The furrow in her brow and her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive pose is what I’m committing to memory. But I also clock the tremble in her jaw and the watering of her eyes like she’s afraid to lose me. Like what she voiced is already happening.

“What do you want me to say, Jax? Do you want me to just forget that the crush I’ve had on you since I was eighteen means nothing?

” I stalk back to her until I’m in her space.

“Do you want me to forget that every time I’m around you, all I think about is kissing you and never coming up for air?

” My hands come up and I gently cradle her face and tip her head back so I can look into her eyes.

My thumbs lightly rest on her throat and I watch the movement as she swallows.

I feel the quickening of her pulse under my other fingers and it sickeningly soothes me that this riles her up.

That the possibility of losing me over this terrifies her.

“I dream of the day when I can finally call you mine. I’ve tried to squash my crush for you.

I’ve tried for the last three years. But day after day you have wormed yourself so deep inside of me that I have been waiting for you to notice.

But you’re so sure that if we cross the line you’ll lose me and instead you don’t want to try at all. So you lose me instead.”

“Was that all our friendship was to you?” She asks and I don’t miss the tears threatening to spill over. Or her hidden question.

“No, J. It has never been about that and deep down you know it.”

I wait for the words to click. For her to say something. But she doesn’t. We just stand there. Toe to toe. Brown eyes to brown eyes. And still, she says nothing.

I swallow through her rejection and lean forward, pressing a kiss on her forehead.

I linger there and feel her hands encircle my forearms of the hands that are still cradling her face, hoping this kiss kicks some sense into her.

That she can get on the same page as me.

But all too soon her hands drop and I rip myself away from her, walking quickly back to my dorm.

Away from the girl who’s had my heart for the last three years.

Unknowingly, Jax has had the power to undo me all along.

And today she did just that.