For years, I hadn’t seen any vulnerability like this in Jax, and I didn’t know how to take it.
I knew he didn’t want me to know what all his visits were about. I assumed he was nervous that I’d figure out something he’d kept a secret all this time. I assumed a lot at the moment and it started to make this trip about finding answers about Jax and my father, not about my mother and me.
The car ride was more of the same. I knew the protocol Jax took. He entered a black SUV, now with me. He took precautions to make sure we weren’t seen as I am sure he had in the past and we started the long drive there, both of us in the back with a driver behind a partition.
I paid attention to none of it. I worked on stacking block after block of my defensive wall up in my mind. Each block had some damn memory attached to it, a slap on my mother’s face, a bruising of an arm, a locking of a door.
Then, the other blocks came for them both. The calls Jax ignored, the events we’d been at but he’d only politely addressed my presence before leaving, the secrets they kept together. The wall got taller and taller and stronger and stronger.
Jax moved his hand to my thigh but instead of it bringing me any comfort, I jerked from his touch.
His eyes searched mine for a minute but he left his hand there. Maybe he was baiting me to push it away but I saw the look he had and knew I wouldn’t win that battle.
I sighed and tried to relax. He sighed too, like the damn visit was causing him anxiety. Like he didn’t do this every couple of months.
Maybe it was though. Maybe they had enough secrets to hide from me that he didn’t want me there.
Maybe this was a test.
The drive could have taken a year but it felt like no time at all had passed. When we pulled up, the car idled outside the prison’s gate.
Like every time before, the paparazzi had found him. Had found us. They were buzzing at the gate like they knew we would be there any minute. They rushed the vehicle as our driver waited to be ushered through.
Flash after flash went off. I heard them yelling questions, trying to provoke an answer out of Jax and me.
Jax’s posture didn’t change. He kept his eyes forward and didn’t address any of them at all. “They can’t see us in here. The windows are tinted. Ignore them.”
I wanted to growl that ignoring them was impossible.
Who had tipped them off? My paranoia set in and had me thinking that maybe this was all a set up. Maybe my father and Jax worked to set up the paparazzi together. The idea felt ludicrous and completely logical at the same time. My mind was a tornado of emotion, yet I sat there completely still beside the statue of a man next to me.
Maybe we’d both been programmed to deal with trauma and unorthodox situations in this way. Maybe, we were just that screwed up.
As our SUV rolled slowly through the crowd of paparazzi and entered the prison grounds, I realized no panic had overwhelmed me with the cameras flashing. I’d focused on the other problems, and again was able to overcome that illogical fear I used to have.
Now though, my breaths were shorter. My palms started to sweat and my heart beat picked up. As the vehicle pulled to a stop, I looked over at Jax and met his cool gaze. “You haven’t said a word to me about what I should and shouldn’t say to him.”
“He’s your father, Whitfield. You can say whatever you want.” His tone was soft.
“All these years, and now you’re both okay with it?” I accused.
He looked off toward the prison and his hand bunched into a fist before he moved away from me to slide out of the SUV.
Flashes went off from afar as he rounded the vehicle and came to open my door. He ducked his head and watched me.
His stare gave me options. He talked to me through that damn stare, saying I didn’t have to do this but he was there for me if I wanted to. Somehow, he let me know he was the fucking rock I had needed all these years and that he would be for a long time after this.
His commitment walloped me like a wrecking ball. I felt how much I wanted him as my rock. I felt my weakness to him, and I felt myself retracting and withdrawing from the whole damn idea of coming here in the first place.
I didn’t want to know what they talked about. I just wanted to love him.
I didn’t want what we had to be ruined by their relationship. I wanted to ignore it so we could stay this exact way.
I wanted him to stop whatever the hell they were doing. I wanted us to forget it ever happened.
I wanted a damn happily ever after, and I should have known I couldn’t run from the biggest problem to get it.
I did just that though.