But he smiled when my eyes met his and he said in a gruff voice that was thick, “There you are.”

“I took your shirt.”

His brows furrowed together. “What?”

I don’t know why I said that. I could tell there were some really sweet drugs rolling through my system right now. So I was going to blame them. “I took your shirt when I left your house, because I wanted a part of you if you decided you didn’t want to see me anymore.”

He straightened in his chair and his lips parted as he stared at me.

“I feel funny,” I admitted. “I think I’ve been shot.”

His expression tensed. “You were shot, honey. In the stomach.”

I wetted my dry lips. “That sounds bad.” I knew that could be bad, come to think of it. We had, like, an entire week or something dedicated to gunshot wounds in one of my classes.

“You were actually lucky. The doctor said the bullet missed all major vital organs. Clean in and out,” he explained, voice low. “There was some internal bleeding.”

“Oh. That’s definitely bad.”

He tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes. “Yeah, hon, that’s bad.”

Jax sounded so worried, so . . . I don’t know, out of it, that I felt the need to reassure him. “It doesn’t really hurt.”

“I know,” he murmured. “They said they were giving you pain meds. I . . . damnit. Calla.” He leaned forward, getting so close to my face with his that I caught the faint scent of cologne. “Oh, honey . . .” He shook his head and the darkness in his eyes bordered on a tortured intensity. He placed his hand on my left cheek and I felt the tremor that coursed through it. “I know you probably have questions, but there’s something I gotta say, okay?”

“Okay.”

“When you woke up yesterday and I was gone, it wasn’t what you thought.”

The last twenty-four hours started to replay in my head, coming together like a slow-moving picture book.

Yesterday had sucked ass.

“I had to go downtown for a fitting for the wedding and I had to leave early. I should’ve left a note, but I was still pissed-off about that night before. I left thinking you’d be there when I got back and we’d talk, but Roxy called me.”

I frowned up at him. “She . . . she called you?”

“Yeah.” His gaze moved over my face and then down, and I swore he was watching my chest move, as if he was reassuring himself that I was breathing. “She called me on the way to your house, because she was worried about your safety. I knew you left, and yeah, I was angry about that. I thought we were on the same page.” He coughed out a dry, harsh laugh. “I’d called Reece, letting them know you were at your house. They had a car on you.”

I hadn’t even noticed that. Granted I wasn’t the most observant person apparently; so maybe I should rethink that career in nursing.