Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(115)

“Fisher, if you don’t back away from this stage right now, I will rip your f*cking throat out.”

“$500,” a voice hollered from the back.

Jaxon slammed his fist on the stage in frustration. “$1,000, Cole you better call it.”

My eyes went wide at his bid. Cole laughed, “Alright, let’s put the poor bastard out his misery. Going once… going twice…”

Dalton stepped forward to raise his paddle and Jaxon reached over and smacked it from his hand. Dalton bent forward laughing at his antics.

“Sold! To the very possessive, Jaxon Riley.” Cole bent down and handed Jax his ticket so he could pay later. I watched as he whispered to him, “I’ll make sure you never get within fifty feet of her if you hurt her again.” Jax nodded his head once.

Instantly, he turned toward me and pulled me over his shoulder, so that my hands and face hit his back. I would kill him. This couldn’t be more embarrassing. I was in charge of this event and he was dragging me out over his shoulder. I didn’t fight it because I didn’t want to create more of a scene in front of everyone. Thank God, I didn’t wear a skirt today. He didn’t stop until he got to his truck out in the parking lot where he sat me down onto the passenger seat and closed the door to walk around to the other side.

When he put the keys in the ignition I finally spoke, “I’m not leaving, Jaxon. This event was my responsibility.”

He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and began calling someone. “Woods, yeah… can you cover the rest of the event for Emerson? ... Yeah… I f*cking know… I understand… Okay, thanks, I’ll owe you.” I’m pretty sure I had entered the twilight zone.

“You just called Micah?” I said shocked. “Why would you even have his number?”

“I had to call him today to talk to him about stuff,” he responded, but I could tell he didn’t want to talk about it. He drove past our apartments and I had no idea where he was headed.

“Why would you need to call him today?”

“Emerson, I don’t want to talk about Micah.”

“He’s my friend, so I do. Why would you need to talk to him?”

“I called to apologize, happy?” he grumbled.

“You apologized?” My shocked voice rose.

“If he’s really your friend, and he’s going to Africa with you, I needed to apologize. I’ll need him to watch over you when I can’t. It’s pissing me off, but there’s nothing I can do about that, the internship is full.”

“You tried to get in the Africa internship?” It was one surprise after another with him. He nodded his head. “Why do you need someone to watch over me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Because I’ll need at least an ounce of peace while you’re away from me for three months. Because I love you so damn much. Because if something happened to you, I wouldn’t survive.”

“Why do you say that kind of stuff to me? It only hurts me, you know,” I whispered. He pulled the truck into an empty parking lot at the beach and put it in park.

“I can’t live without you. I’m done trying,” he said, looking into my eyes while pulling me across the seat closer to him. He sat me in his lap facing him with my back leaning up against the steering wheel. I stayed quiet, not sure how to continue this subject.

“I ended things with us Emerson because I didn’t think I was strong enough to be with you. When you went off the deep end that night before… your birthday, Quinn told me you usually got sad and became a little reclusive during that time. When she said you had never acted the way you did that night, I knew it was because of me. I was hurting you, somehow making you worse. I knew you deserved to find someone who could build you up, not tear you down. When you ran off with Devon, I figured that’s what you were searching for as well.”