“That actually works out perfectly. Thanksgiving day is the only day Olivia and Ronan will be at my moms’. If I’m being honest, I was kind of feeling bad over the fact that Ronan and Olivia had other families to celebrate with. I was thinking about just coming back here for the weekend. Going to your parents’ house sounds so much better.”

  It went against everything I had been trying to do these past few weeks, but right now, sitting on the couch with Jax, I didn’t care about any of that. I didn’t want to miss out on moments like this.

  After Jax hit play on the TV remote, she snuggled tighter up against me. I could feel her eyes on me, but I kept mine on the screen. “This is really nice,” she whispered softly.

  If I was going to tell her how I felt, this was the perfect time, but I couldn’t get the words to come out. Even if Jax really did like me, which I was starting to think might be the case, what did that look like in the long run? When would she become bored of me in the same way Marcie did? The nice thing about Marcie was that I didn’t have to see her after she broke my heart. There was no way to avoid Jax if something went south. Plus, I had my list to focus on. The New Carter wouldn’t fall head over heels for the first girl who gave her attention.

  I knew what I needed to do. I needed to focus on my list and becoming the best version of myself. After that, I could focus on what these feelings meant and if they were worth pursuing.

  I leaned over and placed my head on Jax’s shoulder. For now, I was going to enjoy whatever this was.

  Chapter 17

  “Where is my bestie-stealing sister?” Olivia shouted as soon as she walked into my parents’ house on Thanksgiving.

  I rolled my eyes. She had been saying this same thing ever since I mentioned to her that I was going to Jax’s house after Thanksgiving. It was all playful. She had told me multiple times how happy she was that Jax and I had finally become friends since we were her two favorite people.

  Jax was quickly becoming one of my favorite people as well. Ever since our talk, we had fallen back into our normal routine, which felt so nice. I did make sure to leave time for Annika too since we were friends now, but most of my nights ended on the couch with Jax and Speck.

  Speaking of Speck… he quickly ran past me through the hallway, and a moment later, I heard my sister and Quinton greeting him. By the time I reached them, Speck was lying on his back, demanding belly rubs, which Olivia was happily giving to him.

  When she saw me, she stood to her feet. “There she is.” She looked around the hallway. “Where are Mom and Mama?”

  I pointed my thumb back toward the kitchen. “They’re too busy cooking like crazy to come greet you.”

  Olivia nodded. “And is Ronan’s family here yet?”

  I shook my head and looked out of the window by the door to see if their car was suddenly in the driveway. “Not yet, but they should be any minute.”

  Olivia hugged me, then wrapped her arm around mine. “Let’s go say hi to moms and try to steal some food.”

  I chuckled. “Good luck with that. I tried to grab one cracker from the charcuterie board Mom was setting up, and she slapped my hand away.”

  “I’ll be able to. I am the favorite daughter now that I’m living closer.” Olivia squeezed my arm. “Speaking of being far away, are you excited to go to Vermont tomorrow?”

  Excited was an understatement. Jax had left to go to her parents’ on Tuesday night before I was back from work. I hadn’t been planning to leave for my parents’ until this morning, but ended up coming the night prior because my apartment felt so empty without Jax. There was nothing I wanted more than to be back with her, even if our time together was going to involve me crashing and burning on the ski slopes.

  “Just wait until you see her house. It’s huge.” Always the dramatic one, Olivia emphasized the word huge. “I’m not even being dramatic this time. They have an indoor pool. An indoor fucking pool, Carter. I’m telling you this, because I’m sure Jax didn’t. She never talks about it. I don’t want you to be completely shocked when you see it.”

  ***

  Shocked was an understatement when it came to my reaction to Jax’s house the next day. The word huge didn’t even do Jax’s house justice. I swallowed hard as I sat in the driveway looking up at it. It sat on a huge plot of land, but was still three stories tall. The house had a look of sophistication with its white siding and black shutters and door. There was a three-car garage and a fence going around the back that looked like it probably held a pool, but that didn’t seem right since Olivia had told me the pool was inside.

