Chapter 2The Title I Promised to Give

Jax left me for her.

The roar of his engine echoed from the underground garage as a text message lit up my phone.

[I'll be out of town for a bit. Get your stuff out of the house.]

[I'm having someone change the locks in two weeks.]

I didn't reply.

I just moved through the villa I'd called home for five years, silently erasing every trace of myself.

After a long while, my phone lit up again.

Jax must have reached the terrified Ava by now. This was him, tying up the last loose end of our decade together.

[Call me if you need anything.]

[I can't give you a title, but other than that, we can still be friends.]

I had loved Jax for ten years.

And in return, I got a casual dismissal. A friend.

…

The downpour lasted for two full days.

The city was drowning, a damp chill seeping into my bones.

I couldn't sleep. I'd wake in the dead of night and flick a lighter open, just to see the small flame.

The year I got with Jax, he was just a street hustler who couldn't make rent, living in a damp basement apartment.

In that humid air, the only light came from his lighter.

Click. Click. The flame sparking, then dying.

Jax, with his sharp buzz cut, had stared at me in my school uniform.

"Think this through, Sandy."

"A guy like me, I'm not going anywhere."

"I can't give you the future you want."

I was so damn naive back then.

I took off my rain-soaked canvas shoes and tucked my ice-cold feet into the warmth of his chest, right against the thin fabric of his tank top.

His body heat was like a torch, slowly setting me ablaze.

There was only that single, flickering flame, but I stubbornly nodded.

"Jax, I don't want a future."

"I just want you."

We went through hell together. Nights filled with the smell of antiseptic and the rustle of bandages. Nights of desperate, clinging passion.

Jax used to say that the day he finally went straight, the very first thing he would do was marry me.

Now, he was going straight.

And the first thing he did was cut me out of his life.

I'm twenty-eight. I'm not a kid anymore. I can't keep messing around.

Besides, my family had a man waiting for me. Just waiting for me to give him a title.