to have to give me a clue. You haven’t improved much since you were five.”
He grins up at me. “I was trying to draw Liam’s wiener.”
Huh. I guess it’s possible that his drawing represents two circles and a tiny cocktail wiener of a penis. I’m not sure how this is supposed to make me feel better, but I appreciate the effort.
* * *
Three weeks after my sex life becomes a trending topic on the internet, Jax kidnaps me. Since he does this with his motorcycle and he calls ahead to let me know he’s coming, he’d make a terrible felon but his thoughtfulness gives me time to hide inside the house and turn my phone off. Ignoring his Neanderthal pounding on my front door turns out to be impossible, though, so eventually we compromise. I open the door and he agrees to give me enough time to swap the yoga pants I’ve been wearing all week for jeans and boots. Road rash will not improve my life.
I don’t ask where we’re going until we’re out on the main road. Since I’m wrapped around his back, this is not good timing. The helmets and the road noise don’t help, either, although he’s driving like a granny out of consideration for my wish not to die in a fiery crash. This conversation goes about as well as can be expected.
He bellows a question that sounds like “ax ug ekaxaupp?”
I attempt to translate it, but I’ve got nothing. “Are you taking me to your evil lair?”
“Pum feekow us pit spaxa dax.”
I repeat my original question but eventually give up. It turns out he’s decided that what I need is a girls’ day, starring himself as a volunteer girl. He pulls off the road when we get to a Zen-like day spa halfway up the California coast.
After he finally convinces the receptionist that we’re not a couple (ewww), we have massages and then wear our swimsuits to soak in a hot tub underneath giant redwood trees. There are mani-pedis as well. Jax looks painfully awkward the whole afternoon, but I appreciate the gesture and his hands turn out great.
When we’re finally done being massaged and steamed, we sit in the garden with our tiny cups of green tea. I figure he’s tried, so I tell him about Liam and how I angry-cry whenever I think about him, which is better than mindlessly crushing on him or wanting to sit outside his house wearing nothing but a trench coat and heels and wait for him to come home.
Jax makes a ferocious face because I’ve mentioned sex, but apparently being heartbroken is a free pass. “Look. He’s an ass. He’s said stuff and done stuff that merit an ass-kicking. I’d really like to take care of that for you, but you don’t want me to do it. I get how doing it yourself would be empowering and shit, but the problem is, I don’t think you want to do it.”
“I do, too.”
Jax drains his tiny teacup in one swallow. “If you say so.”
I stop talking then because I’m afraid I’ll cry. Or that Jax will go drag his former best friend over to my farm and make him be nice to me. I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist having Liam Masterson gift wrapped and delivered a second time.
When Jax and I pull up in front of the farmhouse, I thank him and say all the right things. I promise, for example, that I’ve been miraculously cured by our afternoon together and that I’m officially all better and that whatever Liam says or does will have no effect on me because I am total rock where he’s concerned.
“We’re over,” I assure Jax while I try to remember the best way to disembark from the back of a motorcycle. “In fact, we never really even began, right? He doesn’t remember most of our wedding and that’s kind of hard to get past.”
Jax’s face twists. I suspect he wants to punch someone really hard. Probably Liam, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“Okay,” Jax says. He’s turned off the bike and kicked the stand down, so I’m not sure he has plans to leave. “But I think you should hear him out.”
Since I’m expecting to hear more threats to inflict grievous bodily injury on Liam, it takes me a moment to process. I use the time to slide-hop off the back of the bike.
I’m not sure I can do it. Having my heart broken hurts,