Chapter 14
Bentley
I shouldn’t have left Jax like that. The thought swirls round in my head for what’s probably the billionth time, despite the month that has passed since then.
Bam! A punch to the stomach brings me back to the here and now.
“Yeah, that got your attention,” Harley, my sparring partner, says.
“Sorry,” I say, and jump around for a bit in a bid to loosen my muscles and focus on the eighty-kilo MMA fighter trapped in the cage with me.
“You want to talk about it?” he asks as we circle each other.
“Not particularly.”
“Bent….”
“It’s nothing,” I say.
“The fact that I was able to get a shot on you says differently.” Despite our obvious physical differences, Harley and I are usually well matched. I sigh and stop moving. Harley stops too.
“I fucked up,” I tell him.
He starts to unwrap the bindings on his hands. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
We go to a nearby café and order smoothies.
“So tell me,” Harley says once we have a seat, “what did you fuck up?”
I sigh. “You know Jax Ryan?” I ask.
“BMX rider, right? He’s the reason you were able to knock me out the first time we sparred together. He has that cute lost puppy, good boy/dirty boy thing going on.”
I nod. “I slept with him.”
“Nice,” Harley says, “high five, sister.”
I shake my head. “Nah, I fucked up. I slept with him and then I freaked. I ran out on him and I’ve been avoiding him for the past month.”
“Why?” He crosses his legs and rests his chin on his knuckles. “Come on, gorgeous, tell Uncle Harley all about it,” he says, when I’m not forthcoming.
“Uncle Harley?” I ask, arching an eyebrow. Despite me knocking him on his arse on a regular basis, we’re great friends.
He shrugs. “Couldn’t really think of an acceptable fairy godmother name on the fly, so that’s what I came up with.”
“What, the gay best friend role wasn’t good enough for you?” I joke.
He throws me the finger and we laugh. “Gorgeous, do I look like the type to settle for the norm?”
I take in the man sitting in front of me. He’s fierce and unrelenting. There’s no way he’d settle for anything less than the best, both inside the octagon and out of it. “Point taken.”
“Have we stalled enough now?” he asks.
I sigh. “I guess.” I play with the straw in my smoothie for a bit anyway.
“Bent…,” he prods.
“Gah! I’m scared, okay?”
“Of what? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem like the type of girl who’s easily spooked, or lets anything deter her from what she really wants.”
I blow out a breath. “Now I am. A few years ago it was a whole different story.”
“Bad break-up?” Harley asks.
“To put it mildly. He’s the reason I started fighting, the reason I’m so… guarded. It’s why I fucked up whatever it was I had or could have had with Jax.”
He looks at me and it’s like he’s seeing into my soul. To tell you the truth, it reminds me a lot of how Jax would look at me sometimes. “Hmm,” he says, his brows pinched, mouth tight. “Okay, I’m going to say some things and I want you to listen to me, okay?” I nod. “No, I mean really listen to me.”
“I will, I promise.”
“I’m not going to pretend to know everything you went through with your ex, but I have my own experience with wanting to protect myself, so I think we’re coming from a similar place.” He takes a breath and blows it out. “I know a thing or two about building walls. I know how sometimes you feel it’s necessary to shield yourself, keep yourself whole. It’s also incredibly isolating.”
“Okay,” I say, not sure where he’s going with this.
“I know I haven’t known you long, but I feel like I know you well enough to tell you that you have closed yourself off to the world. Yes, you let me in, but I suspect that has more to do with my sexual orientation than an actual breaking down of those walls around you.”
I think for a moment. “You’re probably right,” I say.
He gives me a small smile. “I think I am too.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Go to Jax, and explain what’s going on with you, what’s going on in your head, in your heart.”
“What happens if he doesn’t want to talk to me?”
“Don’t give him a choice. Make him listen.”
“I’m scared,” I tell him again.
“I know you are. Okay, let’s put it this way, what do you feel for Jax?”
