Page 90 of Under the Waves

I didn’t have to be there to know that Lia was glaring at him.

How could you argue with him after he nearly died?

Especially if he brought it up every five minutes either to jest or to get out of doing something. That was how he’d cope though. We both knew that.

I never really thought that Jakson would ever take such a possessive and protective approach when it came to Lia. His reckless, daring desire and humorous golden retriever personality was like balancing two sides of the same coin. You never really knew with him which side you’d get until you were in that moment. He was like a wildfire wreaking havoc on the world—unpredictable and destructive, but with Lia? He was like a completely different person. Those flames turned into a mesmerizing blaze of warmth and comfort. It was like she was able to tame that wildness with only her mere presence.

Jakson Calloway lived in his own little world, I’d known as much since we were little, but what I didn’t know was that Lia Davis also shared that world with him.

“Where’s she gone?” Jakson mumbled, deliriously, gripping onto the sides of the white linen bed. The sheets crumpled in his hands as his knuckles grew white.

“Where’s who gone buddy?”

“The blue girl, of course. My little Blue Moon. The one who looks like starry night skies and smells like blueberries. She glows, Cap. She can’t see that, but I do. I see all of her even though she tries to hide it from me. Why does she do that? Why does she hide herself from me?”

I paused. “I—you mean Lia?”

“If she’s worried I won’t like her, she’s wrong. She’s so damn wrong, okay?” He grasped onto my wrists with such force I thought my circulation was temporarily cut off. Jakson Calloway was looking at me with these terrified, widened eyes like he needed me to know just how desperate he was to make sure I knew that Lia was wrong—that the only certain thing in the world was that he loved Lia Davis and would rather carve out his own heart than allow it to beat for someone else.

“I would never leave my little Blue. I don’t need any other color in the world when I have her.”

The rest of his words were slurred and jumbled up as he drifted into unconsciousness. Nurses came in and out of his room for hours on end checking his vitals and monitoring his progress. It had taken nearly three grown hospital guards and myself to drag Lia out of that room when he coded a minute within getting there.

Lia Davis was the tiniest girl I’d ever known, but in that moment, it was like she had the strength of a hundred warriors. The fierce determination in her eyes as she tried to crawl her way back to him was striking. Security guards enveloped each of her arms, dragging her out of the room, but she fought—she fought with every tendon, every bone in her body to get to his side. To hold his hand.

I’d only ever seen that look once before in her eyes; the night she and her siblings were taken into foster care. She changed after that. It was like someone had erased her wholly and left only the outline of her behind. Sonny and I spentyearstrying to help her reach for colored pencils—to try and encourage her to see in color again after her world had been locked up in black and white.

Lia and Jakson were tethered together with some sort of invisible string.

They were wholly opposites yet completed each other perfectly.

Their love was so loud you could hear it in the silence.

It was the heartbeat of the earth.

I had no idea why they were drawn to each other in the ways that they were, but I didn’t think I’d evernotbeen grateful for it.

They saved each other, in a way.

Without Lia, I doubt I’d ever see Jakson sober again, and without Jakson…Hell, let’s just say I was forever grateful that they had each other and whatever bond it was that they shared so intimately.

Even if it meant I became their backup friend.

So long as they were happy, it was good enough for me.

30

Poppy Wells

“If it isn’t Jasper’s little Wellsy!” Jakson announced as I peered sheepishly around the door.

I didn’t know what possessed me to come here today, on my birthday of all days, but I knew if I spent it inside that house, I’d end up going mad orworse. I didn’t want to be around Jasper, either. Things between us were fine.Good, even, but I—I didn’t know how much of it was real and how much of it was fake. I felt like he knew more about me than I did about him.Hell, I didn’t even know if he’d told Lia and Jakson that we were only pretending to be in love with each other or not.

“Well, don’t just stand there, come in!” he chirped. “I know, I know I’m irresistible. It’s a Calloway thing.” He threw a signature Jakson Calloway wink in my direction as I hesitantly stepped towards the hospital bed. My shoulders eased with every step, the tension dissipating from my body.

Maybe that was what everyone meant by theJakson Calloway effect; the fact that his infectious, golden smiles had the power to instantly put you at ease. That was just who he was. It was a part of him, just like how this ugly, looming darkness was a part of me too.

“Me and you, Pops. We’re friends, aren’t we?” he asked me, tone encouraging.