CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
JAX
AUBREY WAS NORMALLY a creature of habit. It suited her upbringing. Less could go wrong when you understood the schedule, organized it thoroughly, and executed it perfectly. In a lot of ways, I admired that about her.
In high school, she stood her ground when friends pushed her to do something she didn’t want to. She’d never wavered, never did anything outside of her comfort zone.
I realized her routine was unshakeable because it protected her and her mother. Frank didn’t allow for mistakes. Had Aubrey deviated from her normal schedule, the inevitable most likely would have happened sooner.
Now, her day-to-day centered around her friends, her studies, and her health. I could count on her to show up to a tutoring session, completely prepared with her homework done. I knew she’d unfailingly be available to Jay, Vick, Katie, or fucking Roman if they needed her.
And running. Running was her thing. It kept her healthy and grounded.
I used that to my advantage when I called her. When she stepped out, didn’t look at me, and went right into a jog, I figured it was for the best.
We never talked much when we ran.
I never pushed her on it because, for some reason, it felt like our bodies synced up in the silence of a jog.
Today was no different.
She needed the exercise to burn off the anger toward me, and I just fucking needed her at that point.
The night before had been like taking a burning stake to my libido all on my own. Why I couldn’t take her in Roman’s place still made me livid with myself. The whole fucking point of us sleeping together was to shake each other from our systems. I’d led with that, wanted that. I just wasn’t sure I still believed that.
Because I couldn’t follow through with it.
When she told me that Roman had given us permission, I wanted to break her phone, tell her she could never text him again, and go find him to bust his face up like I should have done before in the hall. It didn’t matter that he probably wasn’t trying to goad me.
Didn’t he know that she was mine? Whether she actually was or wasn’t.
We owned one another. Our souls were burned together, welded and molded by so much molten emotion that no one—not him, not Jay, not even fucking Frank—could split us up. I knew, because I had tried to split that bond myself.
So lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t realize how much our bodies moved together until I found myself in a full-out run behind her to just keep up.
I heard her wheezing ahead of me and knew something was off. She was pushing herself too hard, like she was trying to escape.
Aubrey was a creature of habit. She didn’t veer off that course for anything or anyone.
Or so I’d thought.
I miscalculated.
I forgot to factor in her temper or how quickly she swerved when something provoked her well-built fortress of walls.
I grabbed her elbow and yanked her back.
“Whitfield, slow the fuck down or you’ll end up …”
I didn’t have to say ‘sick’ because she puked all over the goddamn place.
I crossed my arms over my chest and let her dry heave. The smell of alcohol was more than potent. “You drink enough last night?”
“Please, be quiet,” she said with her hands on her knees.
I scowled at her. She made me crazy. “We both know drinking that much never ends well.”
The second I said it, I realized what I’d insinuated.