  After a few seconds of gawking, one of the garage doors opened and Jax came skipping outside. Before I could get out of the car, she skipped over to the passenger side and got in. “How was the drive?” she asked as she closed the door.

  “Long.” That felt like the right answer since it had taken me over seven hours to drive here from my parents’ house, but the truth was, it had actually flown by. I was so distracted by thoughts of Jax my whole drive that I was surprised when the GPS said I had arrived at her house. “But not too bad. Jax, your house is…”

  “Gigantic?” She said the word as if it was a bad thing.

  “I was going to say gorgeous, but it is pretty big.”

  Jax shrugged and stared down at her seat. “My parents have a lot of money.”

  I watched Jax as she picked at something on my passenger seat. She looked so much smaller than usual. I was used to her taking up so much space with her giant personality, but right now, it was like she was shrinking into herself. I instinctively moved my hand across the middle console and placed it on her knee. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just get self-conscious.”

  That was strange. I had a few friends growing up who didn’t like having people over at their houses because they were smaller than others, but I had honestly never met someone who was self-conscious about their house being big.

  “What do you mean? What are you self-conscious about?”

  Jax took a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “My dad is a Pharmacist and my mom is a Pediatric Heart Surgeon. I see the looks on people’s faces when I tell them what I do. They look at me like I’m such a disappointment for not following in my parents’ footsteps. From the time I was in middle school, people started asking me which medical field I was going to go into. It was like the only way a child with two parents in a medical profession could be considered successful was if they also went into that profession.” A few tears fell from Jax’s eyes, but she quickly wiped them away. “My parents aren’t like that. They’ve never put any pressure on me to be anything other than exactly what I wanted to be, and I really appreciate that. I just normally don’t tell people what they do or how much money they have to try to avoid the inevitable judgment that I was a disappointment.”

  It broke my heart that Jax felt this way. As someone who saw the way she lit up every time she was working at the cafe, I couldn’t imagine her working a job that would dim that. “Are you happy with what you’re doing?”

  Jax nodded and wiped at her eyes again. “I love what I do. I have bigger dreams than what I’m currently doing, but I’d also be happy to do this forever.”

  I squeezed Jax’s knee, ignoring the tingling sensation in my fingers from that one touch alone. “As I’m sure your parents have told you, that’s what really matters. You like what you do and you’re good at it. I would never judge you for that, and honestly, fuck anyone who would.”

  Jax laughed through her tears, then quickly wiped them again. “God, I don’t know why I’m getting so emotional right now.”

  “It’s okay.” I took it upon myself to wipe the next set of tears that fell. “You’re allowed to have feelings. You’re being vulnerable.” I lifted my eyebrows at her. “You should be happy. Now you get to mark another thing off your list.”

  A small smile parted Jax’s lips. “I feel like that’s kind of cheating, though. It’s easy to be vulnerable with you.”

  That’s what happens when you find your person. Those words were right on the tip of my tongue, but I held them in. Right now was not the right time for this talk. Jax needed a friend, not someone with ulterior motives. “I’m still counting it.” I made a motion in the air as if I was checking something off of a list. “Done!”

  Jax laughed and the beautiful sparkle came back to her eyes. “Thank you. You always know the right thing to say.”

  “I’m just speaking the truth. Now am I going to get to meet your parents or are you going to keep putting it off?” I teased.

  “Let’s do this.” Jax hopped out of the car and quickly ran around the front to open my door for me. She did the cutest little curtsy as she held out her hand for me to take. “Please direct me to your bags, my dear.”

  She dropped my hand much too quickly, but not before placing a kiss on it, which had my mind thinking about having those lips on mine once again. Not what this weekend is about, I reminded myself.

  I opened my trunk and Jax grabbed my bag, as promised. She led me in through the garage, which housed two cars that were very modest given how much money these people clearly had. The garage opened up into a small mudroom that was just off of the kitchen. A moment after walking in, two smiling faces greeted us.

