Closing my eyes, I breathe him in, loving the way my face breaks into a huge smile just by being near him. He reminds me of home, of hope. I’ll miss his touch. I’ll miss everything about him.

Wiping a tear from my cheek he whispers, “None of that.”

I nod, but the tears keep flowing.

“What’s wrong?” he asks into my hair.

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t know how to say goodbye.” I start to weep silently.

He has a sad smile as he caresses my face. “This isn’t goodbye, Adalynn. I’ll aways be here. I’ll never leave you. Whenever you need, me I’m here.” He places his hand over my heart.

I cover his hand and mumble, “I know . . . it doesn’t make this any easier.” He sucks in a ragged breath. “I know this is what we both need . . . so you have to understand that I’m going to need distance. Jax . . . I can’t be around you for awhile. I need space . . . Or I won’t—”

“I know,” he says, regret clear in his voice.

The urge to kiss him is so strong that I force myself away from the warmth of his body and out of my bed. My body hates the distance that I’m putting between us. It’s for the best. Knowing that doesn’t make this any easier.

“Breakfast?” I ask, needing to do something, anything instead of being in the arms of the man I love, knowing that I can never have him.

After Jax nods, I flee to my bathroom to brush my teeth, but mainly needing a minute alone. Not a second after I flush the toilet, Jax walks in.

My face turns beet red. “Ever heard of a thing called privacy?”

Jax ignores me and grabs his toothbrush that I haven’t gotten around to throwing away. Once his toothbrush is in his mouth, he snags mine, squirts toothpaste on it, and hands it to me.

“Thanks.”

“Relax. You’ve thrown up on me. I’ve seen you pee before. At least this time you were sober.” Toothpaste drips down his chin. Without thinking I reach up and wipe it away with my thumb.

“You’ve never seen me pee and you didn’t now. I was already pulling my panties up,” I say once I’m finished brushing my teeth.

“Freshman year.”

My eyes are trained to his toothbrush. It doesn’t belong next to mine. It never did. Forcing the tears away, I snatch it and toss it into the trash. Jax nods as if he knows that it doesn’t belong here either.

It’s maddening that until yesterday, I haven’t cried in six years and now throwing out a pointless toothbrush makes the tears threaten to spill over. Because in some way you’re throwing out Jax. That little voice in my head reminds me bitterly as if I had a choice in the matter.

When I’m not on the verge of crying any longer, I murmur, “I’m confused.”

“I know.”

Following him out of my bathroom to my kitchen, I think back to freshman year of high school. That feels like a lifetime ago, which it is. So much has happened since then. I’m still coming up with a blank, though. I wasn’t the type of girl to party in high school. Even if I wanted to, nobody gave me alcohol because they were afraid of Logan or Jax beating them up. Those two were beyond annoyingly protective in high school. I can only remember two times in high school when I got drunk. Once freshman year and the other was the day before junior year.

“You’re such a liar. I only got drunk—”

“Twice,” Jax says while opening the fridge.

“How do you—”

“I was there for the first one. Heard about the second.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask after I set a pan on the stove and turn on the flame.

Jax backs our from the fridge, grabbing everything we will need to make breakfast, with a smile on his face. When he sees that I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about, his grin turns smug. “Oh, so you don’t remember I take it?”

“Cut the crap, Chandler.”

“Say please and I might tell you, Maxwell.”

I roll my eyes as I mumble, “Please.”

He lays pieces of bacon onto the hot pan. “Who was the tiny person with the brown hair on your team? Super loud, super—”

“Lexi,” I say, all traces of humor gone.

“That’s the one! Remember that ‘little’ sleepover you went to at her house and it turned into a party?”

Remembering it all too well, I bite out, “Yes.”

“Well, you may not have noticed, but Connor and I actually turned up at the party that night.”

“I know. I remember.”

“Huh? Oh well, I didn’t think you noticed since you were pretty hammered by the time we showed up. I let you finish—”

“You let me?” I ask, enraged.

“As I was saying . . .” He points the spatula at me with a grin that drops the second his eyes land on my not-so-amused face. “What’s wrong?” he asks, full of concern.

“Nothing,” I mumble underneath my breath.

God, I’m being ridiculous. This was high school. I have no idea why I’m letting something that happened over nine years ago still affect me.

“Ads.”

“I’m being stupid. Tell me the rest of the story since most of the night is a blur.”

Too bad I already had a play-by-play from my “dearest” friend Lexi the next day.

“Okay . . . Well since you were already smashed, I let you finish the drink you were working on, then Connor and I took turns switching your red solo cups with cups of water,” he says with a grin. “You never noticed.”

Bitterly I ask, “When does the peeing part come in?” I’m ready for this conversation to be over.

“I’ll tell you if you tell me what’s gotten your panties in a twist.” Jax holds his pinky finger up to me.

Knowing that he won’t stop until he gets his way, I pinky promise him. He returns to cooking breakfast.

“Excellent.” He smiles in victory. “Where was I?”

“You were just explaining that you and Connor liked to ruin my fun even back then.”

“Ah, that’s right. So eventually you tried to leave the party. So of course I followed you. You got to the mailbox before you fell on your face. You ‘tripped,’ your words not mine.” He turns his head towards me to give me a wink. “After helping you sit up, you grabbed your stomach and said you had to pee. By the looks of it, I knew you wouldn’t make it back to the house so I started to help you walk over to the bushes on the side of her yard . . .”

No! I thought that was a terrible nightmare, especially when Lexi told me what her and Jax did all night long.

“So you helped me pee in her bush?” I ask, mortified that I forgot. Apparently my mind knew how traumatizing that was so I repressed it.

“Not exactly . . .” Jax says with a chuckle, making me nervous.

“Jax!” I warn.

“After a few steps I knew we would never reach the bushes with you falling over yourself so I picked you up. I thought we would get there faster. I thought you could hold it. I was wrong . . .”

Jax laughs loudly it’s hard to process what he’s saying. Staring at him, I try to piece the puzzle back together. I don’t remember much after the mailbox. I remember a bush and my dress being held up by strong hands . . . Jax’s hands.

“Oh God! You held my dress up while I peed!”

“After . . .yes, though I didn’t think it mattered at that point.”

“What are you—”

Oh fuck. Please no!

“We didn’t make it to the bushes. You peed on me about three steps away from it. You managed to hold the rest in so I could help you pull your panties down and lift your dress up while you finished.”

“OH . . . MY . . . GOD . . .” I say through my hands. I refuse to lower my hands and look at him.

“Yup. So you can imagine why seeing you pee on a toilet doesn’t bother me . . . So I’ve had you pee on me and puke on me . . . Let’s not go for round . . .” his voice trails off.

There won’t be a round two, or three. After today we won’t hang out like we used to. After he leaves, the spell will be broken and reality will hit. We won’t have any more secret kisses, any inside jokes, he will be Logan’s friend. Once he leaves, I lose the love of my life.