Page 93 of Under the Waves
Romanoff.
How did he know that Natasha was my favorite character?
I closed my lips.
Swallowed too loudly.
Stuffed my trembling fingers into my pockets and willed them to juststopfor once.
Jakson Calloway just offered a piece of his raw, truest self to me and I couldn’t breathe.
“What is it for you?” He asked me.
I dug my nails into the palms of my hands.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
All I ever felt waspain.
He exhaled a broken laugh. “It’s lonely, isn’t it? Always too quiet…until it isn’t.”
He sees right through me.
They see right through me.
Isee right through me.
“But most of all, Poppy, it’s the pretending. I’mhappy, right? I’m so happy all the time. My life is great, right? I get to party, get to do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to do it. It’s who I am. It’s all they know me as.Hell, it’s allIknow me as.”
He inhaled a shaky breath and went silent.
I bit the inside of my cheek, about to speak when he cleared his throat and wiped the back of his palm across his dampened cheeks. “I’m sure little Blue and Cap will be back soon.”
I nodded slowly, accepting his change of topic.
Accepting the dismissal.
“Little Blue?” I questioned.
“Sorry, I meant Lia.”
Interesting.
“I’m guessingCapis Jasper?”
He nodded, grinning goofily at me. “Damn straight, little Pops. You’re one and only.” He added a wink with that last part that had my cheeks heating no matter how hard I tried to fight it.Stop betraying me, body.
“Has he always been so…”
“Jasper?” He finished for me. I nodded, looking away. I didn’t know why I said that. I mean, I knew him. Of course I did, we’d been at each other’s throat since we were old enough to hold a surfboard. But Jaksonknewhim—the version of him I didn’t get to know.
I just…I guess I just wanted to know about that side of him.
The part of him he kept locked away.
Jakson sighed. “He’s…He’s Cap. I don’t really know what to say, Pops. He’s always been the type of person to take some sort ofresponsibility for everyone else’s problems. That’s just who he is as a person; he feels too much. It’s been that way since the three of us were little. He always took some sort of brotherly responsibility for Lia and her siblings, and I know they have an unbreakable bond that was formed long before I came along. The only thing is, little Pops, is that he always looked soexhausted. Like the weight of trying to be perfect for everyone else was breaking him little by little each day.” He glanced at me then, glassy eyes softening. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you how grateful I am that you gave him that release from all of the outside world; a small space in the in-between where he didn’t have to be perfect for anyone. He—he started lookinghappy,Poppy.Youdid that.”
“I thought he hated me all those years,” I gulped, my voice hoarse as the words burned their way through my throat.