Page 39 of Jax
The moment didn’t vanish; it just shifted.
Someone cracked a joke. Maddy leaned sideways and stole a sip of Niko’s wine with a grin that dared him to complain. Bellamy tossed a card with the theatrical flair of someone losing on purpose just to make it painful. Carrick didn’t flinch. Just kept playing, smug and silent. The tension softened, diffused by warmth and laughter, but Jax’s voice lingered.
I don’t sleep well when it’s quiet.
I didn’t know why it hit the way it did. Why it curled under my ribs and stayed there, low and unwanted. There were a dozen reasons not to sleep, and I had most of them. But something about his tone, about the way the rope moved in his hands while his spine stayed straight and still, made me ache in a way I didn’t have language for.
The truth wasn’t in the words. It was in how he said them. Flat. Unashamed. Like it didn’t occur to him to justify anything. And that was what wrecked me. He didn’t posture, because he didn’t have to. Didn’t justify, because he didn’t owe. It was the kind of honesty that came from someone who’d stopped trying to be understood, and still, impossibly, wanted to be seen.
The room moved around him, but Jax remained still. Knees bent. Rope coiled across his thighs. Fingers looped silk with a measured rhythm that spoke of muscle memory and mastery. Every motion drew the red rope tighter, cleaner, a quiet choreography of pressure and precision. He moved like a man who knew exactly how much tension a line could take before it gave.
I watched him longer than I meant to, and maybe that was the moment he felt it, my gaze fixed where it didn’t belong.
He didn’t look up. Just murmured, low and dry, “Are you intending to critique my technique, or are you watching for some other reason?”
His voice barely rose above Deacon’s soft guitar. The laughter around us still lingered. But the line cut through itanyway. Clean. Sharp. A wire pulled too tight. And it slipped between my ribs like it belonged there.
I didn’t answer immediately. Just took another sip from my mug, hoping the heat might disguise the catch in my breath, the way the floor felt suddenly less solid. When I finally spoke, it came out quieter than I intended. “I don’t know.”
It was the truth.
It shouldn’t have been. I hated saying things I hadn’t already rehearsed, already weighed and measured and proven safe. But the words slipped out before I could stop them, and I watched something shift in his posture at the sound of it. Not surprise. Just... awareness. Like he’d expected the lie, and the truth unsettled him more.
Jax finished the knot with a smooth pull and set it aside, coiled and perfect beside the others. Then, for the first time that night, he looked at me.
Direct. Steady.
And the room fell away.
The laughter, the music, the low hum of conversation, it all blurred at the edges as his gaze locked onto mine and held. There was nothing overt in it. No heat, no flirtation. Just clarity. The kind that saw right through your skin and didn’t bother pretending it didn’t.
His voice was quiet. Honest in a way that made me want to flinch.
“I didn’t come here to be part of anything. Not at first, anyway.”
A pause.
“I didn’t want the team. I didn’t want the house. I didn’t want the cause.”
He rested his elbows on his knees, rope still curled between his fingers.
“I wanted to stop feeling like a threat in every room I walked into.” The words landed with a weight I wasn’t ready for—too sharp, too raw, too much like looking in a mirror I didn’t want to see.
I turned away, suddenly captivated by the pattern of steam curling off my mug, and the heat pressing into my palm like it could anchor me to something safer than this. But he didn’t stop. Didn’t soften. His voice dropped, not in volume, but in vulnerability. “I don’t care if people understand me,” he said, each syllable threading quietly into my bones, “but I do care if they leave.”
Something in my chest pulled tight, a low draw of tension I didn’t know what to do with. I’d spent most of my life surviving rooms by becoming the quietest thing in them, tucking myself into the edges until the danger passed. Men like Jax weren’t meant for me. I didn’t understand how they moved through the world with that kind of certainty, how they could take up space without force, speak in truths that didn’t ask to be softened first. Maybe that’s what unsettled me most.
I shook it off. Let the conversation carry forward. Maddy launched into a story about some guy she once dated who made her sign an actual relationship contract, complete with clauses and subheadings and a signature line. Bellamy was in tears from laughing, and Carrick admitted he was impressed someone cared enough to put in that much effort. And for a second, I almost relaxed.
Almost.
Then Jax said it—quiet, unbothered. Like it was nothing. “If you ever want to know what the rope is really for...” A pause. A knot pulled tight. “Just ask.”
The words didn’t land so much as detonate, cracking the air wide like lightning across dry sky. The entire room shifted,barely perceptible, but enough for me to feel it. Like the air was listening now.
Carrick stopped shuffling. Maddy’s smile curved higher, all teeth and secrets. Bellamy glanced sideways at Niko, who raised an eyebrow. Sully made a low noise that could’ve meant anything. Only Deacon stayed steady, his fingers still moving along the strings, music trailing like smoke.
No one said a word. But I felt them all watching. And Jax? He never looked up. Never gave the moment weight. Which somehow made it heavier.
