Before You(86)

“You two can have each other.” Cam grabbed his keys off the entry table.

Jax held out his hand as Cam walked by him. “Give me the key to my house.”

Cam twisted the key off his keychain and dropped it into Jax’s open hand. “I can’t believe you’re going to throw away the band for a woman. You two won’t make it a month.”

“Who says I’m throwing the band away? I invited you into the band, and I can disinvite you.”

“Fuck you. I have connections, too. I can find another band.” Cam stormed out of the front door.

Slamming the door behind him, Jax cautiously looked over at Bre, who was sitting on the floor with her knees curled up to her chest. She had stopped crying, but her eyes were glazed over, as though she were lost in her thoughts. He walked toward her.

“Bre,” Jax said, crouching in front of her. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t want everything to go down like that. That sucked.”

“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I shouldn’t have come here last night.” Bre shook her head as though she wanted to erase the last twenty minutes from her memory.

“Don’t say that. Last night was perfect.” He didn’t want Bre to dwell on what happened with Cam. He wanted the rest of the weekend to be about them. Besides, if Cam cared for Bre as much as he said he did, Jax suspected that Cam would forgive Bre at some point. They had too much history for either of them to hate the other for any length of time. As for the band, he didn’t think Cam would walk away when they were so close to getting signed, and if Jax were honest, he didn’t want Cam to leave the band. He wanted to smooth things over, but if that wasn’t possible, he could find someone else. The band had done it before and they could do it again.

“And what about this morning?” Bre leaned her hand against her forehead.

“This morning was perfect, too,” Jax said, flashing his bright white signature grin, trying to cheer her up. “I thought you enjoyed the guitar lesson.”

“Jax, stop it!” she replied with a small, wry smile. “That’s not what I was talking about and you know it. You’re trying to change the subject.”

“Is it working?” Jax ran his hand over the top of her head.

“Absolutely not. What are we going to do about Cam?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m still digesting the whole thing.” Jax held out his hand to her to help her up from the floor.

“I don’t want what we did to mean the end of Chasing Ruin. You guys are so close to being signed. It makes me sick to think that what I did could destroy everything.”

“Look, I’m not worried about it, so you shouldn’t be, either. I’ll call Cam later. I’m sure we’ll be able to work things out. No more discussions about Cam or the band for the next few hours.”

“We need to talk about this. We can’t let all this craziness fester.”

“No, we don’t need to talk about it right this minute.” Jax traced the line of her jaw with his fingers. “Do you want to go out for lunch?”

She groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t think I’m up to it.”

“Well, I don’t have anything to eat in my house, and I think a change of scenery will be good for both of us.”

Bre’s stomach rumbled.

“See? Your stomach agrees,” Jax smiled mischievously.

“If I agree to go to lunch, will you agree that we can talk about this mess there?”

“That’s my plan. Let’s get dressed.”





Chapter Twenty-Eight





An hour later, Bre found herself sitting in a rounded corner booth in a dark restaurant bar in West Hollywood. Bar food wasn’t her preference, but Jax claimed they needed comfort food after the morning they had. Apparently, this place served the best burgers in town. Bre was skeptical and made a small grunt of protest as they walked into the bar, but it was more for show than anything. The idea of a greasy burger made her stomach grumble, and she had to admit the corner booth provided a lot of privacy, which was a plus for the conversation they were about to have.

Jax scooted in next to her and ran his hand up the inside of her thigh, resting it just inside the hem of her black and white full skirt. Her mind immediately flashed to her not so innocent guitar lessons earlier that morning.

And now she was cursing Jax for making her go to lunch. She would have preferred to stay in his bedroom for the rest of the day ignoring reality.

Jax made small talk with the waitress, who had obviously waited on him several times before. As he discussed his version of the perfect burger with the waitress, Bre stared at his lips and the way his faded black t-shirt stretched so perfectly across his chest. All she could think about was running her hand through his shaggy brown hair and pulling him toward her so she could explore those lips a little more. Now that she decided to let go of her guilt and uncertainty in order to make things work with Jax, she admitted that she might be slightly obsessed with him, not in a nutty stalker way, but in a she wanted to be around him all the time way.