By the time Monday rolled around, Jason still hadn't set foot on college grounds. The shock of what his mother had told him was long gone but Jason didn't feel like going back to the chaos that was now campus. One, he wasn't obligated to. Two, after his mom's revelation, he knew he had to do some serious digging. Finding out that he was the one being chased by some psychopath changed everything. Finding out that Alexia had been in the damned fire with him, changed everything.

He'd spent his days trying everything and everyone. Jason visited Maria, he visited everyone in college he'd ever spoken to, he'd gone to events and soirees, attempting to find anyone who knew anything about him, but no one knew. It was disappointing and exhausting, but Jason didn't give up.

Ryan and Chaz flanked his sides. He didn't know why, but the two were suddenly determined to not leave him out of their sights, even if he was at his parents' house and they were at the dorms. They called and texted, checking up on him every five minutes. Of course, the two wouldn't give him a solid answer as to why they were so up his ass, and in return, Jason had told them to fuck themselves.

Obviously, he was done with their pitying glances and their protection mechanism.

Jason shook his head irritably, inwardly rolling his eyes while looking at Sola, who happily paraded in front of him. He'd gotten used to not putting her on a leash, even if they were outside, but Sola never failed him. She was by his side the second he'd even think about uttering her name, and did whatever he ordered her to do. She was an angel, really, disguised in a Doberman body.

Though it was still unbearably hot, it wasn't as. The sun wasn't lowering yet, but it was past 7 o'clock and there was a slight, balm breeze. Jason wore jeans and a loose shirt, his fists stuffed into his pockets. The streets were empty, which wasn't weird considering it was Monday evening. It was a good thing no one was around, because Jason was in a constant mood ever since his sudden syncope six days ago.

"Sola, careful." He ordered, seeing how she started to skip from the sidewalk to the main road in the middle. There were no cars, but he'd rather avoid the ordeal altogether. Like the obedient little puppy she was, Sola returned to the sidewalk. Jason smiled, "Good girl."

The road to the basketball court wasn't long at all. It was quite the pleasant walk and Jason was pretty composed when they arrived. There was bliss surging through his veins and he couldn't help but grin at the familiarity of the court, finally seeing something he remembered. Some of the guys were actually playing, while others—as expected—were sitting somewhere on the benches, lax smiles curling their lips and joints sticking out of their mouths.

Man, Jason thought, it's been too long. He used to be stoned at least once a week, but after the accident he was scared it wouldn't mix well with his medication, so he decided against it. That is, up till now. Immensely disappointed and angry, Jason had thought, to hell with the fucking medications, and had taken Sola to the basketball court, the one place where all of Jason's worries would rest.

The first thing Sola did was sniffing around the guys' feet, looking up at them with observing, big eyes. One of the guys squealed, lifting his feet to the bench. "What the fuck is that dog doing here?"

Another guy laughed lazily, patting his friend on the back. "Chill bro, it's just a puppy."

Jason couldn't suppress the laugh that slipped his mouth. "Still a pussy, Harper?"

The guy that had squealed before, Harper, glared at Jason. "Dogs frighten me, sue me. Who the f—McCann? Out of everyone I'd expected to see here today, you definitely weren't one of them." Harper put his feet back on the ground, getting up to pull Jason into one of those manly hugs. Jason chuckled, rolling his eyes, but going with it. Dean Harper was one of the many guys he'd hung out with whenever he came here.

Harper's eyes were red as hell, and the prickling smell surrounding him was enough of an indication to let Jason know that Harper had already had a spliff. Or two.

"McCann?" The guy who'd talked back to Harper got up too, his eyes wide. "Thought I'd never see you again! Fuck, you haven't been here in like, what, months? C'mere, you blazing idiot!" Ruiz hugged Jason tightly. Jason hugged him back, ready to get all of this hugging over with. The guys were great, but they acted like they'd been best of friends before.

Not at all. They were just part of the stoned group he'd joined so many times. Jason knew the differences between his real friends and his acquaintances.

"Playing for the other team, Ruiz? I can feel your hand sliding down my ass." Jason joked. Ruiz jolted back, a scowl taking over his face. "Shut up, McCann. I'm as hetero as one can ever be."