I stop and think. “I like him,” I say eventually.
“Just like him?” Harley asks.
“Okay, I more than like him.”
He smiles. “There we go. What do you more than like about our young BMX star?”
“I like that I feel like I can be myself around him. But that terrifies me as well.”
“Okay, what else do you like?”
“I like that he makes me smile, that he makes me feel special, like I’m the only person in the world. I like the goofy things he says and the way he looks after his cat. I like that he didn’t give up after his accident, that he worked hard to recover. I really like that he’s so carefree and easy-going. He never lets anything get him down.”
“Those sound like some good attributes for someone to have,” Harley says.
I nod. “They are.”
“And what about what you can do for him?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“What can you bring to the relationship table? This isn’t all about you, you know.”
I huff out a breath. “I don’t think I can bring anything.”
“Really? Nothing?” Harley asks. I shake my head. “Is there anything you want to do for him?”
“I want him to know how fantastic he is,” I say.
“Anything else?”
“I want him to know there’s someone out there who cares for him, who will be there for him, support him.”
“And do you think you can do that?” Harley asks.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to?”
“Yeah, I do,” I say, and I mean it. I want to be the one who’s there for Jax, who shows him that not every woman he brings into his life will leave, despite the fact that I kind of already did that.
“So what are you waiting for?” I open my mouth to reply, but Harley cuts me off before I can say anything. “Look, I know you’re scared,” he says, “but if you let this opportunity, if you let Jax go, then your ex wins. I don’t know what happened to you, but I know that in forcing you to build these walls, he’s taken a lot from you. Don’t let him take any more.”
I think over Harley’s words. The problem is, like anything, is it’s all easier said than done. I have come to the conclusion, however, that when I next see Jax, I won’t be afraid. I’m done letting Ethan take anything else from me.
The day after Harley’s and my talk I’m stretching and generally limbering up for a yoga class when at the last minute, the door bursts open and Jax rushes in. In his haste, he doesn’t see me, but dread and excitement fill me when I realise the only open spot is to my right. He dumps his stuff and only then does he look up. Deep brown eyes find mine, and it’s like we’re the only people in the room. In the month we’ve been apart—okay, in the month I’ve been avoiding him—I’d forgotten what it’s like to be in his focus. When Jax looks at me, like he is now, it’s almost like he’s trying to crawl inside me. It’s intense and it scares the ever-loving shit out of me. But then I remember Harley’s advice. I refuse to let Ethan win and once again take away my happiness. Jax is my happiness. I want it and I want him. He makes life better, brighter. He makes me those things too. And don’t get me started on what it was like to make love to him. I never use that phrase. “Make love” sounds so wishy-washy, but with Jax that was what it was. I could feel my soul connecting with his while he was inside me. After Ethan, I promised myself I would never let anyone get that close again. In giving in to Jax, I didn’t just let him in, I gave myself to him. The emotions I felt when he kissed the top of my head the next morning and called Buttons “our” girl…. I knew that if I let him, Jax could destroy me. And the thing is, I want to risk this. I want to risk my heart on Jax. But I let the memories of my time with Ethan rush over me. I let the memory of him scare me into giving up a relationship that could have been pure and good. Yes, I’m scared about handing that piece of me I’ve kept locked up over to someone else, but I know Jax is worthy of it, that he’ll take care of me, that he’ll treat me with respect. I know Jax isn’t like Ethan, but still, that knowledge doesn’t make this any less daunting.
“Well hello there, darlin’,” he says to me.
“H-h-hi,” I stutter, and curse myself for not being able to disguise my reaction to him. His smirk changes to a smile, a drop-dead gorgeous one too.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he says. “You know, if I were a less confident guy, I’d think you were trying to avoid me. Skipping out on me after our night together, our training sessions, but yet, here you are. Never picked you as the type to do yoga, so it leads me to think you weren’t really avoiding me, but playing with me. Well done, darlin’, you showed me,” he whispers.
