CHAPTER SIX

 

 

Kaya was pissed. It took a lot to get her good and pissed, but once she had the fuel, she could burn those jets as intensely as she wanted.

What a putz.

What a prick.

What a jerkface.

What nerve to be so rude and so sweet at the same time. How dare he discombobulate her like this! She had no freaking clue what to do with the mums because no one had ever given her flowers before. She actually had had to google it, because she didn’t want them to just wilt and die in her sink, which would have been too sad and also his fault, so she’d learned how to trim the ends and stuck them in a jar and tried her hardest not to admire them.

She didn’t want his obsession with her. She’d known too many men over the course of her life who were ruled by their attraction to her. Nothing could have been a bigger turn-off for Kaya.

She ruthlessly ignored the small voice in the back of her head that told her Jackson was different. That whispered to her that his feelings came from a much more real place. That his feelings had foundation and roots and the potential to go the distance.

“He doesn’t even know me,” she told herself in the shower the next afternoon. “He’s had plenty of opportunities to get to know me, but he’s blown them all by being such a jerkface.”

She dried her hair and actually straightened it for once. She never wore makeup, but it was Christmas Eve, so she put on a little eyeliner and mascara, chose her favorite dangly earrings. She wore jeans for once and a non-ugly sweater. And then felt ridiculously self-conscious as she looked at herself in the mirror, her hair a straight, light-brown curtain over her shoulders, her eyes sparkling from the makeup.

“This is not for him,” she told herself. “This is because I’m spending a holiday with my family and it’s not my fault that he’s going to be there.”

She resented the fact that his ridiculousness was likely going to spoil her Christmas this year, one of her favorite times of the year with the Durants.

It was the one time of the year when everybody slept over and woke up together and the celebration seemed to last a week, even though it was only 24 hours.

She packed her overnight bag and stomped down to her car, bundled up against the cold. She still had to stop and pick up her present for her Secret Santa person, which meant she had to hurry because the shops were about to close. She peeled into the bookstore parking lot, grabbed the books she’d put on hold for her gift for Elizabeth, and then something caught her eye on her jog to the register.

She grabbed it off the shelf. She hadn’t intended to get anything for Jerkface Jackson for Christmas, but here they were. She scribbled an inscription in all the books as she waited to check out and then had the cashier wrap them for her.

Shaking her head no when the cashier asked for her number, Kaya wished him a Merry Christmas and was driving up Elizabeth’s driveway twenty minutes later. She could tell from the cars that everyone was already there.

She braced herself and went into this house that she’d come to love more, even, than her own.

Kaya was passed around from hug to hug, everyone brimming with Christmas spirit and happiness to see her.

“Jackson told us all about your snowy adventure,” Elizabeth said, hugging her tight. “I’m so glad you’re safe, my love.”

Kaya had already told (most of) the whole story to Natalie on the phone that morning, so luckily her sister didn’t make her recount the entire debacle in front of everybody else. At this point, Kaya just wanted to put it all behind her.

She hugged everyone but Jackson, who hung back in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.

He eyed her carefully, his face blank, and didn’t even nod his head in acknowledgement of her arrival.

Jerkface.

She tried to ignore that he was wearing a green sweater that made his black hair and dark eyes look lovely. She tried even harder to ignore that it was clear that he’d dressed up for Christmas, probably to make his mother happy.

None of that mattered.

He was closed off and the only feeling he would admit to having was sexual attraction. Not her cup of tea.

The evening passed with all sorts of frivolity and joy. Dinner was filled with wine and casseroles and laughter. Jackson was quiet, but not his usual black hole of frowns, though Kaya did her best to ignore him.

They spent the rest of the night passing the time in front of the fireplace as one big, messy family. At around 9 p.m., Kaya got a generic Merry Christmas text from her mother and lifted her eyes to Natalie, who was also looking at her phone.

