Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(71)

“We’re going to leave here together, eat some greasy goodness, and then we’re going to go check out this place for your mom,” he continued. “And when we’re done, if we have time before our shifts start, we’re going to indulge in a nap.”

“A nap?” Really, out of all of that, that is what I focused on?

“Together.”

“A nap together?”

“Yeah,” and then his voice dropped, “and if we have time, I might make you come calling my name again.”

Holy crap, he did not just say that.

Then he stepped farther into the bathroom, coming at me, and I backed up, hitting the sink. He crowded me, and as I tried to look to the left, his hand cupped my right cheek and the other circled the left side of my neck. He turned my face straight to his. This wasn’t the first time he’d done that, I realized.

“I’m not stupid,” he said, smoothing his thumb along the bones in my throat. “I’m also pretty damn observant when I need to be.”

“Okay?” I whispered. “Um, thanks for the heads-up on that.”

His lips twitched as he tilted my head back so our eyes locked. “I know why you’re hiding in the bathroom.”

Oh God. “Because I’m afraid you’re going to make me try another pie I’d never eaten before?”

“Ha. No.” His head lowered, and I swallowed hard. “I don’t notice it.”

My heart tumbled over and I went with pretending to be dumb. “Notice what?”

“Calla, babe, you know what I’m talking about. This.” Then his head slanted and I felt his lips at the corner of my left eye, just below it.

I sucked in a sharp breath that hurt. He’d done this before, too, and it created the same maelstrom of emotion in me, but he did more this time. His lips followed that scar all the way down my cheek, right to the corner of my left lip, and then he kissed me. It was soft and sweet and it lingered. My hands went to his chest and I leaned into him.

When he lifted his mouth from mine and pressed his forehead against mine, tears had built in the back of my throat. “I don’t care about it, Calla. I don’t even think about it,” he said. “I don’t even see it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as my heart squeezed into goo. Immediately, I didn’t believe him, because come the f*ck on, but I stopped—I just stopped. Stopped telling myself I knew what was going on in Jax’s head and that I knew what he wanted and didn’t want. I stopped. Because I didn’t know—no one ever knew, scarred or not. Stopped telling myself there was no point, because I planned on leaving. And all I had was what Jax was telling me, and what he was showing me. So I stopped all the other bullshit and I shook that crap off and it was like scrubbing Dermablend off my face at night, when I finally felt like me. All of this might be dumb. It might bite me in the ass later, but I was going to be dumb. I was going to be the best dumb I could be.

Whoa.

I wobbled a little and I exhaled through my nose and when I spoke, my voice was unsteady and the back of my eyes burned, but I pushed on. “Okay. Let’s do this. And get this done, because I really want that nap.”

Those lips curved against mine. “That’s my girl.”

When Jax walked out of the townhouse, he was tugging the back of his shirt down as he walked down the small set of stairs on the front stoop. He was rocking a pair of mirrored sunglasses, aviator style like Jase wore, and he’d looked just as good in them.

We didn’t talk much as he drove to IHOP, which was good, because I was fixated on what might happen before or after the possible nap. More orgasms not self-induced? Count me in. I was so going to follow through with my newly desired dumbness and not worry about anything else while exploring the dumb.

Like any normal red-blooded female, I’d thought about sex a decent amount, but not as much as I had in the last hour or so. My brain was playing happily in the gutter, right up until the plate of bacon, biscuits, and something Jax had said were grits and that I needed to try.

It was hard not thinking about being out in public without makeup, but every time my mind wandered to it or I thought someone was checking it out, like when a small boy had peeked over the back of the booth or when the waitress smiled at me, I forced it out of my thoughts.

And then my thoughts went to this—this Jax and me thing. There was a thing. As he’d said earlier, he had his hand between my thighs and I’d called his name, so there was a thing. A thing I had little experience in, and I wasn’t sure how far this thing really was going to go, because if my financial aid kicked in, I’d be heading three hours down the road. What kind of future was there for our thing when I’d be at college and he’d be all sexy working the bar?

Why was I even thinking about this? Because I was dumb and I’d already decided that I was going to go with this thing, whatever it was, and whatever going with this thing meant.

I poked at the white lumpy crap with my fork. “This is grits?”

“Try it.”

“It looks like something out of a horror movie.” I poked it again. “I’m afraid it’s going to launch itself off the plate and cover my face.”

Jax chuckled as he added some pancakes to the river of syrup.

“It’s not funny. I’ll end up birthing an alien grit baby or something,” I muttered. “And then what are we going to do?”