Finding Dandelion (Dearest #2) (21 page)

He looks to me, smirks, and shrugs. My cheeks burn, and if I could, I would burrow my head into a deep pit of sand.

When Hannah and Chloe leave, he saunters over and smiles. “Your shirt is inside out.” His grin widens. “And backwards.”

I look down to see the Old Navy tag.

#OMFG

How embarrassing! I can just add that to the rapidly growing list. Who cares about the list I made in August. This one is going to make Travis lose his shit. I think I’ll call it “101 Ways Dani Hart Can Die From Exposure to Jax Avery.” If I’m not careful, I’m going to end up a cautionary tale with a sign around my neck like a hobo.

I collapse on the couch, too mortified to say anything.

“Hey.” He sits next to me and tilts my chin up with his finger. “It’s pretty damn adorable. Besides, I just want to rip your clothes off again anyway.”

It only takes that one touch, and I want to stop thinking about how this could go wrong—so, so wrong—because I feel drawn to him like he’s my riptide in water that’s way too deep.

He clears his throat and his serious expression makes me sit up straighter. “What are you doing in two weeks? On the fourteenth?”

I shake my head. Haven’t a clue.

Oh. Is he asking me out on a date? Inside I do a happy dance, but I clamp my jaw to prevent a huge grin from spreading on my face.
Play it cool, Danielle!
“Not sure. Why? What did you have in mind?” Romance? Candlelight? Sweaty sex? God, yes!

He shrugs and spreads his hands on his thighs. “You know Daren is up for the Heisman, right?”

I study his face, the way his cheekbones slope down to those perfect lips. “Sure. Everyone in the state of Massachusetts knows.”

Jax smirks. “Okay, well, I was wondering if you’d like to come to a banquet with me. His parents are throwing this huge party to celebrate.”

Oh. Holy. Shit.

Chill. Chill.

“Yeah, I’d love to come.” I try to say it calmly, but it’s rushed, like I’m out of breath.

He grins, slightly crooked, like he’s almost embarrassed, and I wish I could pause my life and live in this moment. Jax Avery just asked me out, and I’m irrationally excited about it.

I lean over and kiss his cheek, and as I pull away, he grabs my arms, keeping me close, so close that the heat from his body radiates off him, warming me.

“I could get used to you, Dandelion,” he whispers, leaning down to brush his nose against mine in the kind of sweet gesture usually reserved for couples in love. Jesus. If this is part of his game, I’m lost, hook, line and sinker.

You should tell him. Tell him what happened on his birthday.

Swallowing, I take a deep breath, wanting to do the right thing.

He brushes his lips against mine before he pulls back. I’m filled with his clean scent, and all I can think about is how his lips feel like warm caramel when they’re pressed against my skin.

I smile, flushing under his stare, and he starts to lean in again when my mom’s ring tone, “We Can’t Stop” by Miley Cyrus, blasts from my phone.

The judgment on his face makes me frown. “Shut up. I like Miley. I don’t care if she enjoys licking hardware from Home Depot.”

He laughs and kisses me gently.

“Hold that thought.” I hold up a finger.
Damn these interruptions!

Jax smiles and heads into the kitchen while I take the call.

“Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

“Dani.” She sniffles. “Do you have some time to talk?”

The somberness in her voice is all it takes for my euphoria to come to a screeching halt. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, baby girl.”

The sound of her sudden sobs jolt me. Everything in my life stops. I don’t blink. I don’t take a breath. I don’t let my heart beat.

After a moment, she takes a shuddering breath. “It’s not good, honey.”

The last time she said that, she had cancer.

The last time she said that, she had both breasts removed.

The last time she said that, she almost died.

No.

No, no, no.

The silence that gapes between us feels like it might swallow me whole. I brace myself to hear what I already know. Tears well up in my eyes before she says the one thing I know will shatter my world.

“It’s back.” She cries softly into the phone. I clench my eyes shut, hoping this isn’t really happening. “I wanted to tell you when you came home for Thanksgiving, but then you had that accident. I thought maybe I could wait until Christmas, but…”

She trails off, but I know what she’s saying. She doesn’t think there’s much time.

There are no words, just a blackness that sucks me whole into the only place I’ve ever understood despair, and I sob into the phone.

She tells me she’s known for almost three months.

My mother has known all fall and hasn’t said a word.

I hiccup into the phone. “Why didn’t you say something? I would’ve come home. There’s that other treatment that one doctor thought—”

“No, honey. There’s nothing left.”

My world spins, forgetting its axis. Forgetting that my mom is a survivor. Forgetting that the little bit of fight I have in me comes from her strength. And now that’s gone. “Don’t say that. I thought you said you’d do whatever it took if it returned.”

She sighs, like the weight of this has been too much. “The operation wasn’t enough. It spread, and I don’t want to spend my last few months in a hospital. I don’t want to—”

“Stop talking like that! You’re the one who’s always telling me you’d beat it.”

I cover my face with one hand. My other one shakes as I try to keep the phone against my ear.

There’s only one thing to say now. “I’m coming home.”

“No.” Her response is immediate. “Finish the semester. We’ll see the doctor together over the holidays and figure out what to do then. Maybe I can come out to Boston in January so you can finish out your junior year.”

She’s talking about the end. She’s saying it’s close. So close that she wants to spend her last days here with me.

“Mom, I don’t want to stay. I need you. You’re all I have left. Please stop talking like this. Let me come home. I bet I can get a flight out this weekend.”

