Inside of You (Jessa & Paxton #2) (21 page)

“Do you have my phone?”

I pull it out of my back pocket and hand it over. She palms it then re-crosses her arms over her stomach.

“What’s he doing here?”

“He came to pick me up, to bring me back to Chicago.”

“Did you tell him you no longer need his services?” I
ask thorough clenched teeth.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, but even if I’m leaving that city I need to get my stuff out of
Vi’s place. So no, I didn’t tell him I don’t need his services.”

I take a step towards her, trying to keep in mind the things Jessa has seen. “If you’re going back there, I’m taking you. And if you decide you’re coming back here, I’ll bring you back. I go where you go.”

Dylan clears his throat.

“I think it will be better if I ride with him. I
can’t think right now. I can’t think clearly when I’m around you and then the second I step away from you everything is so obvious, the truth is so clear. I just… I need to think, Pax.”

I step closer to her and she tries to step
away but I reach out and snag her around her waist. “I saw that shit on your phone, Jessa. It’s not real. None of that bullshit that she put on there is real.”

Jes
sa’s eyes go wide before they pinch shut. She tries to push out of my arms, but I’m not letting her go. “Paxton, please. I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to hear your lies anymore. You need to let me go.”

I grab her chin and bring her eyes to mine. “It’s not real. That was never us.”

Jessa’s jaw goes tense under my hand. “How stupid do you think I am,” she whispers. “Take your hands off me.”

“I’m not letting you leave with him.”

“It’s not up to you,” she says slapping at my arm. I release her face but not her body.

“Don’t be an asshole, Paxton. She told you to let her go. Her bag
’s packed, we’re ready to roll so take your hand off her – she’s leaving with me.”

I
breathe in and out of my nose, fighting to keep my focus on Jessa and attempting to ignore him. I shift my eyes to him and the keys he’s holding. I rip them out of his hand and let Jessa go so I can head to his trunk. I get it open and get her suitcase out before going back for her.

“Paxton, don’t,” Jessa tells me with pain in her eyes. “Don’t do this.”

“I told you, beso, you’re not getting rid of me. I’ll wait for you. I don’t care where, but you’re not going anywhere with him.” I toss the keys at Dylan, tell him to have a safe trip, then I grab a hold of Jessa’s hand and drag her to my car.

I manage to ignore her protests as I throw her suitcase in my backseat and get her into the car. I
flip Dylan off then get in myself and start driving so that she can’t decide to jump out on me. “So back to Chicago? Are you sure? ‘Cause I’m not letting you live anywhere but with me, in our room.” I look over at Jessa, prepared to go at it with her for the next six hours if that’s what I have to do, but she doesn’t look like she’s gearing up to fight with me. She’s got her head leaned back against the headrest and her eyes are staring out the side window. Her face is completely blank – dead. The fight leaves me, the adrenaline flows out of me and I just want to take her hurt away but I don’t know if that’s possible. There is nothing I can do to help her forget all of that shit she saw. “Why didn’t you tell me about those pictures? Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

“What’s the point, Paxton? They
already told me everything I needed to know,” she tells me with no emotion in her voice.

“Which is?”

“All the shit I’ve already told you, Paxton. I’m so tired of talking about it.”

I want to tell her, again, that I never loved Stella, but I don’t know if I can, not after what I saw. A
fter Emily left me, I flipped through as many of those photos as I could. I couldn’t help but see what Jessa would have, rather than the truth. “When Stella got that tattoo I didn’t even know about it. I wasn’t with her. It never occurred to me that she did it as some sort of extension of my own. I never saw any of those pictures. I had no clue she was doing that.”

“I believe you, Paxton. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Every picture she put on there was just like the tattoo one – staged, one-sided, skewed, a lie.”

