No help from her. At all, as she chuckled off with her stuff. I watched her toss her garbage away before taking a breath, tucking back my hair, then answering my phone.
“Bummer.”
I frowned. “What?”
A deep sigh into the phone. “I was hoping for your voicemail.”
“Why?”
He chuckled. “Because I only kinda sorta actually needed to talk to you.”
Trying to figure out if I should smile or not, I rubbed my neck. “Kinda sorta?”
Another sigh. “Yeah. I wanted your opinion on the text. Should have waited for your opinion on the text. But… I called you.”
I chewed my lip a little. “Why?”
“Fuck, I don’t know, Girl Scout. I wanted to talk to you. Shit. I’m regretting it now.”
“Don’t. Don’t. I’m…” Oh my God. “I’m happy you called. I wanted to talk to you too.”
“You do? You are?” True and honest to God shock in his voice. “About what?”
“I don’t know, Brett,” I joked, using his alias. “Shit. I just wanted to talk to you.”
It sounded as funny coming out of my mouth as I was sure it was to him on his end. He laughed, the deep timber fading into the line. “All right. Shit.”
“Shit.” Okay, now I really couldn’t help my smile.
Are we really doing this right now?
Because we were. He called me because he wanted to talk to me, and I answered because I wanted to talk to him.
I mean, who were we right now?
Obviously, a pack of crazy folks. I messed with my hair, still too long when my fingers got caught. I wore it down because, after I finally left Jax’s bed, I got in the shower, then headed right off toward the coffeehouse. Jax had left prior to that. He’d decided to take his own shower at his new place since he wanted to get his stuff over there. Still, before he’d left, he wasn’t shy about telling me we’d rain check a shower together in the immediate future.
Good God. Yes, my stepbrother and I were a couple of crazy folks.
Honestly, I didn’t know what my mom or adoptive father would feel about me taking up any sort of anything with him. But for all I knew, this wasn’t anything. Jaxen was so hot and cold.
“And you know it’s not Brett,” he said into the line. “Jax is fine. That’s what everyone else calls me. My friends.”
“What about Jaxen then?”
“My mothers… when they’re mad at me.”
“Jaxen it is then.” I snickered. “I don’t want to call you what everyone else calls you.”
A growl in his voice. “I guess you can have that one, Girl Scout.”
He said this, but he didn’t sound angry. If anything, there was laughter in his voice.
And he called me Girl Scout again.
Really, that should get under my skin, but I was beyond caring that not only did it not bother me, but played with me in a way that danced in my tummy.
I drew invisible circles within the grain of the coffee table. “So what did you really want to talk to me about? Those blazers or…”