I open my mouth to respond, but it’s at that moment Debbie, the instructor, chooses to start the class.
For an hour we bend and stretch our bodies. No matter how hard I try, I can’t ignore the closeness of Jax. The fact that an unbalanced pose could send me toppling into his arms never leaves my mind either. Neither does the thought that that’s where I desperately want to be. Every time he moves, his spicy scent wafts over to me, taking root in my brain and driving me even crazier than I already am. By the time the hour’s up, I’m bursting out of my skin to get away. It’s all too much. There’s no way he’d ever want to be with me. Our short interaction before class started told me of his hurt and anger. How can I ever come back from that? There’s no way I can fix it. I collect my things and rush to the door, but Jax is faster. He grabs my arm as I go to leave, dragging me down the corridor that leads to Bert’s office. He lets me go but cages me against the wall, his body pressed against mine. It’s this contact that keeps me grounded; reminding me that this is Jax and not Ethan. And while my mind may need that reminder, my body does not. My breathing is laboured and my nipples are hard and pressing against the material of my sports bra.
“So, how have you been?” he asks.
“W-what?” I ask. That was so not what I thought he was going to open with.
“How have you been? Have you been good? Bad? Indifferent? How’s work? I see you’ve kept up with your training, that’s good.”
“Um, yeah, I’ve been okay,” I answer.
“That’s good.”
“So, ah, how have you been?” I ask eventually. I hate that I’m nervous around him, but the level of hurt and anger in his eyes right now is intense. It kills me that I’m the one who put those emotions there, and I’m kicking myself for thinking I could fix everything so easily.
“I’m glad you asked that,” he says. “You see, a month ago I spent the night with an amazing woman. I mean, she was incredible, blew my mind, actually. We’d been dancing around whatever had been brewing between us for a while and finally, finally it spilled over. I know, it’s great, right?” he asks. “But no. I get up the next morning, stupidly thinking we’d taken the next step in our relationship, only to find… well actually, I didn’t find out otherwise, did I? You just fucking left me without a word. I thought that maybe you needed some time to process what happened, but more and more time passed and I realised that maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’d built everything up in my head. Maybe I hadn’t found someone who knew me, who understood what I was going through, who I could spill my guts to. No, turns out I was wrong and you’re just another woman in a long line of women who have gotten what they want from me and left me wanting.”
By the time he’s finished, I have tears running down my face and I feel like my heart’s been ripped out and trampled on. What’s worse is the knowledge that I caused all of this. Jax takes a step back, then another before turning and walking away from me. He’s almost to the main room of the gym when he stops and faces me again.
“Oh, in case you cared or even wanted to know, I saw my doc the other day. He said I’m totally symptom-free, so thanks, I guess.”
I choke back a sob as he walks into the gym and out of my sight. My legs are unable to support me anymore, and I collapse to the floor. I’d been so busy trying to avoid giving myself to Jax, I never realised what he had given me. In trying to keep from destroying myself, I’d turned into the very thing I hate.
***
It took me a while to get up off the floor in the corridor, both physically and metaphorically. Realising the depth of Jax’s hurt and accepting I was the cause of it was a massive shock to my system. I knew I had to fix it, but more than that, I was determined to.
Getting a patient’s address from their file was a big no-no, but I didn’t care. I didn’t know when or even if I was ever going to see Jax again, so this was the only way. He hadn’t been back to the gym in a week—I checked with Bert—so that’s how I find myself at Mav Ryan’s house. The house is lovely. Big, but not ostentatious, with an incredible amount of land. With my heart in my mouth, I knock on the door. A girl, I’m guessing around nineteen, with wavy red hair and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen answers.
“Oh, hey,” I say, surprised. “I was, um, wondering if Jax was here?”
She looks me up and down, and suddenly I feel like I should’ve made more of an effort. I’m in a tank top and ripped jeans with my Doc Marten boots, but under her gaze I feel stripped bare. I rub my hands over my bare arms, bringing her attention to the tattoos decorating my skin. “He’s not here,” she says in a husky voice.
