JAX (The Beckett Boys #2) - Olivia Chase Page 0,104

still, at my core, just another one-night stand.

Chapter 14

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Jacob. In fact, that was more or less all I wanted to do. I wanted to see him, touch him, let him undress me, sleep next to him, wake to him in the morning. It was all I thought about, truth be told— but I knew I needed a break. I needed a week or two to reassess, to parse Jenna and Jacob, and myself and Jacob, and the entire Harton football community and myself and Jacob and…myself.

More than anything, I needed to reassess my direction in life. I was at Harton to get an education, and I’d forgotten that somehow, in the midst of all this. I was giving everything— physically and mentally— to Jacob now, and that wasn’t okay.

It was easy enough to avoid him for the first week; I avoided his calls, sent him back “talk later” texts, and changed up my schedule so he couldn’t surprise me on the way to or from class. I figured Piper and Kiersten would be no help, so took to studying in the library rather than at home, which turned out to be lovely. The Harton library was a brand new building with soaring ceilings, enormous chairs, private study rooms and an insane number of books. It was like a West Elm version of the library in Beauty and the Beast.

Almost a week and a half after the Football House party, I was nestled in an armchair in the historical anthropology section, making notes in the margins of my textbook, when Jacob appeared.

I didn’t even see him, at first, but rather, felt his presence. Jacob had the ability to absorb all the energy in the room; I resisted looking up as long as possible when I felt his pull, but finally gave in. He was standing at the end of a row of books, his eyebrows lifted, his arm muscles straining at a gray Harton t-shirt.

Being close to so many books made him even sexier, a fact which infuriated and aroused me at once.

“You’re avoiding me,” Jacob said. He didn’t whisper, location be damned, and I saw someone a few chairs down lift her eyes curiously.

Jacob walked toward me, then sat down in the armchair adjacent. He dwarfed it, and his legs were so long his knees were bent up awkwardly in the air, like an adult sitting on a child’s piece of furniture.

“I am,” I whispered back, closing my textbook gently.

“Did I do something stupid?” Jacob asked.

“No. I just feel like…” I took a big, sweeping breath, and allowed Jacob to capture my eyes with his. I wondered if anyone ever gained immunity to his gaze.

Which made me instantly wonder if Jenna was immune.

“I was at that party at Football House the other night,” I began slowly.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Jacob said.

“The one where Adams gave that stupid speech after having sex with my roommate. And Jenna what’s-her-face was there, the soccer player?”

“Ok,” Jacob said, nodding.

“And I just…I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “People there started telling me about you and her, and how you have this big history and this golden couple sports stardom.”

“And that bothered you? Sasha, I thought you knew I had a lot of experience with women,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, yeah, and look— that’s not the element that bothers me, really, it’s not. Truthfully, I— oh my god, I can’t believe I’m saying this— the fact that you know what you’re doing and are so sure about everything is super sexy.”

Jacob grinned devilishly, and I rushed on before I lost my nerve. “But when people started talking to me about Jenna, it made me realize that you hadn’t just had sex with random girls before me. You had a relationship. One that people knew about. But no one knows about me…so doesn’t that make me just another random girl?”

“Sasha—“

“No, wait, I’m almost done. What did me in was when Jenna swept in and got you out of that room when you were about to punch Adams in the balls. I wanted to talk to you, but she got there first, and it just seemed like there was this connection. Like maybe I’m just someone you’re filling your time with until you and Jenna are on again. And I’m not horrified by that notion— it’s just not what I thought we were doing. So I’ve been avoiding you because I wanted to take a second and sort