  The man, who was very tall and had short brown hair that was streaked with gray, held out his hand toward me. “You must be Carter. It’s so nice to finally meet you. We’ve heard so much about you.”

  At first, I thought that meant Jax had been talking about me, but then I remembered that they had met my sister multiple times. Since that girl never knew when to shut up, I was sure she had told them everything about our family. “It’s so nice to meet you as well. I have also heard many wonderful things about you.”

  My heart pounded in my chest as if I actually was meeting the parents of my girlfriend. In a way, if I ever planned on opening up to Jax about my feelings and she was receptive to them, this actually wasn’t much different. I really wanted to make a good impression. I needed to make a good impression.

  After dropping Mr. Michaels’ hand, I immediately turned toward Jax’s mother and reached my hand out toward her. “It’s really nice to meet you as well, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Michaels put her free hand on her chest. “The pleasure is all mine, but you can call me Joy.”

  “And I go by Bobby,” her father added.

  I nodded at both of them. “Thank you so much for having me this weekend, Joy and Bobby.”

  Joy watched me with adoration. “All of you Miller-Cooper kids are so polite. Your mothers must have raised you right.”

  Jax turned to look at me. “They met Ronan once when he was visiting Olivia and they were visiting me.”

  “Great guy just like the rest of your family,” Bobby said firmly.

  “Oh wow. We have officially met all of you now, haven’t we?” Joy said with a laugh. “How lucky.”

  Lucky for them. I didn’t feel quite so lucky. As if I wasn’t nervous enough about this weekend, now I had to deal with the fact that they would most likely be comparing me to the rest of my family, whether they meant to or not.

  Bobby’s eyes dropped to the ground, where Speck was standing in between me and Jax. “And this must be the infamous Speck, huh?”

  I patted Speck’s head. “It sure is.”

  As Bobby and Joy got down on Speck’s level and showered him with attention, Jax and I both smiled over at each other at the exact same time. With how intense the spark of electricity was that passed between us, there was no way I was the only one who felt it. How could I be? It felt like I had been shocked, and the sensation ran throughout my whole body.

  “Oh, sweetie, you must be starving,” Joy said as she stood to her feet, ripping my attention away from Jax and putting an abrupt end to our moment. “Come into the kitchen. Dinner is all ready. I hope you don’t mind Thanksgiving food again. We had so many leftovers from having family over yesterday, it felt like such a waste to make something else.”

  “Thanksgiving food sounds perfect.”

  It also smelled perfect as I walked into the kitchen. Sitting on the counter were serving bowls filled with turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, and corn. If they had all of this food left over, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much they had for Thanksgiving dinner.

  I piled my plate with a little of each item, then took a seat next to Jax at their small kitchen table. There was a dining room attached to the kitchen that had a very large table with at least ten seats surrounding it, but Jax told me they only ate there on holidays. When it was just the three of them (or just one or two guests) they preferred the intimate setting the kitchen provided.

  It turned out, Jax’s parents were two of the most down to earth older adults I ever met. It made sense why Jax was the way she was. Her parents were easy to talk to, and they seemed genuinely interested in the answers to all of the questions they asked me.

  After dinner, her dad showed me his favorite room of the house, which was a home theater, complete with a projector and large screen, as well as an old-fashioned popcorn maker. Instead of movie theater style chairs, there was a very large sectional couch and two recliners.

  “I know the perfect thing for us to watch,” Jax’s dad said with a grin that told me he was up to no good.

  Jax must have noticed too, because she groaned loudly. “Seriously, Dad? Don’t even think about it.”

  As if he didn’t hear her, Bobby continued his walk back to the computer that was currently attached to the projector. “It’s a rite of passage for parents to embarrass their children,” he said as he scrolled through the computer, clearly on a mission to find something specific. “Someday when you have your own children, you’ll be able to do the same to them.”