Natalie made a thumbs-down signal and blew a raspberry, rolling her eyes and tossing her phone aside.

God, why did their folks have to be so disappointing? What a bummer to have parents who just truly didn’t care. Which was why this family was so deeply important to her. She wasn’t going to let anything screw it up for her.

Around 10:30, people started slipping off toward their beds for the night. Raph and Natalie would take the attic since it was apparently a place of importance to them. Seth and Sarah would be in Seth’s childhood room he used to share with Raph. Elizabeth would be in her room, Jackson would be in his childhood room, and Bauer lived in their guest bedroom.

Which meant that Kaya got the couch this year. This was fine with her, although she was typically very early to bed and she was already nodding off even though Jackson, Bauer, Sarah, and Elizabeth were still chatting around the fire. Kaya slid further down the couch, pulling the afghan up to her chin. She’d already changed into her pajamas a while ago and brushed her teeth and she didn’t mind falling asleep to the sound of voices. She let her eyes fall closed.

She woke up a while later to a hand on her shoulder.

“Kaya.”

“Hmm?”

“Kaya, why don’t you take my bed?”

“What?” She blinked her eyes open to see Jackson leaning over her. What a strange world they’d stumbled into. Seventy-two hours ago, if he’d suddenly been this close to her she would have scrambled away from him. But after last night, she just pressed her face into the pillow and groaned.

“Come on, honey. It’s late. You can sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She groaned again. “I was sleeping just fine until you woke me up.”

He paused. “I don’t like seeing you sleeping on the couch. It’s too lonely. Just go sleep in my bed. I’ll be fine out here.”

“Jackson,” she groaned, rubbing at her eyes. “Why are you making this so difficult?”

She blinked up at him and she watched as sadness suddenly blinked into his eyes. “I’m not trying to make it difficult. I’m trying to make it easier on you. But I guess I screwed it up again.”

He rose up and stepped away from her. She immediately missed the warmth and weight of his hand on her shoulder. “I'll leave you alone, then.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly what she wanted either. Yes, she’d kicked him out of her house last night. And yes, she’d really meant everything she’d said. But she’d been mad. And now she wasn’t so much mad as she was sleepy. She didn’t want her rejection of his kindness right now to be symbolic of him needing to leave her alone forever, until the end of time. It didn’t need to be that dramatic.

“Jackson,” she said, stopping him before he left the room. “Your Christmas present is under the tree.”

He turned halfway and looked at her. “You were my Secret Santa person?”

She shook her head.

His eyebrows rose. “You got me a present anyways?”

She pulled the blanket all the way up to her chin. “Just open it. It’s the blue one there on the top.”

Jackson grabbed the present and came back to sit on the edge of the couch, crowding her in just a little bit. She couldn’t help but notice that he slicked his hands over the rectangular package that was so clearly a book. He slid his palms over it like it was precious. Like the fact that it was from her really mattered to him.

He carefully opened the present, careful not to rip the paper, and slid the book out. He flipped it over. His eyes flicked to hers when he read the title.

“I haven’t read it,” she told him. “But I’ve listened to her TED talks. She talks a lot about self-esteem. Self-worth. Self-love. I think you could really learn something from it.”

She was surprised when he nodded solemnly. Not everyone was able to gracefully accept an unsolicited self-help book as a Christmas present. But he was already flipping it open, reading the table of contents. He thumbed through the pages and stopped cold when he got to the inside cover where Kaya had scrawled her hasty message to him.

Jackson, Good luck on your journey. Hope this helps. –Kaya

She watched him mouth the words and then flip the book closed. He cleared his throat, but his brow was furrowed down, as if he were deep in thought about something. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The moment stretched on until Jackson stood up, tucking the book under his arm. “Merry Christmas, Kaya.”

“Merry Christmas, Jackson.”

And then he was gone.

Kaya’s eyes flicked to the fire and to her chagrin, she no longer felt very sleepy. Her interaction with him had revved her up, but now everyone was sleeping. She just needed to relax. Maybe she should meditate.