Jason snickered, but decided to end the conversation there. The three of them kept standing like that in silence, Sola circling their feet, until Jason impatiently raised his eyebrows. There was only one man here he truly trusted and it seemed that he wasn't around today.

"Well?" he inquired, "Where's Bumper?"

Both of the guys' shoulders slumped. As Harper's eyes started hanging gloomily, Ruiz' just widened in alertness and irritation. "Not funny, McCann. Too soon. And also, disrespectful."

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" Jason snapped. He didn't want to waste his time chit-chatting with these guys. Jason was here to get high and have a laugh or two with his man Bumper, and that was about it.

"It's not funny, Jason." Harper hissed, surprising Jason by using his first name.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He responded, "But whatever you guys are doing, stop it. I'm not here for your bullshit, I'm here to get stoned off my ass and Bumper should help me with that. Where is he?"

Harper and Ruiz looked at each other helplessly. "McCann," Ruiz spat, "This is the last time we tell you—it's not fucking funny. We don't give a shit that he died months ago and that you haven't bothered to show your white ass here ever since, but to some of us he was more than just our weed provider. He was our fucking brother."

Jason felt his heart skip a beat. "What did you just say?"

"Unlike you, Bumper wasn't only the guy we went to for weed, he wa—"

"Not that!" Jason barked out, feeling how his anger started to boil, "What you said before that!"

Ruiz raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, "That we don't care that you haven't showed up ever since he died?"

"Bumper is... dead?"

"Of course he is!" Ruiz almost yelled out, his jaw setting tightly. "Don't act like you don't know, ignorant prick. You were right there with your pretty little girlfriend during the funeral."

"What?"

"That tiny girl of yours with the crazy fat ass. The one with the black hair?" Ruiz scoffed, seemingly annoyed.

But not as annoyed as Jason was. The words hadn't hit him yet, but he was quick to grab Ruiz by the throat and pull him closer to himself harshly, his forehead pressed against Ruiz'. "First of all," he breathed, "Don't you ever call me an ignorant prick again. I will break your fucking neck."

Ruiz stayed silent, but his body was trembling. "Second," Jason hissed lowly, "You don't speak about Alexia, you don't even think about her, never mind her ass. Got it?"

"Got it." Ruiz deadpanned.

Jason loosened his grip on Ruiz' throat, letting go of the man. He turned around and walked away, his chest still heaving up and down violently. "Sola!" he called, and in just a second, the puppy was tittering by his side, looking up at her daddy with confused eyes.

"Good girl." He growled, the distance between them and the basketball court expanding.

Ten minutes later, the basketball court was far behind and Ruiz' words had finally settled in Jason's belly. Panic rushed throughout his body as he pulled out his cell phone with shaky hands, dialling the only number he knew was worth remembering.

"Hello?"

Her voice caused his heart to flip, his knees to weaken and his head to pound. Whenever he heard her he was reminded of what wasn't his.

"Lex." He sighed, collapsing on the nearest bench. He could hear her breathing on the other side before she muttered, "What's wrong?"

"I—we—and then—fuck, he's—basketball court—fuck!—I don't know—"

"Jason, shh, calm down." She urged. Jason took a deep breath, his lungs feeling jammed in his throat.

"Are you calm now?" she asked. Jason nodded, but then realized she couldn't see that so he cleared his throat and murmured, "Yeah."

"Tell me again."

"I—" he couldn't say it. For the life of him, Jason would never be able to say the words out loud. So, instead, he said, "I need you."

She hung up.

xxx

"You know a lot of girls be,"

Her voice was hypnotizing, stilling all of Jason's dark thoughts. His head was on her lap, and her fingers were tangled in his hair. He breathed softly, his eyes closed. Slowly, Jason's mind wandered away from the messy reality that had become his life. All he thought about was how good it felt to have Alexia's fingers in his hair, how good she smelled, and how comfortable he was.

"Thinking my songs are about them,"

She continued to massage his scalp with one hand, her other hand gently rubbing up and down his upper arms. Jason understood it was to calm him down, but he was calm. He was way past calm. If Calm was a person, it would be Jason.

"This is not to get confused; this one's for you."