  Jax groaned again. “Please just don’t do the potty dance video.”

  A wide smile spread across my face when I realized what was going on. “Oh, no, I insist. Please do the potty dance video.”

  Bobby pointed at me. “She’s the guest. I have to respect her wishes.”

  Jax attempted to glare at me, but she quickly cracked a smile. “I hate you.” She pointed at her upturned lips. “Don’t let this fool you. I really do.”

  I looked at her lips and had to stop myself from licking my own. I forced my eyes away and smirked at Jax. “No you don’t.”

  “You’re right.” Jax pointed a finger at me. “But tread lightly.”

  “Everyone, please be seated,” Jax’s dad said from the back of the room.

  Jax’s mom took a seat on the recliner and Jax motioned for me to follow her to the sectional. I sat farther away from her than I normally would. Even though the way we normally watched movies was completely innocent, it still somehow felt disrespectful to cuddle Bobby and Joy’s daughter right in front of them.

  Jax’s dad started the video, which started out with just a shot of a door. He slipped into the other recliner as little, but loud screams tore from the speakers. The bathroom door in the video flew open and a tiny Jax proudly strolled out. Her eyes were closed, and her head was held high. Her bleach blonde hair was sticking out all over the place as if it had never once seen a hairbrush.

  Jax’s eyes suddenly popped wide open, looking like saucers on her tiny face. “I pooped!” She brought her hands in the hair and started waving them around while she kicked her feet and spun in circles, which appeared to be the potty dance they were talking about since she kept chanting, “I pooped! I pooped! I pooped!”

  A younger, less gray Bobby joined Jax on camera and spun her around in circles, chanting with her about pooping while dipping her. When he lifted her back up, he began to tickle her and Jax let out the cutest giggle as she tried to escape from him. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until my body was smushed up against Jax’s.

  We both smiled at each other at the same time once again, and I couldn’t stop myself from pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “You were so cute,” I whispered.

  “Was or still am?” Jax whispered back.

  I stared at her for a long time, a mix of feelings swirling through my stomach. There was only one right answer, but speaking it out loud felt like crossing some line I shouldn’t be crossing. At least, not yet. Not before I was ready. I nodded my head, because that felt like the safe thing to do.

  Jax chuckled lightly enough that only I could hear it. “It wasn’t a yes or no question.”

  Her breath hit my ear and caused a chill to run down my spine. When I looked at Jax again, I couldn’t hold the words in anymore. “Now, you’re beautiful.”

  Jax stared at me silently, and I watched her throat move up and down as she swallowed hard. “S-so are you.”

  She didn’t sound as confident as usual, but that made her words come across even more sincerely. I could tell she really meant them. I felt it in my bones. I naturally started leaning closer to Jax, and she did the same. Our lips were a whisper away from each other when Bobby’s booming laughter jolted us apart.

  Shit. I totally forgot Jax’s parents were in the room with us.

  I was in such a haze that when I tried to search for them to figure out what they had seen, it was like I was looking through a fog. When I was finally able to focus on each of them, I saw that their eyes were glued to the large screen in front of them. Jax’s dad clapped his hands together as he continued to laugh at Little Jax.

  I settled back into the couch and took a deep breath. Damn, that was close.

  We spent the rest of the night watching home videos, some from holidays and some of performances Jax had apparently insisted on putting on for her parents. Just shy of two hours later, Jax’s parents announced they were going to bed and instructed us to get some sleep so we were ready to head to the slopes early.

  “Want a tour?” Jax asked as her parents headed up to their bedroom which was apparently on the third floor.

  “Sure.”

  Jax decided it made the most sense to start at the top and make our way down, so she first took me up to the third floor, which had her parents’ bedroom, a sitting room, two bathrooms, and a guest room. Jax told me this was the most boring floor of the house, so we didn’t spend much time there before heading to the second floor. Jax started by showing me the bathroom, guest room, and two offices, before leading me to her room.

 

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