Jessa lets out a disbelieving huff of
breath and I know I sound like I’m making excuses. Like I’m lying to her, trying to downplay what Stella and I had. “You look at those pictures and you see two people who are happy – in love. And that’s all you see. You don’t see pictures of me sleeping on the couch. You don’t see us with the multiple partners we both had when we were with each other. You don’t see us living separate lives in that apartment which is how it was most of the time. You don’t see her screaming at me, trying to fight with me, which she did – all the time. You don’t see the truth. All you see are isolated moments when things were okay. But hell, Jessa, I don’t even remember that shit – I don’t know who those people in those photos are. I don’t know who I am when I’m fucked up on drugs like I was in most of those pictures. Those pictures aren’t of me and they aren’t of who we were.”

“Really, Paxton.” She’s angry, but at
least she’s talking. “All nine hundred pictures were lies? Nine hundred staged moments? Nine hundred pictures of you fucked up and not realizing that your mouth and hands are all over her? Fuck off.”

“You think if Dylan carried a camera with him for
the year you two were together he couldn’t pull off nine hundred pictures of you with your hands and mouth on him, huh? You think he couldn’t have attached fucked up words to those pictures and made it seem like you guys were deliriously in love? You think he couldn’t have taken pictures of you naked, in his bed, smiling? Hell, I could have taken the fucking pictures for him because I watched it. I got to see with my own fucking eyes- his hands and lips on you, his fingers running through your hair, your lips and hands on him, you looking at him like you were gonna fuck him all night long. I get it Jess, I get how bad it hurts to see the person that you love be in love with someone else. But the things is Jessa, I understand that it’s all a matter of perception. I get that you never really loved him and that there is no way you could have ever had with him what you have with me. So I can forget about it. I know he doesn’t matter to you and therefore he doesn’t have to matter to me. But you… you let that girl into your head. You let her create something that never existed and you are letting her take me from you and it’s fucked up.”

Jessa turns her head to me now, her turquoise eyes looking like little girl eyes. Looking for the truth,
trying to figure out if she can trust. Looking for guidance. Begging for help. “You might be right, Paxton. I don’t know. But the fact is that this week has changed me. It’s not just the pictures. It’s the way you lived without me. It’s the detachment from my days spent not talking to you. It’s how easily you changed into someone else. It’s Emily and Natalie and their totally normal, functional relationships. It’s being back in that house with my mom and Dean. The fact that I so easily dropped out of my classes and the fact that I really don’t give a shit about going back because I can’t see my future. It’s the words my mom shouted at me through her tears. It’s the memories of my life spent in that house and the reminders of why I was the way I was before you. It’s just too much, Paxton. Everything is too much right now. I just need to breath.”

I reach out and run my fingers down her face. “I know, beso. It’s a lot. I want to let you
breathe… I do. But I can’t be separated from you again. You’re going to have to find a way to breath with me. I can sit here silently. I can keep my mouth off you. I can do anything you ask me to, but I can’t leave you. I can’t be away from you anymore. Things get too fucked up when we’re apart.”

Jessa wraps her hand around the one I have laying on her cheek. “Okay,” she agrees and my heart starts beating again. She takes her hand from
mine and turns her body away from me. She props her bare feet up on the dash. I look at her long, toned legs and the fact is I want them wrapped around me. I want her close to me. But I know that’s not who we are right now. It’s not what she needs. If she needs me to take a step back and be her friend again, I’m willing to do that for now. As long as she doesn’t push me out of her life I can do whatever she asks me to.

I head out of town and south on 61
. I feel a little dread that we are leaving that peaceful little town and heading back to the city. We have two shows at the end of the week and the thought alone exhausts me. I love being in my bed if Jessa is there with me, but the city and the rooms that we are always in, the people we are always surrounded by presses down on me and I’m already missing the wide open spaces and clean air that is still surrounding me. “Are you sure you want to go back to the city, Jess?”

“I don’t really care where I am right now. It
doesn’t really matter.”

“What are you going to do about your classes?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ll stick with my plan – everything just feels like too much at the moment.”

“What are we going back for then?”

“Where else am I gonna go? I can’t stay there in that town right now. I don’t want to be in River Bluff right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Pax… it’s just too much, and… I don’t want to get stuck there. I don’t want to get comfortable there.”

