Page 139 of The Last Second Chance
Jax brought his hands up to frame her face and succeeded in slapping her in the face with her own limp hand. “Oops. Sorry.”
“You can’t kiss me. We’re broken up.”
“We’re fighting. That’s different from breaking up,” he corrected. “Tell me you read it,” he said suddenly serious.
Joey raised her chin. “I read it.”
“And?”
“How do you feel?”
“Pissed off and hungry.”
“I’ll feed you in a minute, but Joey, we have to start talking sooner or later. Our entire relationship can’t happen in bed.”
“You’ve been talking to your mother.”
Jax grimaced. “I don’t want to know what that segue is about. Focus on us right here, right now. Tell me why you’re mad, right now.”
“Besides the cuffs?” she asked, sarcastically jiggling the metal around her wrist.
“Besides the cuffs.”
“I’m furious because you and my father made stupid decisions about my future without bothering to consult me.”
“Let’s talk about that,” Jax said. “Put yourself in my shoes. If I do the only thing that I want to do, which is stay by your side, I’d be opening my family up to a lawsuit and forcing you to kiss your dreams at Centenary good-bye. Imagine how that felt. You’d lose everything you’d been working toward. My family would lose their home and their livelihood. And it was all because of me.”
She shook her head, started to deny him.
“Just picture it, Jojo. How long had you spent researching schools, applying for scholarships, plotting out your courses? I knew what that school, that program meant to you. There’s no way you could have afforded it on your own if your dad had cut you off.”
“He wouldn’t have actually done it—”
“And then imagine how scared I was thinking about my parents having to say good-bye to the land they’d worked for years. The house they’d raised their family in. Carter wouldn’t have had a home to come back to. Would Beckett have stayed in Blue Moon if it wasn’t for the farm? I saw all of that vanishing. Because of me. And I thought it would be selfish if I stayed.”
Joey’s eye was starting to twitch.
“When the father of the girl you love—a man she loves and respects—tells you that you’re not good enough, a truth you’re already wrestling with?” Jax shook his head. “It makes you want to be better. To be good enough. I never intended to leave permanently. I knew I would come back when I was good enough to be with you.”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Joey snapped. “You were always good enough.”
“I didn’t feel like I was,” Jax countered. “And neither did your father. I felt like a teenage screw up compared to my brothers, to my dad. They were out doing things, trying to make the world and Blue Moon a better place. And I was skipping school and fantasizing about a certain brunette knockout who would come over and swim in our pond in a tiny red bikini.”
“All teenagers feel that way. It’s part of puberty. It could have been different. It should have been different,” Joey argued.
“But, Jojo, it wasn’t. And we can waste the next eight years of our lives arguing about what could have been done differently, but that still won’t change it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for everything, but I think I’ve been punished enough. It’s time for us to start over.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” Joey admitted. “Do you feel good enough now?”
Jax grinned. “Nope. But my plan is to spend the rest of my life showering you with love and presents so you forget how not good enough I am. What else are you mad about?”
“I’m a steaming hot ball of rage because you still didn’t tell me when you came home. You said you came back for me, yet you still had no plans to tell me why you left in the first place.”
“That’s fair.”
“I don’t give a crap if it’s fair,” Joey shot back. “If you came back to rebuild this relationship, you should have started with the truth.”
“Hear me out. Please,” he added. “When I left, I didn’t tell you because I was afraid it would force the choice of me or your father. And I didn’t think I’d win. You looked up to him, trusted him, respected him. I worried that he’d pressure you to give me up. I didn’t think you’d choose me over him.”