“Oh, um, okay,” I say, and shift from foot to foot.
“You can come in and wait for him if you’d like,” she says, stepping aside to let me in and surprising the shit out of me.
“Oh, yeah, okay, thanks,” I say.
“I’m Aubrey.”
“Bentley.”
“Do you want something to drink?” she asks as she walks towards the kitchen.
“I’m good thanks,” I tell her, and take a seat at the bar.
“So what do you want with Jax?” she asks.
“I, um, wanted to apologise I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Ah, yeah. I was kind of a bitch to him and I wanted to try and make things right.”
She nods. “How much do you know about Jax?”
“Enough,” I say, through gritted teeth. If she wants to go head to head with me, then bring it on.
“Then you know how much of a gentle soul he is.”
I nod. “Yeah, I know.”
“Good,” she says. “He’ll deny it until he’s blue in the face, but beneath all that bravado is a guy who is desperately looking for someone to love and who will love him back.” I gulp audibly. “Are you the woman who can do that?”
I sit there for a minute, gaping at her.
I’m just about to form a response when the door opens and Mav walks in. “Sweetheart, I’m home,” he calls.
Aubrey’s face lights up as she bounds out of the kitchen towards him, jumping on him when he’s in reach. He grabs her face and kisses her deeply, and I feel my chest tighten. Here I am, a good four or five years older than her, but emotionally I’m an adolescent teenage boy who’s just had his first stiffy. Even though I’m determined to fix things with Jax, being here, showing up like this, is a stupid idea. There’s no way he’s going to want to talk to me, and if he does, there’s no way he’ll forgive me. Why did I think this was a good idea? I stumble off my stool, knocking it to the ground. The noise gets Mav and Aubrey’s attention, and they break apart, Mav sliding her to the floor. I clumsily right the seat and turn once again to face their stares.
“Bentley?” Mav asks.
“Yeah, hi,” I say, “sorry about that, I just realised… I should go.” I start edging to the door.
“Wait,” Mav says and darts in front of me, blocking my path. “What are you doing here?”
I look to Aubrey and see her previous frostiness towards me has thawed, a soft, almost pitying look replaces it. “I, um, came to see Jax, but he’s not here so I’m just going to go,” I say, and try to step around him, but he moves with me, blocking me once more.
“Why do you want to see Jax?” he asks, almost as if he knows exactly why I’m here and is trying to coax my feelings out of me.
I sigh, resigned to the fact I’m not going to be able to escape this house without spilling my feelings. “I wanted to apologise to him. Some things happened between us and I reacted badly.”
A smile breaks over his face. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Y-you are?” I stutter. He nods. “I thought you hated me?”
“Let’s have a seat,” he says as he walks into the living room, where there are a couple of couches and recliners arranged around one of those ultracool coffee tables made from a wooden pallet, and a large, flat-screen TV. Mav takes one of the recliners and pulls Aubrey onto his lap, while I take the couch.
Mav and Aubrey are obviously in love, and I wonder if that could be Jax and me. I have hope that it might be. For a while Mav and Aubrey canoodle on the couch, and I get more and more uncomfortable. Finally, it’s too much, and I blurt out, “I care very deeply for your brother.”
Mav turns to look at me and smiles. “Oh, we know.”
“You do?” I ask. He nods. “Both of you?”
Aubrey shrugs. “Like I said, Jax is a gentle soul. I wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get hurt. Or more hurt, as the case may be.”
“Oh.”
“So how are you going to make things right?” Mav asks.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I just know that I care very deeply for Jax and I want him to know that.”
As if the devil himself has summoned him, Jax walks in. He stops dead when he sees me. With my heart in my mouth, I get up.
“Hi,” I say, in a small voice. Without a word, he turns and storms down the corridor. His door slamming echoes through the house.
I take it he’s not glad to see me.