Jax (Titan #9)(94)

"Keep moving, Seven. We don't have time for this."

"Then we didn't have time for you to push your lips against mine a few minutes ago. I'm not moving. If you're going to be a dick anytime I ask you a simple question, I'm gonna be a bitch. See how that works? It's the whole yin and yang thing. Like a teeter-totter."

"Then I'll throw you over my shoulder and get there faster, anyway." Jax took a step closer, his hand jutting out as though he might follow through on his threat.

"So help me God, big boy. I'll never forgive you if my feet leave the ground, and it's a simple freaking question. Where are you from? Who are your parents? Are they alive? What's the deal with not wanting to share personal information? Because that's weird."

Jax muttered and snagged her hand but didn't start walking. "They're alive. They live in Jersey. Everybody's Italian and eats sausage and peppers on Sunday." He started walking, and Seven relented, falling into stride next to him. "I played in the river with my friends when we were kids. Football was king. Still is in that town. It was a perfectly normal childhood. Nothing to talk about."

"Ever been in love?" she asked.

"Really, Seven?"

"I want to know who you are. I'm not some nutso chick that's going to go into a jealous rage in the middle of the goddamn Colombian jungle. I have a compulsion with folding when I wish I could control chaos." She grumbled because this moment was pretty much the definition of chaos. "I've never been in love. I thought I loved Johnny. I didn't really know what it was because I grew up with everybody telling me that I was supposed to love him and that we were supposed to date and that we were supposed to get married. It was like a checklist—" She tripped over a branch and stumbled then limped for a step but refused to issue a complaint. "He grew up as one of my best friends, and if I had had a brother, he would've been it. And I understand that's very weird to say because obviously we got married. It was more like he was the boy next door. Essentially, it was an arranged marriage. I never dated anyone else in high school, and when I turned eighteen, we got married."

"Jeez, that sucks."

"No, it doesn't suck if you don't know what you might be missing. I care about him. I want good things for him—"

"The cokehead who hit you."

"You've never made a mistake before?"

"That's not a—never mind."

"When I was sixteen years old, he gave me butterflies."

"At least it wasn't the clap."

"Jax. I'm trying to explain that he's always been a very attractive person, and I didn't think anything of it. It was what I knew. Normal. We did the prom thing. Johnny was the first boy I kissed, lost my virginity to, and the same person I ended up marrying. It seemed like that was how it was supposed to go."

Jax helped her down a small embankment, and she heard water splash around his feet. "Back up." He shuffled them up the hill and moved in a different direction. "When did you know you wanted something different?"

Seven groaned into the jungle humidity. "I'll tell you if you promise not to judge me."

Jax lifted her over a downed tree. "Maybe. Hang on. Duck for a minute." They crawled through thick branches, and he helped her through the last ones. "You know I'm not going to judge you."

He held her still as though she had to acknowledge that he meant what he said. "I know."

"Careful over here."

Footing wasn't easy, but it was better than baring her soul. Still, she wanted Jax to know about her, regardless of how uncomfortable sharing made her. "It wasn't when I knew he was sleeping around. But when I realized my dreams and fantasies revolved around things I'd never have with him, I started to change. More importantly, I knew it was happening, and why I was changing scared me. In how addictive it felt. Like a compulsion." Which she already had and couldn't stomach explaining.

Jax stopped and turned to her. "Like what?"

Nervously, she fidgeted, unable to see where she could pace but wanting to move. Maybe she'd said too much. Maybe he'd picked up on the OCD and thought she wanted to talk about that. "I don't know. Stupid stuff."

"How did you change?"

"The first time I dyed my hair an outrageous color, it was a rush. And then the piercings. It's not the high from the pain that excites me. I like the rush of planning, the nerves of not knowing, the thrill of seeing something that some say shouldn't be there. It's the closest thing I can find to butterflies, and I wanted to keep chasing it."

"Why would I judge you for that?"

"I didn't work on my marriage."

"You were eighteen years old."

"How old were you when you joined the navy?" she asked.

"Eighteen."

"And you're always a SEAL."

"That's different, and you know it."

Seven agreed but could still make the argument against herself. "I'd been through the ugliness of my parents' split and couldn't handle that one decision trapping me for the next fifty, sixty, however many more years of my life."

"I get that."

"I didn't want to be like my dad. He ran out on my mom. Or maybe, it was that I didn't want to be like my mom, who finally gave up on my dad. I don't know… My father fucked around on my mom a ton, and perhaps that's why I didn't bat an eyelash when getting married didn't stop Johnny from sleeping with whoever he wanted to. But you know what the weirdest thing is?"