“I would be with you.”

Her eyes turn to me then. “What are you saying? You seriously want to stay there?”

“Maybe for a little while.”

“You have shows this week. You have to go back to Chicago.”

“I have plenty of money in the bank now. I don’t have to play. My lif
e is no longer depending on it.”

“I don’t want to stay here, you don’t want to go there… maybe we should just drive. Just stay in this car and keep driving,” she
says quietly and I think she’s being facetious, but the idea of a road trip – of the two of us and nothing else – sounds perfect.

“What direction do you want to head?”

“Wherever,” she whispers, closing her eyes.

I look at her
peaceful face and I smile. Me and her, in this car, no direction, no anything but us.
Hell, yes.
That’s exactly what we’re doing.

I wake up to the sight of Paxton driving a car and I’m completely disoriented for a moment. This day has been such a confusing mess, everything seems a little blurry. But, yep, it’s all coming back to me now. When I went to Natalie’s this morning to get my head together I was ready to break down and hand myself over to Paxton, but by the time I left I had made the decision to head back to Chicago with Dylan. With my head clear, and my space free of Paxton, a picture of what my life had turned into over the past week became obvious. The picture didn’t give me any answers necessarily, but it made it clear that I couldn’t stay in River Bluff because if Paxton left me there, or for sure if he stayed there with me, there was a good chance I would never leave. I had to get out.

That’s all I really knew. And I knew I still needed time, away from Paxton, to try to sort through all of my issues and to gain some kind of
perspective.
Are Paxton’s feeling for me exclusive? Does he love Stella? Am I just like my mom? Do I belong in River Bluff? Do I deserve to have a future as something more than a small town waitress? Do I even really give a shit about fashion or college or a career? Is it even possible for a man to really love only one woman?
I don’t know. But staying in that town, living in my past, wasn’t assisting the necessary process of clearing my head. Being overcome by Paxton’s presence wasn’t helping either.

But as soon as Paxton was within two
feet of me I basically gave into my desire to be near him and forgot about everything else, like I always do. So here I am. In his car. Heading back to Chicago. With him. And what are the chances that once I’m there, in our bed with him, that I will ever find the strength to leave him… probably zero. Because just this – staring at his profile, looking at the way the long fingers on his left hand hold loosely to the steering wheel and the way his right hand is reached over the seat, the tips of his fingers touching my hand – is more than I can resist.

He knows about Stella’s account. And the
exact reason why I didn’t bring it up to him has now happened – he told me his side of the story and also pointed out the fact that if he wanted to, Dylan could have done the same thing. I instantly believed him. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want to believe him. I wanted Stella to be right, which I realize, is fucked up. I sit up in my seat, rubbing my stiff neck and stretching out my legs.

“Holy shit, you’re awake,” Pax says
. “You seriously didn’t sleep last night, huh?”

“No. Not at all.” All I did last night was try to find a way to fall out of love with Pax. A completely
wasted night that got me absolutely nowhere. “What time is it?” I ask him, looking at the dark sky, thinking we must be getting close to home.

Paxton grabs my phone, which I threw on the dash,
and turns it on. “Eight seventeen,” he tells me, throwing it back down and resting his hand near me, but not on me.

“Shouldn’t we be in Chicago by now? We left at what…one?”

Paxton laughs. “What are you talking about, kid? We’re not going back to Chicago.”

My eyes snap to his. “What the hell are
you
talking about? Where are we?”

“We’re nowhere. We’re going nowhere.”

“Jesus, Pax. I wasn’t serious. We can’t just… drive around. Seriously, where the hell are we?”

“Seriously… I don’t fucking know.
Somewhere in South Dakota. And yeah, we can just drive around. That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re gonna drive around so you can breathe. Are you hungry?”

“
Oh my god. You’re crazy,” I tell him, but inside I feel a huge sense of relief. Like I might be able to breathe. On the road with nowhere to go, nothing to worry about at the moment. Forced to be with Pax – having no choice in the matter, no decision to be made. “Yeah. I’m hungry.”

