Jax returned my gaze, and something about the intense longing there made me shiver. I missed the warmth of my buzz. The booze still corrupted my veins, but the shield of not-giving-a-fuck was long gone.

“Wasn’t meant to be,” he said. “I’ve accepted it.”

“And you think sneaking around with Nikki is smart? She’s engaged.” Fucking hypocrite. Hadn’t I stuck my tongue down her throat a few days ago? If not for the unnerving sense that being with her was wrong, I would have done a lot more than that.

Jax’s mouth formed an angry line. “Lyle Lewis is scum. All the shit-talk he’s done about you. He had half the town believing you were involved in Alex’s death.”

“From what you told me, I was involved in her ‘death.’” I added air quotes on the last word.

Jax waved off my logic. “Yeah, but he didn’t know shit, Rafe. We covered our tracks. He wasn’t pointing the finger at you because he thought you were guilty. He used what happened to tear what little reputation you had left to shreds. He was trying to run you out of town.”

“Why would he do that? It’s not like I’m causing him any problems living here on the island.”

“You’re a threat to him.”

“Because of Nikki?”

Jax raised a brow.

I shook my head, laughing. “Yet you’re the one seeing her. How fucking ironic is that?”

Jax wasn’t laughing. “Does it bother you?” He shifted, hunching over his knees, and tilted his head. “Because if it does, I won’t see her again.”

“But you’re in to her.”

He smiled, the first genuine, care-free grin I’d seen him wear. “I still can’t handle her touch, but yeah. I like her. Fucking crazy that she seems to feel the same way.” The smile bled from his face, and he pierced me with his deep stare. “But I’m not burying my head in the sand. She’ll run if you snap your fingers. I know it, and Lyle knows it.”

“His ring is on her fucking finger, so maybe he should get over it.”

Jax sighed. “I have no idea why she’s wearing that asshole’s ring. I doubt we know the whole story. She talks about the jerk like she’s scared of him.”

That made me sit up straighter. “You think he’s hurting her?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head, gaze on the ground between his feet. “How did everything go to hell so fast?”

“Fuck if I know,” I said, glancing at the broken glass on my floor. “But I can’t sit around and do nothing.” Missing so many years was dangerous. Even though we sat in a cellar full of incriminating evidence, talking about women and the screwed up shit we’d done together, Jax still felt like a stranger to me.

And Alex…