Page 86 of Furious
JAX
“Areyousureyou’reup for Mason’s exhibition tonight?” Tristan asked as they drove into town. “You only saw the pain specialist a few hours ago.”
“Really, I’m good.” Jax patted his thigh. “He didn’t do any manipulation. He barely looked at my test results!”
As frustrated as Jax was, he had to admit that Tristan made this new attempt at healing a hundred times easier, and it extended far past that. Living with someone whotrulycared for him, who gave him doses of oxytocin in various ways, had Jax feeling slightly less pain on a regular basis. In a way, love was a hell of a drug.
“But he did say that your scans looked good.” Tristan stopped at an intersection, waiting patiently as a small boy crossed the street with his mom. The boy waved, and Tristan smiled brightly, waving back.
Jax’s heart twisted in the sweetest way. Yeah, Tristan definitely needed to be a dad again.
Jax still couldn’t believe that he’d so casually brought up marriage and kids, but in a way, he’d already known the answers and had only needed Tristan to confirm them. Until recently, Jax had never thought about having a child, but now that he’d slowed down and worked on himself, he’d discovered that hedidwant kids, especially with Tristan.
“I already knew that.” Jax sighed as the car moved again.
“Not officially. And we can leave if you’re hurting too much.”
“I used to do twelve-hour shifts in worse pain than this,” Jax informed him with a raised eyebrow, but Tristan frowned in concern.
“Well, you don’t have to do that anymore.”
The way he said it, with the implication that he’d be by Jax’s side forever, had Jax falling even harder. He’d always thought there was a limit to love, but Tristan was proving that wrong, intensifying their connection every day, and sometimes Jax felt like his heart was going to burst with happiness.
Thankfully, the gallery wasn’t far, and they were just about to walk through the door when two men deep in conversation almost bumped into them. Continuously on guard for other people’s rudeness, Jax moved out of the way and Tristan helped, putting himself between them.
“Please watch where you’re going,” Tristan said firmly, and both men stopped, their eyes wide.
“Oh shit, I’m sorry, we didn’t see you,” the first man quickly moved back, dragging his friend away, who mumbled an apology.
But it wasn’t Tristan’s reaction that surprised Jax the most, it was the fact that Jax didn’t want to unleash on them.
Tristan had been right on the money when he’d said that Jax had been grieving his old life, and it had combined with his frustrations and pain to make him a ticking time bomb, but Jax’s therapist had experience in treating people with chronic pain. Sometimes Jax ended up crying or venting on Amir’s couch for the entire hour; however, the exercises became a little easier with each session, slowly pushing the beast into hibernation. Right now, its voice was no more than a squeak.
And Jax hadn’t been the only one making progress. Over the last couple of months, Tristan had been merging his calm people-pleasing with Jax’s confrontational personality, creating a steel politeness that had Jax constantly flabbergasted and occasionally hard.
As the men vanished into the gallery, Jax stood on his toes, giving Tristan a thorough kiss.
“What was that for?” Tristan asked, touching his lips in a daze.
“You know what it’s for,” Jax winked, enjoying Tristan’s loopy smile as they went inside, heading toward Mason’s photos.
“Congratulations, Mason!” Tristan exclaimed as Rain immediately hugged him, and he looked down, patting Rain’s head. “Hi, kid.”
Now that Jax was finally close to the portraits, he ran his eyes over the collection. Last time, it had been all Rain, but now Mason displayed anarray of people, including a very intimidating woman who was obviously a lawyer.
“These are incredible!” Jax stated, studying a photo of Rain looking out a window, his eyes shining, the hues of his emotions plain to see.
“Thank you.” Mason had warmed up to Jax since the brunch, maybe because they were almost in-laws. “This year has been good. I had trouble choosing which ones to show.”
“And I only havethreepictures up this time,” Rain fake-groused as most of The Pointe arrived, and the next twenty minutes were a whirlwind of greetings and catch-ups.
Jax gave Marci and Angelo the latest news on next season’s menu, and they told him that everyone was already raving about the food. Proud of himself, Jax looked for Tristan, who was deep in conversation with Emma and Kate.
Studying him, Jax bit his lip. He didn’t know if it was therapy, or being in love, or finally being free of Eve, but Tristan had more of a lightness to him now, a shine, and Jax couldn’t take his eyes off him.
“I’ve never seen Tristan this happy.” Rain sidled up to Jax, a grin on his face. “But he deserves it. I don’t know who my biological dad is, but it doesn’t matter because Tristanismy dad.”
“Trust me, you’re better off not knowing,” Jax snorted. “When I found out about my sperm donor, I was disgusted.”