“
It’s desolate around here. I haven’t seen an exit with food for about two hours. Might have to jump out and kill a cow.”

“With what? Your guitar pick?”

“With my bare hands, beso. I’m a man. That’s how we do,” he says, reaching his arm out and pulling me into his side. I inhale his sent and look out at the dark sky littered with stars. If we could stay in the car forever, everything could maybe be perfect.

“Please. You’re a city boy. Your wilderness survival skills are nonexistent. And I’m pretty sure you can’t charm a cow to death.”

“I guess you’ll never find out ‘cause that looks like city lights up ahead.”

“I doubt it’s a city, but it might be a gas station.”

“I’ll buy you all the beef jerky you want, beso.”

“God, I love you,” I tell him
facetiously.

“I love you too,” he tells me in all seriousness. 

I sit up out of his arm, not sure if I’m ready to climb right back into the comfort of us.

“I told you, Jessa, I can sit he
re silently, I can keep my mouth off you. If you want to go back to the friend thing, I’m totally cool with that. But our hands wrapped up together, my arm wrapped around you… that’s been us since day one, so don’t wig out about it, please. I don’t not want to be able to feel you in my arms. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“I
have to find my shoes, Pax,” I tell him, propping myself on my knees and reaching my arms to the backseat where my suitcase is. “Don’t wig out about it, please.”

“You think I don’t know every thought that runs through your head, beso, but I do so there’s no point lying to me.” I unzip my suitcase and don’t
comment because we both know it’s the truth. “Just like you know every thought that runs through my head. Like right now, with your body stretched over the seat, your dress riding up to your ass, knowing you forgot to put your underwear on when you left the house… you know exactly what I’m thinking about.” I do know what he’s thinking about. He didn’t need to tell me. I can feel his eyes on me.

“Yea
h, I do,” I admit, trying to ignore the fact that my arms are covered in goose bumps from the chills his words sent through me. “Can you turn on the light? I can’t see shit.” He flips it on and I manage to pull out my Vans and wonder if I should try to change out of my dress, or at least try to find a bra and underwear. “Shit,” I mutter, pushing myself further into the backseat. I found the panties, but there is no bra in sight.

“I’m not telling you what to do, kid, but if you come across a bra or a sweatshirt can you p
ut them on for me? You can see every inch of your tits through that dress you got on.”

I
’m already turning around with Paxton’s hoodie in my hand. “Pax, I love you, I really do,” I tell him, reaching down to slip my panties on. “And I’m beyond confused as far as you and I go. But don’t be stupid and try to pretend that no matter what we are, there is any version of us where I don’t want your hands on me and your mouth in mine. So you are going to have to be the strong one. You can’t talk about my tits and the fact that you could have easily ran your fingers over me when you know I’m already aching for you.” I tell him dead seriously. I know, and he knows, that in order for me to gain any kind of clarity right now I need to be with him like we used to be as friends, without the overwhelming power of our physical relationship. I’m not strong enough. I’m counting on the fact that, for me, he will be.

“Yea
h, beso. I’ll give you what you need and not what you want. But help me out and cover up when you can.”

“Yea
h, I can do that,” I sigh, zipping up my hoddie and pulling the hem of my dress down as far as it will go.

Paxton pulls off the highway
and heads over to the gas station.

“Looks like Mo not only owns a gas station but a motel too,” Pax says, looking at the letters hanging off the front of the gas station. He’s right, it looks like there’s a crappy motel attached to it.

“Must be our lucky night,” I mutter.

Paxton pulls up to a pump and gets out of the car. I get out too and start to head to Mo’s in search of a bathroom.

“Beso,” Pax calls from the pump.

“Yea
h?” I pause to look at him.

“You need to wait for me.”

I roll my eyes at him. “I’m a big girl. I’ll be just fine.”

“Please. Just wait for me.”

“Fine,” I mutter, heading back to the car to lean against the door.

