“I’m not,” he said.

My hands flew to my chest. “Oh, no. We aren’t—he and I—” I stuttered, unsure why I felt so nervous. Is that what she thinks? That Jax and I are seeing one another? “We aren’t seeing each other. We are just friends.”

She eyed me up and down as she crossed her arms. “Yeah right, new girl. Everybody knows Jax doesn’t have friends. He doesn’t know how to be a friend, the same way he didn’t know how to be a boyfriend.”

“Now wait a minute,” I started, but Jax held a hand up.

“It’s okay, Kennedy. She’s right.”

No, she wasn’t.

I stayed quiet out of respect for Jax, but inside my blood was starting to boil. I couldn’t believe how nasty this woman was being just because she saw Jax and me out with one another. It was clear they used to be in a relationship, but it was over and done with. For her to belittle him—to slap him—was completely uncalled for.

“Good luck,” she told me, pushing her purse strap up her shoulder. “Don’t be surprised when you try to open him up and you’re hit with a cement block. He’s the definition of emotionally unavailable.”

She turned to him and huffed loudly. “I should’ve known you’d turn out to be just like your father, you heartless prick.” She walked off, leaving a heaviness floating around us.

I saw the invisible knife that she’d shoved deeply into Jax’s chest. His body cringed from the painfulness of her words before he looked up at me. He seemed completely deflated as his lips parted. “I think we should head out.”

“Yeah, okay.” I grabbed my purse, and we walked back to his truck. As we drove, I didn’t close my eyes once. I couldn’t stop staring at Jax, wondering what was going through his mind. I wanted to ask, but I also didn’t want to come off as needy. His knuckles were pale white as he gripped the steering wheel in front of him and his mouth twitched every now and again.

As he pulled up to my house, he turned the truck off and looked my way. “Sorry about all that.”

“You did nothing wrong.”

“Yeah, all right. Well, I guess I’ll talk to you—”

“Do you want to keep hanging out?” I offered. “I know that was a lot back there, and I could tell she got under your skin, but we can still hang out. It’s early, it’s Saturday, and the weather is nice. We can sit in my parents’ convertible and just talk, or not talk—whatever you want to do.”

He flicked his nose with his thumb. “I feel like I want to be alone for a while, Kennedy.”

“Yeah, of course. I get you wanting to be alone—truly, I do…but just be alone with me.”

He hesitated for a moment, so I figured I could make the pot even sweeter.

“I have a bottle of my father’s favorite whiskey that we can finish off, and believe me when I say my father only drank the good stuff.”

He snickered. “It’s only eleven in the morning.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I also have my mother’s favorite coffee beans, so we can drink the coffee this morning and tap into the whiskey tonight.”

“You want to spend the whole day with me?” he asked, surprised.

“The whole day, and the whole night.”

We did exactly that, too. We headed inside and drank numerous coffee beverages. I did most of the talking, which mimicked much of what our childhood was like, and Jax listened with ease. I told him more stories about my parents and Daisy and more stories about my past, and whenever I’d laugh out loud, he’d smile and look at me as if I were the sun.

We talked about our careers, and he told me how he’d planned to buy every book I’ve published so far.

He told me about his father’s land and how he planned to make the property everything his mother dreamed of once it was passed down to him. “She was never able to achieve her dreams. I want to see them through for her,” he said.

I could tell it was hard for him to talk about his mother, but I was glad he was speaking about her. If I’d learned anything over the past few weeks, it was that talking about your loved ones kept them alive, and I needed that. I was certain Jax needed that, too.

When we broke out the whiskey that night, we headed out to my parents’ convertible to drink underneath the stars and the moon.

My favorite thing about sitting beside Jax was that even when it was quiet, when the conversations faded and we were left with nothing but the silence, the stillness felt healing. Being quiet with him was one of my favorite things about the moments we shared that day.

After we had a little too much to drink, Jax placed his hands behind his head and looked up toward the sky. “I don’t want to be like him,” he confessed. “Like my father. Amanda said that earlier, and she said it a few weeks back, too. I’m sure people in this town think I’m like him, but I don’t want to be. He was a monster.”