Her eyes flicked to the doorway again and she saw that Jackson was back, one elbow above his head on the doorjamb, his palm rubbing over the back of his head. He held the book in his hand still.

“How much are you hoping this book will help?” he asked, his voice strangely husky.

“Hmm?” She pulled herself up to a sit, the afghan falling away. His eyes watched as the top half of her heavily pajama-ed body was revealed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, does the message you wrote… are you waiting on me to improve myself?”

She furrowed her brow. Now she was the one who was lost. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

He came back into the room and sat down again in the same spot on the couch, crowding her in. “I’m asking that if this book were to change things for me, if it were to help me with my issues… would you let me kiss you again?”

Well, that got her attention. “Jackson! No! I did not buy that book hoping you’d change who you are so that I could feel better about this thing between us.”

“So, you admit there’s a thing between us.”

She glared at him and he turned away, but not fast enough for her to have missed his smile.

“Have you thought about it?” he asked, that note in his voice going even huskier.

She didn’t have to ask what he was talking about. The second he spoke the sentence, the kiss they’d shared sprang to her mind. She knew he was asking her if she’d thought about the kiss probably because he’d been thinking about it.

Lie, Kaya! she urged herself. But for some reason, she told the truth. “I haven’t let myself think about it.”

He seemed quite pleased with that answer and Kaya wondered if she’d just dug herself a bit of a hole.

“Kaya—” he started.

“Jackson,” she immediately cut in. “You’re the one who is so convinced we’d never work in the first place. You’re the one who couldn’t wait to tell me all the ways that we’d never fit. So, don’t blame me for agreeing with you.”

He frowned and spoke slowly. “I don’t think that you and I, as I am right now, would fit together. You’re perfect, but I have a lot to improve on. But, for the first time ever, I’m kind of starting to feel like maybe it would be possible for me to improve.”

He’d said it so casually, as if it were an indisputable truth, and Kaya gave no indication that it had shocked her down to her toes. You’re perfect.

He thought she was perfect.

And he thought he personally needed vast improvements.

She knew that the truth was somewhere in the middle for both of them.

He glanced up at her, an unexpected boyishness in his expression. “Maybe it was the best kiss of my life that suddenly gave me hope.” He cleared his throat. “And when I read your inscription… well, I just wondered if you had any hope. About me. Us.”

Her stomach was flipping over itself, and her fingers twisted up in the blanket. It was that boyish look of his that was making a colony of hummingbirds wake up inside of her. She’d never seen him look so young. So hopeful.

She never, ever wanted to do anything to squash that rising hope, and she did want Jackson to make changes to his life so that he’d be happier. But… “I’d never ask you to change, Jackson, and certainly not for me. I just thought the book might make your life a little less heavy.”

He looked down at the book and drummed his fingers against it. “I know you’re not asking. Maybe I’m offering.”

Her mouth went dry. “Offering what?”

“To work on myself. And maybe get to kiss you again.”

“I couldn’t promise you a relationship or anything even close to it. Relationships aren’t built on bargains.”

“I know. Of course. I guess I’m just saying that I’ve always felt I had a long way to go. And it always felt like so much work. But being with you the last day or so, it’s given me a lot of energy. Motivation. So, maybe if that motivation kept coming then I could keep going.”

She furrowed her brow. “You want a kiss every time you learn to love yourself a little more?”

He laughed. “It sounds dumb when you put it that way.”

Those hummingbirds hadn’t rested. Not even a little bit. She was going to agree to it. She had the feeling that she’d just tied a helium balloon around her waist and she was about to let go of the only thing anchoring her to earth. She knew she couldn’t have a real relationship with a man who treated himself the way Jackson did. But if he was serious about carving out a new path for himself, who was to say that she couldn’t kiss him along the way?