He finishes fueling up the
n comes and takes my hand so he can escort me across the parking lot. “I don’t know how I ever managed to do anything before I met you. I mean, how does a girl even walk into a gas station without the assistance of a big, strong man?” I ask him, batting my eyelashes as he opens the door for me.

We step in
and the first thing I see is a guy at the magazine rack, who looks like a serial killer, flipping through a Playboy, which he pauses from to run his eyes up and down my body. Paxton laughs under his breath and steers me in the other direction. “You think you don’t need me, beso, but you do.”

I flare my
nostrils but don’t comment as Paxton brings me to the back corner where the bathroom is. I didn’t tell him I was about to pee my pants but I swear, sometimes I think he can read my mind.

When I finish up I go to open the door, but it won’t budge. “Pax, are you blocking th
e door?” It opens then and I step out, shaking my head at him.

“Don’t shake your head at me. It’s like a creeper convention in this place.”

I look around and Paxton is right, the place is littered with stray men who look like they’ve been living in the woods. “What the hell? Mo’s got some shady friends.”

“We ain’t
spending the night here. That’s for damn sure,” he tells me, dragging me over to the soda station where he grabs a gigantic cup and starts filling it with ice, never letting go of my hand. “What do you want, beso?”

“I don’t know. I kind of lost my appetite,” I tell him.

He sets his giant cup of Coke on the counter so he can grab a couple of wrinkled up hot dogs from the rolling heater. I take my hand from his and he lets me, but keeps his eyes on me as he gets his hotdogs in their buns. “You want one?”

“Hell, no. Are you seriously going to eat that shit?”

“Gas station hot dogs are off the hook,” he tells me, piling the condiments on.

“That rank mea
t is gonna be good for our friendship. I never want your mouth on me again,” I tell him with a smile.

He takes a big bite. “Umm,
so fucking good,” he garbles before grabbing a hold of me and putting his lips on mine, trying to work his way into my mouth.

“Ugh,” I moan, pushing him off of me. “You are so gross,” I say, smiling up at his goofy ass.

Paxton makes his way around the gas station grabbing enough food to last a week. I grab a giant bottle of water
some Sweet Tarts and an apple, not willing to take a chance on the saran wrapped sandwiches, which is the only real food in this place outside of the hot dogs. He pays then brings me back to the car. He starts the engine but only drives as far as the dark corner of the parking lot where he parks so he can fill his face.

“I’ve never been to South Dakota,” Pax says, looking out the window. “All these crazy places in the world where no one lives. So many people packed into places like Chicago and Venice…why not here? I mean look at that sky.”

“I never pe
gged you for a country boy but the way I had to practically beg you to leave River Bluff and the fact that you’re lusting over these grasslands… seems like you’re ready to drop off the grid.”

“I could do that. If you would come with me. We could build ourselves a
little yurt out in the middle of nowhere. Live off berries. Ditch the clothes.”

I take a bite of my apple and shake my head.
“I’ve spent my whole life in the middle of nowhere. I’m over it. You, on the other hand only know densely populated. Everyone always wants what they haven’t already had,” I tell him, my mind not on the country but on him and what he might want some day.

“I know what you’re thinking, kid, and you’re wrong.”

“You seriously are some kind of mind reader,” I tell him with a smile on my face that I can’t keep hidden.

“You are just s
o predictable, beso. That’s all,” he tells me. “What are the things that you want that you’ve never had?”

I close my eyes and
breathe in the night air that is coming through my open window. I don’t know that I have an answer to that question. The only thing I want is Paxton and he’s willing to give himself to me so the answer should be nothing, but I know that’s not right. “I don’t know,” I tell him, thinking about it. “I want you. Just to be with you. To accept every second I have with you for what it is – another second of you.”

“And why can’t you have that?”
he asks, turning to look at me.

“Because my mind is too cluttered. Because I can’t shove out all the thoughts and people that have nothing to do with you.”

“Right. Maybe my idea ain’t so bad after all. You, me, the wilderness – nothing else.”

“I’m still me, no matter what.”