Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(47)

She nodded. “Sure.”

“I’m going to be here,” I tossed at him, but Jax shook his head. “What? I’ve got hours left on my shift.”

“Not anymore.” He took my hand and started walking, leaving me no option but to follow. On the way across the bar, he grabbed a bottle of brown liquor. “We’re going to scratch out one of those ‘never done before’ things tonight.”

“What?” I shrieked.

Roxy’s grin spread into a full smile. “Right on.”





Twelve


One would think that Isaiah, who may or may not be a drug kingpin, sending his minions to the bar would be the most pressing problem at hand, but because I specialized in dumb, it wasn’t.

Standing in the kitchen of the house, my gaze shifted from the bottle of José and the two shot glasses Jax had also taken from the bar, to the current huge pain in my ass.

Half of his full lips were tilted up in a lazy grin that matched the lazy look to his brown eyes. He was leaning against the counter, well-defined arms folded across his chest.

An attractive pain in my ass, but still, a pain in my ass.

“No.” I said again, for probably the tenth time. We’d been back at the house for about forty minutes, and every minute had been spent with him telling me to take a shot and me telling him various reasons as to why I couldn’t.

Not once did he lose his patience.

Not once did he get angry.

Not once did he make fun of me for not wanting to drink.

Not once did I not have to stop myself from telling him the truth to why I didn’t drink.

I was running out of excuses, and my gaze shifted back to the full shot glasses. I swallowed, frustrated and . . . just really frustrated. It wasn’t like I never wanted to drink. I wanted to. I wanted to experience what everyone and their mother apparently liked to indulge in. Being drunk was a great unknown to me.

A lot of things were the great unknown to me.

I wanted to throw myself on the floor and roll around like a toddler, like my brother used—I cut that thought off, shaking my head.

“Hon, you’ve got to try it. Just one shot.”

My gaze flickered to his. I liked it when he called me hon or honey, which was the stupid icing on the dumb tier cake. Our eyes collided, and those thick lashes, those eyes, those eyebrows, and that face.

Fuck.

If being distracted by a hot guy with a beautiful face made me one-dimensional, then at least I recognized that about myself.

“Is it because of Mona?” he asked.

Whoa. The force of him hitting it right on the nail caused me to take a step back. I hit the chair at the table, and its legs rattled against the floor. “What?” I whispered.

He pushed off the counter, arms going to his side. “Is it because of your mom? Because of how she is?”

Holy holes in the moon, my feet were rooted to the floor as I stared up at Jax. I hadn’t known him for more than a week and some-odd days, and he seriously got it. Just like that. Might have something to do with the fact that he knew my mom when no one—not Teresa or Avery—had ever laid eyes on her or had a chance to experience the wonder of Mona.

It was because of my mom. That wasn’t a surprise to me, but to hear him hit it like that floored me.

I’d seen my mom do terrible, stupid things when she was drunk or high. I’d seen horrific and humiliating things done to her when she was drunk or high. She never had any control when she was like that. Hell, she never had any control before then, but it was worse when she was drinking or popping pills. She was the reason I didn’t do a lot of things and I wanted complete control, because I . . .

I never wanted to be her.

I wasn’t her.

I would never be her.

My feet moved before my brain caught up to what I was doing. Walking toward the counter, I brushed past Jax and I felt him turn as I reached for the shot. My fingers trembled as they closed around the cool glass.

I turned to where Jax stood, my hand steadying. “I’m not my mom.”

And then I tipped the glass to my lips.

Just one shot. Ha! Famous last words.

Four shots later, I was lying on the floor, on my side, cuddling the half-empty bottle of liquor to my chest. My eyes were closed. There was a warm, electric blanket coiled up in my belly and a pleasant buzz trilled through my veins. I’d long since kicked off my shoes and was currently deciding on if I wanted to take my shirt off or not. I had a tank top on underneath, but sitting up, raising my arms, seemed like it required too much effort.

A soft caress, a feather-light touch, traveled over my forehead, causing the electric blanket in my belly to heat and the trilling in my blood to hum louder. “Tequila . . . Jax, tequila is . . .” I ran out of words, because . . . well, words were so hard to think up and string together.

“Awesome?” he drawled, pulling his hand back.

I opened my eyes and grinned. He was sitting next to me, his long legs stretched out in front of him with his back pressed to the couch. We were only a couple of inches apart, and I didn’t remember how I ended up lying on the floor, but I do know that he’d gotten down there with me immediately.

“Calla?”

“Hmm?” My eyes had closed on their own, so I opened them again. He reached over, tapping my knee with his fingers, and I giggled. “I’m a lightweight, aren’t I?”