Shift Happens (Providence Family Ties 2)

With that, she held her phone up and showed us a photo of the two of us asleep on the bed.

Jackson looked peaceful and content as he held my casted arm against his chest, whereas I was smiling and looked like I’d never found a comfier position in my life. In short, we looked like a couple in love.

“Send that to me, will you?” Jackson asked her, reeling off his number and smiling when his phone beeped seconds later. “Thanks.”

“Seen a lot of couples set to be married who looked in love, but never seen ones who look like they complete each other. You guys make my old heart beat again,” she said as she checked over whatever was still attached to me.

Her words were strange, though. Couples set to be married?

I’d just opened my mouth to explain we weren’t in love or getting married, maybe even to tell her some of the mean things he’d done to me as kids, but this time it was him pinching me, and the look he gave me had my mouth snapping shut again.

“Yeah, we’ve known each other since we were kids—” he started, but I cut him off.

“He was a total asshole as a kid, though, so we didn’t get along. I used having my period as an excuse eight times in three months, so I didn’t have to spend time with him.”

His eyes narrowed on me. “You did what?”

“Yup. After my dads left, I’d go out and meet up with people I wanted to hang around with.”

His look turned into a glare. “Even though you had period pains?”

“No,” I snorted. “I never had period pains. If my dads had paid attention, they’d have known I’d either just had it, or I wasn’t due to have it at all. They’d also realize that if I had my period that many times in such a short space of time, there was something seriously wrong with me.”

“You used your period as an excuse to avoid me?” he ground out.

“Of course. I told you already, you were a shithead when you were younger.”

Pulling up the chair beside the bed, the nurse sat down and smiled at us. “What changed? I love a romance story, and I’m dying to know what made you fall in love with him.”

Smiling wickedly at Jackson and ignoring the warning glare he shot me back, I told her the truth. With a bit of embellishment, obviously.

“Well, I went to college in Florida, to begin with, but these sorority girls decided to haze me to the point of ruining my life. They tried to make me drink chicken’s blood, and when I refused, they took it as an offense and diss to the sorority. They broke into my dorm room, put a scorpion in my backpack, put a pigs head and blood in my car in the heat—”

The nurse gasped and looked furious. “What the hell? Who does that?”

“I hadn’t needed to use the vehicle, so it was in there—in the sun—for roughly a week before I found it.”

Jackson had heard this part, I was sure, but he still shuddered and made a gagging noise.

“It got to the stage that I couldn’t even use my shampoo because they’d put stuff in them every day. My toothpaste was swapped for some sort of silicone shit that, if I hadn’t found out before I’d used it, would have had me in hospital with the chemicals in it.”

“That’s…” the nurse’s mouth open and closed. “That’s awful.”

“They even put chlorine in my mouthwash.” Her eyes flashed. “Neat chlorine. The next day, they put anti-freeze in it.”

“That could have killed you.”

Glancing at Jackson, I watched the muscles in his jaw pop out as he tensed it, then pulled me closer to him like he was trying to protect and comfort me.

I almost didn’t continue. But I had to.

“My dads got me transferred here and asked Jackson’s mom to get him to check in on me. They’re super protective, by the way.” The nurse nodded like she got this.

“Anyway, I took up self-defense classes after what went down. So when he came up behind me, I dropped and punched him in the balls.”

Instead of getting pissy with me, Jackson’s chest moved as he chuckled. “Damn near broke them, too.”

“And he asked you out after that?” she asked incredulously, looking between us like we were insane.

Admittedly, sanity wasn’t high on our list of traits that we owned proudly. If it were, I wouldn’t be lying in this bed, and he wouldn’t be lying next to me.

“No, my cat also stuck his claws in Jackson’s balls after it—”

The nurse’s eyes narrowed on us, and then she interrupted me. “Bullshit. Excuse my language and don’t tell my boss, but that’s bull shit.”

“No,” Jackson said over the top of my head. “It’s true. Her cat’s cross-eyed and freaky as fuck, but he definitely stuck his claws in my nuts.”