Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(81)

I would only be out here for a short time before all three of us would fly back to California. We spent most of our time together, Jace and Julie included. Surprisingly, it wasn’t lame at all to have their mom with us the whole time. She was awesome, and she could joke right along with her boys. I could see where they got their charm. I can only imagine how devastatingly handsome their dad was.

This was the first time since I’d met Quinn that I wouldn’t be spending her birthday with her, but I was glad that Cole was there. I talked on the phone with her the majority of that day, neither one of us liking the fact that we weren’t together. I may hate celebrating my birthday, but I love being with Quinn on hers. Jaxon and I had a chocolate cake and flowers delivered to her and she made me promise to bring her something back from Texas.

Jaxon and I also went to a few parties in his town. It was nice meeting a large number of the people that he grew up with. Their parties were a lot more low-key and mellow than anything I’d been to on Fraternity Row. On New Year’s Eve, we went to a bonfire out on one of their friend’s property. I’d never actually been to a real bonfire before, so it was nice to experience it with him and his family. I could stare into Jaxon’s blue eyes lit by a fire for the rest of my life. For the first time ever, I kissed someone at midnight and I was thankful it was Jaxon I was kissing.

His family showed me around their town. Jaxon ended up buying me a pair of leather cowboy boots that he said would look hot on me with a dress. Julie bought me a dress that she said would go great with the boots. In one of the stores we ended up looking through, we lost track of Jace. I eventually came across him in the back of the store. I was surprised to see him talking with Audrey. He was speaking in harsh clipped tones to her and she looked incredibly sad.

“Hey Jace, are you ready to go?” I said across the aisle from him, afraid to go over there and get in between them.

She looked at me with a shocked expression, “What is she doing here?” she demanded, raising her voice to him.

“She’s Jax’s girlfriend, that’s what she’s doing here, Audrey,” he replied sharply, walking away. Audrey looked upset by this fact. I really didn’t like the girl, but I felt bad about the miserable expression on her face.

He came over, threw an arm around my shoulders and we walked away from her. “You okay?” I asked, looking up at him.

“Totally fine, Ems. She just cornered me.” He shrugged and we walked back to the front of the store to find my boyfriend and his mom.

On our last night there, Jaxon was cooking us all dinner. I was thrilled to see how this would turn out, because he had never cooked back home before. He had the surround sound throughout the house playing country music. Jace, his mom, and I were all sitting on the couch with drinks and talking. When a new song started playing, Julie clapped her hands together.

“Oh, I love Brantley Gilbert!” she exclaimed.

Jaxon came over to me with an apron on and reached out his hand for mine. “Dance with me?” he asked.

I smiled, placing my hand in his and he pulled me into an embrace. I put one hand on his shoulder and one in his outstretched palm. I looked over to see Jace pulling his mom up to dance with him as well. Jaxon spun me around the living room. Man, these boys could dance; their mom had taught them well. There wasn’t an inch of this living room that Jace and Jax didn’t cover with the two of us. Jace kept switching his mom and I back and forth between his brother and him. Jaxon only allowed me to dance with Jace for so long before he would come steal me back. Jace and his mom were laughing hysterically at how he kept spinning her around in a circle repeatedly as fast as he could.