Alexia started humming the first notes of the song, but Jason—as half asleep as he was—interrupted her. "You can't do that." He muttered groggily. Alexia raised her eyebrows, her fingers still entangled in his hair. "Do what?"

"Sing our song with those lyrics."

"But those are the lyrics."

"Yeah, but, you can't sing 'you know a lot of girls be thinking my songs are about them' when you're singing to me! I'm a fucking guy. You need to say boys. Or men." Jason pouted, truly annoyed. Alexia let out a wholehearted laugh, a sound Jason would want to be buried with, and stopped playing with his hair for a brief second.

"I'm not changing the lyrics." She stated, "You're ruining the moment we had."

"Why the fuck did we have to like a song that was sung about girls?" he snapped irritably, his eyes meeting hers. Alexia rolled her eyes, a cheeky smile curling her lips. "Oh, shut up. Drama queen."

Jason scoffed, pulling himself out of her lap. Alexia just laughed again, playfully shoving his shoulder. "You know you are."

"Whatever."

They were silent again. Jason took the silence as an opportunity to go over today's activities. He spent the morning with his father, working on something in the garage over beers—though it was eleven, booze doesn't have a time—and when the kids came back from school, he took them to the mall and hung out with them. After a nice dinner with his parents and his siblings, he'd planned on visiting Bumper at the basketball court.

A lump formed in his throat and he clenched his jaw, his stomach plummeting. He didn't believe it. He couldn't believe it. Bumper had always appeared... unbreakable. Of course Jason knew that was impossible, especially with Bumper's profession, but never in a million years had he imagined Bumper to die.

God, the worst part was that he felt guilty. Guilty. Why the hell was he feeling guilty? Albeit the memories were gone, his body definitely hadn't forgotten. His body knew something that he initially didn't and it pissed the shit out of him. It made him want to rip his own guts out, it made him want to scratch his eyes out, it made him want to bang his head—

"How are you holding up?" Alexia's voice was small, barely above a whisper, but it cut off the serie of outrageous thoughts in his head. Jason shrugged glumly, glancing at her with a side-eye. She was beautiful, her hair in an intricating updo and a flashy dress hugging her curves. The Valdez'es were having a dinnerparty, one that included the whole damn business, but Alexia had left without a second thought as soon as she heard Jason's panic.

Man, did he love her. This just proved to him how much she should be with him. How much he should be with her.

"I feel weird." He finally declared, not bothering to elaborate. Alexia nodded, a soft expression crossing her face.

"It's like..." he frowned, trying to find the right words. Truth to be told, nothing he could possibly say would explain the way he was feeling right now. "I don't know. How did I deal with it when I first found out?"

"You mean, when it first happened?" Alexia was reluctant to say 'before your accident', he'd noticed that. Slowly, Jason took her hand into his own and nodded, "Before the accident."

She shivered. "You... dealt. You didn't cry, I remember getting angry because you weren't crying. Instead you just closed off for a couple of days."

"And then?"

"Well," she knit her eyebrows together, "there was a lot going on. You were pretty preoccupied, I suppose it came in handy for you to not dwell on Timothy's death."

Timothy. She'd said Timothy. No one ever called him that, how did she know that was his real name?

"How did you know that's his name?"

"I went to the funeral with you, I read it on the tombstone. I'm sorry, it just slipped out. Last time I said Timothy you got mad." The sides of her lips tugged up shortly, an apologetic smile gracing them. Jason shook his head, squeezing her hand. "It's fine." He murmured, and then he said, "Thanks for coming to the funeral with me." Because really, he didn't know what to say.

"Shut up. You know I would do anything for you."

"Not anything." He growled, gladly abandoning the subject of his dead friend. Bumper would come later. Jason was feeling too shitty to let it get to his head.

"Yes, anything." Alexia retorted irritably.

"Even breaking off the engagement?" he knew this was a low blow, but it had been really bothering him for a while now. After everything they'd gone through in the Maldives, after every touch, every kiss, every freaking blow job, why wouldn't she break it off?

She heaved a deep sigh, a sarcastic smile appearing on her face. "You know," she stated, "I can't even get mad at you right now. We used to argue about this all the fucking time until I actually broke off the engagement."

"Wait, you did?" this came as a surprise, a very pleasing surprise. But then he realized, if she'd broke it off before, why was she engaged again?

