with snacks and two spill-proof wine tumblers which were hopefully filled with happiness.
“Joy sent us a bottle of white wine. She said you really liked this certain type. Also, I attempted to make a chicken potpie, which is a million times easier said than done. Joy helped me with that, too.”
My eyes widened. “That’s my favorite meal.”
“Yeah, I know—at least, I knew it used to be. I was reading through the old letters you sent me and—”
“You still have our letters?”
He grew sheepishly shy, crossed his arms, and shrugged. “Yeah. I know that’s probably stupid, but they meant a lot to me. When I was younger, on some of my hardest days, I’d go back and read those letters. They got me through some heavy stuff.”
Without thought, I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into my body. I needed to feel him against me, to remind myself that this was real, that we were real. I knew what Yoana was worried about, and I loved her for her concern, but Jax was the one designed for me. He wasn’t the villain of my fairy tale; he was the broken hero, the one who wasn’t meant to save me, but who was meant to save himself, and he was doing that. Day in and day out, he put in the work to better himself, which was so inspiring to me, and he made me want to do the same for myself. I didn’t want Jax to fix me—that was my own job. That said, I did want to be inspired by his growth to see that I, too, could grow, could heal, could come out of my current situation and find happiness on the other side.
“You make me want to get better,” I whispered as his strong arms held me close.
He planted a kiss on my forehead. “You’re making me better,” he replied.
We decided to eat dinner and drink all the wine before getting to work in the library. There were so many books to try to pull in order to unlock the secret passage to a hidden room, and there was a good chance we’d be there all night long.
I didn’t mind that one bit. Being locked in the library with Jax Kilter—I could’ve thought of worse ways to spend a night.
We invented a game where we’d go to different parts of the library and pull random books to read passages from. Anyone else in the world might’ve thought we were nerds for this, but honestly, it was the most fun I’d had in a long time. Having a big, strong—and slightly tipsy—man read excerpts from The Odyssey was much more of a turn-on than one would think.
The way words rolled off Jax’s tongue sent chills down my spine. I could have listened to him read to me for the rest of my life, and still it wouldn’t have been enough of his words.
“Pull a book and flip to page ninety-four. Read the fourth paragraph,” he ordered for our sixteenth round of the game.
I pulled out a novel entitled Midnight Mansion by Graham Russell, the great horror author, and began to read. “‘His hands were soaked in gasoline, and his breath was coated with an aged whiskey that no longer burned on the way down. He’d been drinking for days, yet still, it only felt like hours. The loneliness of the passing weeks ticked by as he rustled through the old photographs of the woman he loved who was now a named killer. He wondered to himself how he could’ve loved someone so dark, but realization settled in that the darkest people were the most fun to be infatuated with. He craved disappointment, and Leslie always gave it to him.’”
Gosh.
I missed writing. Whenever I read strong words, I wanted to fall back into them.
“My turn,” Jax said from across the way.
“Okay, pull a book, page one hundred and four, paragraph five.”
He cleared his throat and began reading. “‘Iris, don’t let go,’ Harry begged, pulling on her tattered T-shirt. ‘If you go now, I’ll be here alone. I don’t know how to get back to town. I don’t know when or where I’m supposed to go. I don’t know how to breathe unless you are guiding me. This place is filled with war, and you are my peace. So, please, don’t let me go.’”
My heart leaped into my throat, and I turned to my left to see Jax standing there with a book in his hand, and not just