Because if there was one thing it wasn’t worth the energy it took to deny, it was their connection.

She hadn’t lied when she’d told him that she hadn’t let herself think about the kiss. It was because that kiss had opened a door inside her to a dark and scary room and if she acknowledged the door existed, then someday she’d have to turn on the light, have to see everything that lived in that room.

But could she resist kissing him again? That was a whole other can of worms.

“I think I’m okay with that idea,” she whispered, drawing her knees up to her chin.

The boyishness was back in his expression and then, oh holy mother dawn, the sun absolutely rose in his face. Kaya was breathless watching a full smile open him wide. She’d never seen him grin like that in her life and she immediately wanted a million more smiles just like it. She was instantly greedy for more.

“Okay,” he said with a nod. “Okay, good.”

Wait, what had they just agreed to? That he was allowed to kiss her now as long as she felt he was improving himself? What a convoluted agreement. What a circuitous—

“Hey!” she whisper-yelled when he gently yanked her up and off the couch.

“Hold your horses. I’m just taking you to bed.”

She planted her feet and halted him from taking even one more step. He turned around and grinned again. She was lucky she didn’t melt through the ankle holes of her pajamas like hot butter.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that I’m not going to let someone I’m allowed to kiss sleep out here on the couch. Please. Just sleep in my bed already.”

“Fine. But just as long as you admit you’re being a freak about this.”

“Gladly.”

She marched past him to his old childhood bedroom. She’d only been in this room once with him in it and the memory was seared into her brain. It had been over a year ago and he’d made her wear his socks because her feet were cold.

Mates.

The word came out of nowhere. She frowned. She’d meant it when she said she didn’t believe in that. He’d been protective of her because he was a freaky little control freak, not because they were meant to be mates.

She went straight to the bed and slid under the covers, yanking them up to her chin out of habit. He smiled at the sight of her in his bed. He strode up to the edge of the bed and traced her eyebrows, seemingly just because he could.

Then he bent down close to her and her breath caught. “Goodnight, Kaya.”

He pressed his lips to hers for the length of half a heartbeat, and then he was pulling away. He wasn’t asking for more than she could give, he wasn’t pushing her or the situation. He was just kissing her quickly, with a hopeful smile on his face, and moving out of her space.

It was her arms that went around his neck and held him fast against her. Her barely audible moan that made him freeze in place. It was her head that lifted off the pillow to press her plush lips against his mouth once, twice, three times, each press longer than the last.

It was definitely her mouth that came open against his. Her tongue that traced the seam of his lips.

She teased his lips apart just enough for him to start moving again. She felt the life come back into his body as his tongue swept into her mouth and his hands found their way to her still-straightened hair. His fingers went straight to her scalp as if they were programmed to seek her warmth.

She felt the bed push down when he put his knee up on the mattress, his elbows framing her shoulders as he leaned over her.

She was in a protective cave made of his body but she wanted more. She tugged at his shoulders.

“More. More weight.” She tugged again and he groaned.

She heard the sound of his shoes kicking off. And then he was more than leaning over her, he was halfway laid out over her. Most of his weight was off to the side, but what he was doing definitely qualified as lying on top of her. All the other times in Kaya’s life that a man had lain on top of her had been tinged with a mild panic and slight disdain. Now, though? No. This was delicious.

He kissed at her mouth as if he were eating the most succulent peach on a hot summer’s day. Kaya felt swept away by this sort of deliberate enjoyment of her. He wasn’t lost and pawing at her, taking from her body, but he was certainly enjoying himself and that just sort of thrilled her.

She’d been so shocked and electrified by their first kiss that none of the details had had time to sink in. But now, lazily kissing on a soft bed, she absorbed the soft bristle of his stubble, the scent of his… something. What was that?
Kaya pulled her mouth away from his and pushed her nose into his neck. “You smell like something familiar.”

He chuckled, low and slightly pained as she trailed her nose down his neck to his collarbone. “I think my laundry detergent is called Spring Fresh or something like that.”