“Danielle, no. It was bad enough that you missed almost a month of school last year. I don’t want you to have to make up another semester’s worth of work just to miss a few weeks. It’s not that much time.”

Not that much time.

But when there’s nothing left, not that much time is all that matters.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

- Jax -

Halfway through assembling sandwiches, I hear the strangest sound that makes the hair on my arms stand on end.

It takes me a minute to realize what it is.

And then before I can blink, I’m in the living room, my heart hammering as I watch Dani sob into her hands.

The sound of her anguish grips me, and I kneel in front of her.

I don’t know what just went down, but it wasn’t good. When she was in the hospital, she told me her mom had cancer last spring, and now she’s sobbing on my couch. Fuck.

Her face is in her hands. As she breathes, she trembles. I brace myself on either side of her.

“Babe, you okay?”

She doesn’t move. I reach up and stroke her hair, and she starts crying again. I sit next to her and pull her into a hug. After several minutes, she pushes away, and when she looks at me, her eyes are distant.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

Do what? Let me hug her? Before the right response forms in my head, she says, “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Do you want some help? I could—”

“No.”

She doesn’t look at me as she grabs her crutches and hobbles toward my room.

This whole thing makes me feel like an asshole. There are guys who always know what to say in any situation. The sky could be on fire, the Earth sucked into a vortex, and Daren would have the perfect words to calm the masses. Me? I sulk. I argue with myself about what I should do. I get pissed off and feel helpless or kick shit in my way.

So what do I do now?

I give her space. I pace in my room. I watch the clock.

Back and forth I stalk, feeling like some kind of caged animal. Finally, I sit at my desk, just outside of the bathroom, so I can hear her if she needs help. The water starts to run, and all I can think about is how she slipped and almost fell yesterday. A few minutes later, when I hear the clatter in the bathroom, I don’t even think before I reach for the door.

Steam billows from the shower, and I call out, “Dani? Are you all right?”

All I hear are her muffled sobs.

I yank off my shirt as I cross the bathroom and then pull back the curtain slowly. My heart almost breaks when I see her huddled in the corner still wearing her bra and sweats, her shoulders shaking.

“Baby, I’m here. If you want me to go, tell me.”

I wait and she says nothing.

That’s all it takes, and I’m right behind her. I pull her into me, and she turns around, nestling against me like a little bird.

“I couldn’t get my pants off,” she whimpers, water pouring down around us.

“That’s okay. I have a dryer.” I grab her head in my hand and press her cheek to my chest. We stand there until her breathing is normal and the tears have stopped.

I kiss the top of her head. “Do you want to hold on to me while you get your clothes off? I’ll close my eyes.” It’ll take every goddamn muscle in my body to do that, but I will. I won’t violate her trust that way.

She looks up at me for several breaths, her green eyes soft, and she sniffles. “You don’t have to. Close your eyes, I mean.”

Christ.

Water trickles down her bare shoulders, and through the lace of her bra, her piercings are like a beacon calling to me. Her arms, which she had pulled between us, slowly wrap around my neck and pull me closer until our bodies are flush.
Don’t take advantage of her, asshole,
I yell at myself even though my dick feels like a raging beast against her taut stomach.

I have to clear my throat before I can speak. “Dandelion, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want. You’ve had a rough day and—”

Her voice is a whisper. “I want you to help me forget, Jax. Just for tonight.” Her brow furrows, like she’s somehow worried I won’t want her for more than that.

I run my thumb over her jaw. “Babe, you know this is different for me, right?” I take a deep breath to get the balls to finish my thought, and I feel like I’m hovering over a canyon when I say the next words. “I can’t explain why this means more, but it does, and I want to spend time with—”

She doesn’t let me explain, her hands drawing my mouth down to hers.

My tongue gently presses against the seam of her lips, and she opens her mouth. We press together, heat and need somehow overshadowing her pain.

Our bodies are wet, slick as water rains down on us. She’s not wearing her brace, so I have to be careful with her.

“Does your knee hurt?” I whisper against her mouth.

“Only if I put pressure on it, not if I move it a little.” That’s all I need to know before I press her back into the tile. Taking her hands, I pin her wrists above her head as I make a slow descent down her body.

Everything about this woman is perfect. Her smooth skin. Her beautiful breasts. Her tight, flat stomach. I kiss my way down her neck and lick across her clavicle. Her head drops to the side as she moans. Unsnapping her bra with one hand, I grab one lush mound in my hand and wrap my mouth over the other, yanking gently on the hoop.

“God, Jax.”

The pounding of my heart increases when she says my name like I’m her last breath.

I lave her breast as she arches into me, my hand dipping to hold her hip steady. I want to lift her up, wrap her legs around my waist and pound her into the wall until she screams my name, but I know I can’t be rough with her in this condition.

The bruises marring her skin have turned a darker purple in some places, a greenish yellow in others. I kiss down her hip, wishing I could make them disappear.

When I reach her sweatpants, I look up at her, releasing her hands. If she wants me to stop, I want her to feel she can say it, but when I stare at her, I don’t see hesitation. Her eyes are glazed and dilated but wanting. She tangles her fingers through my hair and nods yes.

My thumbs press tighter into her skin as I pull down her pants to reveal a matching pair of black lace boy shorts. I let her sweats sag around her knees as my hands wrap around her ass and squeeze, my dick somehow hardening more. I don’t remember ever wanting a girl this much, a terrifying thought that makes me close my eyes and press my head against her stomach.