Willa huffed a sigh and reached down, grabbed her wrist and yanked her upward with surprising strength. “You’re a violent little beasty.” She cracked a naughty grin. “I like that about you. Plus, I heard a rumor you took Almost Alpha in the Red Havoc Crew.”
“No, just Second.”
“Potato, tomato,” Willa said, shrugging one shoulder up and searching the ground for something.
That wasn’t how the rhyme went, but okay. Jax had Changed back and was cracking a smirk. Bash shoved a paper plate with a dozen pizza rolls into one of her hands and a fruity beer with a miniature pink umbrella into the other, and everything was weird.
“Everyone,” Jax called, cupping a hand on one side of his mouth. “This is Annalise of Red Havoc. She’s mine.”
“Hi, Annalise,” the butt-naked shifters said in unison as they went back about their business like they hadn’t all just shifted for battle.
As he passed, Jathan clapped Annalise so hard on the back she coughed. Bash tossed him a pizza roll through the air, and Jax’s twin caught it in his mouth like a circus poodle. He turned and walked backward a couple steps, grinning at her as he chewed. “I always wanted a sister to torture,” he said around the bite. “I mean a sister besides Jax.”
A football sailed through the air and hit Jathan smack dab in the forehead, and when she turned around, Jax was smiling remorselessly. Bash belted a laugh that sounded like the bray of a donkey.
None of this should’ve been funny. None of it. That didn’t stop Annalise from laughing disproportionately loudly at their antics and at this surreal and strange moment. These crazy Gray Backs, Boarlanders, and Ashe Crew…they reminded her a little of Red Havoc. Of the boys teasing constantly, reacting in ways she never would’ve expected. That battle and bear claw spanking had reminded her of the way Barret, Anson, Greyson, and Ben had protected She-Devil for days from those lions, trying their best to keep her in control without really hurting her.
For a tiny instant, she almost felt…homesick.
Shaking her head hard at that idiotic thought, she looked over at Jax, who had a mouthful of something. Her plate now only sported half the food it once did. “You stole my food?”
“I’m so freaking hungry,” he said with a full mouth.
When he reached for another, she swatted his hand and yanked the plate away. “Get your own.”
“Mean and greedy,” he accused through a grin, but he sauntered off toward Bash’s grill.
As she watched him load up a plate, talking and laughing with Bash and Jathan, it struck her how relaxed he was right now. It wasn’t like with Red Havoc, when the fur along his back was bristled all the time. Where he was ready to fight and bleed the cats at any given moment.
Here, he wasn’t battle ready. He was just Jax.
He was Gray Back, and she was Red Havoc, and if they were going to stay together, one of them was going to have to make a very big sacrifice.
Chapter Fourteen
It was dark in Jax’s trailer except for the soft moonlight that filtered in through the blinds, covering the bedroom in blue stripes. Annalise was lying on her belly on his bed, smiling over at him, because he couldn’t seem to stop smiling either. She was naked as a jaybird because she was trying to get her butt to heal faster. Jax had bandaged it and taken care of her, and they’d hung out in here for the rest of the evening and into the night, just the two of them. It had been relaxed, and they’d talked for hours. And She-Devil had stayed silently pouting inside of her, giving her muscles time to relax and heal. Thank goodness for her quick shifter healing, too, because she was feeling like a new woman, and more hopeful than she had in a week.
It had been the perfect night.
“I want to show you something,” Jax murmured, stroking her hair from her face.
“I’ve already seen your dick. Very impressive.”
He chuckled low, his white teeth flashing in the dark. “Thank you for saying that.”
“I mean it. That thing’s like…Thor Dick.”
He buried his face in the pillow and cracked up. He sighed and looked over at her again, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his smile. “Tell me the next one.”
With a put-upon sigh, Annalise propped herself up on her elbows and read the next on the list. “Number eight, get a motherfuckin’ job.”
“Where did you work before?”
“Before She-Devil? Because you know I wasn’t working while I was my own one-animal circus act.”
His smile widened. “Yeah, before the bite. Where did you work?”
“The post office.”
He inhaled deeply and feigned shock. “You were a postal worker.”
“Yeah, it was super-sexy,” she said in her best phone sex operator voice. “I wore this blue, button-down, short-sleeved shirt and navy pants over my granny panties that made my butt look like two flap-jacks—”
“God, stop.” Jax was laughing again. “Did you like your job?”
“I loved it. There were some really nice ladies who worked there with me. And the people who would come in were usually nice and talkative. It was a low-stress job, good benefits. I was happy. Content. What are you doing?” she asked, swatting his glowing phone away from his face. “Pay attention to me. I was telling you important stuff!”
“I’m looking up the post office in Covington. I want to mark more off the list.”
Okay, that was actually really sweet. “Anything?”