“No. It’s not a synthetic scent. I think it’s just the way you smell. Naturally. Like leather. And fresh water. And…” she took one more gigantic sniff of him. “And dirt.”

He laughed again, a loose, light sound that she’d rarely heard him make. It was a simple sound of complete enjoyment. There was nothing complicated or strained about that laugh.

“I smell like dirt.”

“The good kind! Like, the clean kind. In the forest. You smell sort of muddy. Fresh.”

“I smell like fresh mud.”

“Yes. It’s delicious.”

He laughed again and dropped his head so that their temples pressed together. “I am embarrassingly happy right now. Foolishly.”

“It’s not foolish to be happy.”

“It’s always felt foolish to me.”

“Well, add that to your list of things to work on. Because everyone deserves happiness.”

He lifted his head to look down at her, his eyes dark, and the moment began to change. It was complicated. Filled with happiness, but also fear, trepidation, confusion. The two of them felt the rushing of the situation around them but they weren’t sure if it was because they were about to jump off a cliff together or if they already had.

He leaned down and pressed another kiss to her lips and she knew it was simply because he could. He was like a man who’d just had two casts taken off his legs taking his first wobbly steps into freedom.

“I should go out to the couch. Let you sleep.”

He was just pulling away from her when her arms, for the second time in ten minutes, arced out and held him fast against her. “But if you go out to that couch alone, you’re just going to find some way to make yourself feel stupid about feeling happy, aren’t you?”

He smiled, but there was sadness in it. “Probably so.”

Her heart was clanging in her chest and to her surprise, there was actually a beat of a tremor in her voice, unusual for her. “Well, then, I don’t think you should go out to the couch tonight. I think you should stay here, in the land of the happy people.”

He froze except for his eyes, which bounced back and forth between hers. “You’re asking me to sleep next to you,” he clarified.

“Yes.” She nodded her head and tried to look authoritative, as if she weren’t making all this up as she went along. “I don’t think the whole kissing arrangement we have going will help you all that much if we don’t do anything to seal the envelope afterwards. Because you’ll just go back into the world and into your hole of self-doubt.”

“You’re saying you want to start sleeping in the same bed?”

“I’m saying that tonight we should sleep in the same bed. On other days, we’ll figure out other ways to keep the world out of our business.”

The look on his face dang near knocked her socks off yet again. It was just as boyish as the look he’d given her in the living room. But there was more wonder in it than hope. He was looking like he’d thought the world worked a certain way and just like that, she’d shown him that it worked a different way.

He cleared his throat and stood up; she wondered if he was going to tell her no.

“Scoot in then, so I don’t have to climb over you when I have to sneak out to the couch in the morning.”

She fake-frowned, even though there were happiness fireworks going off in her chest. “You’re just angling for the warm spot.”

She shivered as she settled into the cold side of the bed and he laughed. She tried not to watch as he shucked off his shirt and carefully folded it. Or when he did the same with his jeans and socks.

Seth was the naturally fastidious brother, the kind of guy who couldn’t sleep if there were dishes in the sink. Raphael was the opposite. His clean laundry lived unfolded in a basket next to his dirty laundry. Jackson was very neat, but in a painfully taught sort of way, as if he’d learned how to take care of his belongings from a rulebook and refused to deviate from it.

But then, Kaya wasn’t thinking about that anymore because he was wearing a pair of tight boxer briefs and sliding under the covers. With her.

“Aren’t you freezing cold?” she asked him.

"Not all of us are genetically related to ice cubes. Are you cold?”

“Always.”

He reached over and for a moment, she thought he was going to tug her in and snuggle her. Her heart skipped. But instead, he just pulled the covers even higher, making sure she was completely tucked in.

They didn’t kiss again that night, nor did they touch. They just passed the night, both sleeping soundly, getting used to the weight of everything that had just happened.