Page 107 of The Last Second Chance
Jax leaned against the doorframe and watched her lean in to examine the goose-necked tub faucet. “This is insane. Do you know how many horses I could buy with what it cost to outfit this bathroom?”
She pushed past him and walked into the suite’s bedroom. “This can’t be a king-size. This is like NBA-player size,” she said, flopping down on the cloud-like mattress. “I can roll one, two, three, four, five, six times before I get to the other edge,” she demonstrated. Jax let her flop over on her back in the center of the bed before launching himself at her.
“Do all screenwriters get digs like this?” Joey asked as Jax settled himself between her legs, resting his weight on his hands.
“Ones who win side bets with a producer do. Do you want to have dinner here or go out?”
“Do we have to wear clothes if we have dinner here?” Joey asked dipping her fingers into the scooped neckline of her shirt.
“Mmm,” Jax nuzzled into her neck. “Clothing is entirely optional. I’ll call room service.”
They dined in their suite, enjoying wine, white sea bass, and a steak so tender Joey barely needed to chew it. The sun set low over the hill casting a rosy glow through the wall of glass. Slow rock from the state-of-the-art stereo played softly in the background.
Joey could still see the shadows of memories in those gray eyes. She’d put them there with her questions on the plane. She reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. “Jax.”
He lifted his gaze from the wine glass he’d been staring into pensively.
“I’m going to whip out my Blue Moon hippie logic here. Did you ever think that maybe the accident was supposed to happen?” Joey asked.
“Like destiny?”
She nodded. “And destiny isn’t a mistake.”
“So, I was meant to leave?”
“Jax, we’re going to the premiere of a movie you wrote. One of the movies you wrote. Don’t think for a second that would have happened without the accident. Sure, maybe we would have gone on our road trip, but we would have come back. I would have made you come back. I had our future already mapped out and L.A. and movies and orgy showers were not part of the plan.”
“I could have said no.”
Joey grinned. “Please. Eighteen-year-old Jax couldn’t say no to me. He was too hampered by respect and wanting desperately to make sure I got everything I wanted.”
“Sounds like twenty-seven-year-old Jax, too,” he smiled wryly.
“Maybe it does.”
“But you need to consider something else with that Blue Moon hippie logic. If I was meant to leave, then I was also meant to come back.”
It was Joey’s turn to study her wine. “Maybe you were.”
“And if I was meant to come back, then maybe we’re meant to be.”
She took a long swallow of wine and stared hard at the last sliver of sun as it disappeared behind the far off hill. “Maybe we are.”
She said it softly, but the way his gaze sharpened, the way his muscles tightened under her hand, she knew he heard her. Knew he heard the significance.
“You’re different now,” she said quietly. “But so am I. We’re both stronger, sharper. We challenge the hell out of each other, but you get me. You honestly get me. And I keep waiting and watching, looking for that sign of ‘he’s going to bolt again’ or ‘he’s going to break my heart again.’ And damnit, Jax, I’m so tired of waiting and watching.”
The intensity of his gaze burned through her. She was under a spotlight and he was the one watching and waiting now.
“What exactly are you saying, Joey?”
She could feel the tension coursing through him like a current. He wanted the words and for the first time, she wanted to say them.
“I’m saying that…” God, she just couldn’t get them out. Eight years of walls and hurt. She took a slow deep breath. “I’m saying…I have to go to the bathroom.”
She stood up and ran full speed into the cavern of marble. Slamming the door, she pulled out her cellphone and started typing frantically.
HELP! I’m trying to tell Jax how I feel and the words won’t come out. So I locked myself in the bathroom.
