Page 76 of Puck Tease
He sighed, a long, put-upon sound. He reached for the phone, his thumb pressing the power button.
It exploded.
A cacophony of dings, buzzes, and chimes erupted, rattling the quiet room. The screen lit up, hundreds of notificationsflooding it: texts, missed calls, social media alerts scrolling endlessly.
Jax scrolled through them with a flat, unimpressed expression. His gaze remained detached, his thumb moving slowly.
"Mom says congrats," he muttered, reading from the screen. "Dad says I should have passed more in the first period. Typical."
He scrolled some more, a faint frown creasing his brow.
"Tyler says the hotel bar bill is five grand and he's putting it on my card."
"You should tell him no," I suggested, imagining the damage Tyler could do.
"I'll pay it. We won." He shrugged, dismissing the sum.
His thumb paused, hovering over a message.
"Here it is," he said, his voice flat. "The video clip."
"What video?"
"From the ice. When I pulled you out of the stands."
He tapped the screen. The phone flipped, and he held it so I could see.
It was a clip from ESPN. The headline blared:SPARTAN CAPTAIN CELEBRATES WITH MYSTERY PARTNER.
I watched the tiny screen, a distant memory playing out. Jax, a blur of red and white, skating over. The sharp, violent slam of his stick against the glass. His hand reaching, dragging me onto the ice. Then, the kiss, raw and public, in front of the world.
"God," I whispered, a shiver running through me. The guy on the screen, my past self, looked pale, his eyes wide with shock, his mouth a stunned O. "I look terrified."
"You look mine," Jax corrected, his voice a low growl, his eyes never leaving the screen.
He tossed the phone onto the mattress, the dings and buzzes still emanating from it.
"The internet is losing its mind," he said, a faint, almost amused smirk touching his lips. "Twitter is trending. #CaptainCarter. #SpartanKiss."
"Are you worried?" I asked, my gaze still fixed on the phone. "About the draft?"
Jax leaned back against the plush headboard, stretching his long legs out, his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
"Six months ago? Yeah. I would have been terrified. My chest would have felt like a vice, my palms slick with sweat. I would have buried this so deep no one would ever find it, wiped it from existence."
He looked at me, his eyes locking with mine. A hard conviction settled in their blue depths.
"But now? Fuck 'em. If a team doesn't want me because I'm in love with my roommate, I don't want to play for them."
He reached out, his large hand wrapping around my ankle, pulling me gently down the bed toward him.
"Besides," he added, a wicked glint sparking in his eyes, "My stats speak for themselves. I put up numbers. I win games. And now they knowhowI do it."
"How?" I prompted, a smile tugging at my lips.
"By having a very obedient, very stress-relieving secret weapon."
He pulled me closer, closer still, until I was nestled between his powerful legs.