"Yeah." Her hand let go of Jason's and trailed up his arm, her eyes distant. Jason relaxed into the touch, his heartrate speeding up but his whole body calming down. Her touch was like magic.

"We were in Mexico." She explained, and Jason braced himself, because in the—almost—month that he'd been awake, not one person had bothered to explain anything willingly. "And something stupid had happened, and you were feeling like crap because of it, so you got yourself extremely drunk."

"Sounds like me." Jason cracked a smile.

Alexia snorted. "A bit, but you know, you don't get drunk so easily. Usually you're the sober one, even after a million shots. So when you're super drunk it really means something."

"I guess."

"So you were drunk, and the next day we woke up and you were, like, apologizing for behaving that way the evening before. In that moment Jase, I just realized that it had been going on for too long. It was unfair to you. So I put off my engagement ring and told you it was over. I was serious, though. I even told Damian."

Jason raised his eyebrows.

"Yup." She popped the 'p', "It was that serious."

"Then why are you engaged again?"

Instead of replying, Alexia grabbed the hem of Jason's shirt and pulled him closely against her own body, her lips on his. As cliché as it sounded—fireworks went off. His chest buzzed excitedly, his hands roaming over her body as if he'd never touched her before. Every inch of skin, every piece of flesh got squeezed, caressed and pinched. Alexia moaned into the kiss, her legs quickly straddling his lap and her hands tightening around the back of his neck.

Jason's fingers inched up the hemline of her dress, slowly making their way to her inner thighs. Momentarily pulling away from the kiss, he breathed, "Fuck, I love your thighs."

Alexia chuckled, adorably, may he add, and reconnected their lips.

And moments later, the two were naked underneath the covers of Jason's childhood bed, sweating, panting, moaning, and most importantly, loving.

xxx

"Oh God, I'm an idiot."

"Alexia, shut up."

"Jason, I'm a fucking idiot. What have I done? Dios mios, what. Have. I. Done?"

"Shut up."

"Why the fuck am I like this? I can't believe I did this!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

She abruptly closed her mouth, a distressed expression crossing her face. Her long, black hair was flicked over one shoulder, completely dishevelled. She was holding the covers of Jason's bed up to her breasts, but other than that she was completely naked. She looked sublime, the sun hitting the sides of her tanned body and just a tiny flick of her big brown eyes, but enough to make her look mystic. Magical. Was she even real?

Oh yeah, she unequivocally was. Somehow the woman tended to never shut up and rant about whatever was on her mind. Not in a charming way either.

Usually, Jason didn't mind. He liked her fierceness and loved it when she spoke her mind, but this morning it was different. She'd been spitting out profanities since the minute she'd woken up and that irritated him a lot.

"I didn't mean to snap." He mumbled against the pillow, seeing how her body and especially her mouth had frozen.

Jason was still laying flat on the bed, the covers not even covering his whole ass, but he didn't care. The room was hot and he was sweating. His eyes slowly drifted shut.

"I know." She whispered, "I'm so stupid."

"You've been saying this all morning. Why?" he didn't bother to open his eyes, sleepily reaching out his arm to try and comfort Alexia. How she was awake was beyond him because they'd had a sleepless night full of fucking, and Jason was beat.

"We had sex!" she exclaimed. Jason opened one eye and peered at her. "So?"

"I'm engaged!"

"So?"

Alexia frowned, clearly vexed by his response.

"Look," he sighed, opening both of his eyes, "You don't really care about your engagement that much, so why is this bothering you? We've kissed before."

"Yes, but..."

"But what?" Jason croaked out impatiently. Alexia just groaned, sliding back under the sheets. He couldn't help but grin at the sight of her bare tits and her hard nipples. "Seems to me that we could go for a round six."

"Feels more like a round billion." She murmured back, rolling her eyes as he blatantly stared at her breasts.

"I don't know why you're so upset about this." He whispered, averting his gaze. He may act nonchalant, but hearing how the woman he loved regretted sleeping with him wasn't something he was keen on hearing.

Alexia crawled closer to him, wrapping her arms around his chest. "I don't want to get you in danger."

How sleeping with Alexia would result into him getting 'in danger' was a mystery Jason decided to solve later.