Page 30 of Purgatory
I make my way over to the side of the kitchen, sneaking a peak at dinner.Fuck me, I think. I still can’t get over how big the fish, Aly caught, is. Plus, it smells amazing. Jax is a damn wizard in the kitchen. We might be limited on food choices these days but, damn, his cooking doesn’t show that at all. Just then Cole and Aly walk in from the back door.
“We’ve got more apples!” Cole says, lifting the bushel and planting it on the countertop, accidentally knocking over the salt and pepper. Jax gives him a mild stink eye before moving him aside to grab some salt to throw over his shoulder. The guy’s superstitious like that and I crack a smile when Cole doesn’t even realize what he did until Jax speaks up. Or maybe he did and he’s just fucking with him too. Fun times.
“Stop fucking up my shit, ya dink, and get your ass in the bathroom to clean up. Dinner’s ready.” Jax huffs before turning back to the stove.
Cole turns to Aly, giving her a wink before looking back in Jax’s direction. “Yes, daddy!!!” Cole says sarcastically,sticking his tongue out to him before turning and bounding for the stairs before Jax can catch up to him. Cole is quick and agile and makes it to the stairs first, bounding up them before Jax even makes it to the other side of the island.
“Keep it up, fucker! I’ll superglue your ass cheeks together while you sleep!” Jax turns back around, shaking his head and grinning. Definitely fun times today. I look to Aly but she doesn’t seem to know how to react to Jax and Cole’s antics, putting a lid on her emotions. Normally, around other people, Jax is as stoic as they come so she probably hasn’t seen this side of him like we do.
I watch her as she takes in the atmosphere in the kitchen. She smiles, appropriately, but then slowly moves to the sink, washes up, and takes a few muted, deep breaths while doing so. Her timidness seems to be directed at Jax which makes sense. The guy is an enigma on the best of days so I can understand her reluctance towards him and his rickety personality. She seems to get her confidence under her, though. Pushing her shoulders back and lifting her chin, she moves up to Jax and points towards the salad bowl.
“Should I bring this over to the table?” He just grunts a response and nods once before walking in the opposite direction, essentially dismissing her. The prick. I love him but the asshole needs to loosen up a bit. Aly’s not going to do anything to fuck with him or anything he’s got going on. We all know this. What could she possibly do? Mess with the shampoo: conditioner ratio in the house? I mean, her hair is long as hell so, fuck, she might. But, big whoop, who the hell cares about that? So, what’s his deal, then? Reluctantly, she takes the bowl and walks away to the table.
A second later, Cole comes flying back down the stairs, glides past me, practically skipping to the table, and sits down with Aly. I gather some dishes and silverware and make my way over to them as Jax files in behind me with the cast ironskillet.
Over the next hour we sit and talk about the day, eating the bomb ass food, and retelling stories from our tours overseas and during basic training. Laughter fills the house from our reminiscence. Including Jax who loosens up just enough to lose the stick up his ass. Aly joins in a couple of times with her own stories but it seems that she’s just happy to listen to our bullshit.
“Oh my God, I almost forgot!” Aly bounces to her feet, running upstairs for a minute then comes bounding back down like an excited, little rabbit holding her bag. She stands in front of us and whips out what made her so excited.
“I think I have an idea for dessert! Think we might be able to light up the fireplace and roast these babies?” she asks, holding a bag of marshmallows and wagging her eyebrows. Fuck, I forgot all about those too.
I get up and move towards the living room. “Hell yea! Let’s light ‘em up!” Cole and Jax agree. Well, Cole agrees enthusiastically while Jax just smiles and grunts. At least he smiled at her suggestion. Better than nothing, I guess. I get started, filling the fireplace with wood and kindling, Cole runs outside to get a few twigs and Jax saunters over to the kitchen to get some chocolate, graham crackers and strawberries, adding to our campfire dessert.
We make quick work of stabbing the little white devils and charring them to a golden brown. Some of us are impatient and down the ooey gooey goodness by themselves while some choose to turn them into smores. Jax goes all fancy and puts sliced strawberries on his smore. Bougie bastard. Gotta hand it to him, though. It’s fucking delicious.
We’re all getting comfy in the living room with our desserts when a quiet moan is released and it’s all hands on deck as we turn as a unit to stare directly at the source. Aly’shand is covered in melted chocolate and sticky marshmallow and she is sucking it off of each of her fingers, moaning and rolling her eyes back into her head as she does so. My dick twitches at the sight and judging from the slight seat adjustments and hand placements, Cole and Jax are in the same headspace.
Fuuuck, why is that so hot.
She continues that way for a minute or so, oblivious to our stares, before Jax coughs to break up the tension on our poor forsaken balls. Aly looks up at our lust filled eyes. When she realizes what’s going on, her eyes widen and she sheepishly looks away, muttering “oh shit, sorry.... really fucking good.”
Cole and I chuckle at her response while Jax continues to be entranced although reluctant. He doesn't react any further, just stares at her vacantly. It must make her uncomfortable and she goes to stand.
“Well, thank you for the delicious meal. It was, oh my gosh, the best fish I've had in a while. Oh, and for indulging me with the fire. You have no idea how much I like marshmallows and this was... this was great. Thank you. I’m going to head off, take a shower and get to bed. Long day and all.” She trails off and moves towards the stairs.
The rest of us continue with the treats we’ve already made, refusing to touch anymore of her pillowy treasures. We weren’t able to have a private talk yesterday but tonight, we can let out what we’re all feeling about our new situation. We should definitely have a house meeting to go over everything that’s happened. That thought snowballs into more thoughts about Aly and what happened between us and before I know it, I’m daydreaming right there on the couch.
I sit there with a stupid grin on my face off in La La Land when Cole throws a pillow at me. I catch it before it hits my face and stuff it behind me, lifting my feet and sprawling out.
“She’s great, isn’t she?” I ask no one in particular. Cole nods his head in agreement.
“Yea, she’s one of the good ones. I like her. How did fishing go?” He looks back to me.
“Fishing was amazing. She, actually, caught the bass we had for dinner. She put up a good fight to get it too. Love it when a girl likes to do outdoorsy stuff. I... I really like her.” I sigh leaning back and staring at the ceiling, really wanting to go up there and kiss her goodnight. Maybe lay in bed with her... maybe more...fuck... cock... go away for second, dammit, you can come back later.
I go to sit up, effectively hiding Mr. Man and look to Jax. He’s staring a hole in the floor. Something must be really interesting there...
“How about you?” I probe. “What’re your thoughts on our little damsel?”
He looks up to me, then to the ceiling, probably imagining what she’s doing right then, and then sighs.
“We almost had a run in with some walkers today. Don’t worry. I spoke with her about it. She’s obviously not hurt from the encounter.” He puts his hands up when Cole and I almost jump to our feet to get details. But we settle back down when Cole asks what I’m wondering.
“So, what happened?”
“She wandered out while I was taking a break from fixing the fence and a swarm came by. I pulled her back before they could sense her, brought her back to the field where it was safe, talked some sense into her, she hit me... I might have kissed her...” He shuffles his feet on the floor and looks away, swallowing while Cole and I are floored trying to work through what he just said.
“What?!”
