Chapter 279

“I mean, there was a tv in the living room of the boarding house,” Jackson says on a sigh, even as he starts to laugh. “But…before they showed me what it was for, I thought it was a computer.”

“So, you knew what a computer was,” I say, grinning, “but not a tv?”

“Yup,” he says, smiling down at me, nodding because he knows how ridiculous that sounds in my world. “We used computers sometimes as part of our education – we had a few in this building in the Community. Ones that I now realize are very, very old. But tv? I’d never watched tv in my life. And I was completely freaked out when they turned it on and showed it to me, but then I became… obsessed.”

“You did!?” I squeak, kind of charmed by the idea of my sweet Jackson just spending three months before the academy rushing home from his job to watch TV. “Jackson, what did you watch?”

He sighs, deep and contented, and grins at me again. “Ariel, I watched women.”

“What!?” I gasp, completely not understanding. And then my eyes go wide. “Jackson,” I whisper, “do you mean that you watched…like, a lot of porn?”

Jackson bursts out laughing and covers his face again. “No, Ariel, no,” he says, shaking his head, unable to help his smile. Then he drops his hand and looks back at me. “I mean, the guys I lived with showed me that too – and it was…” his own eyes go wide and his cheeks puff out with his breath, “it was a…a lot, wasn’t it? God…” he shakes his head as if to scare the ideas away. “But no, I wasn’t ready for that – I’m not sure I’ll ever be. No, I mean, I just watched a bunch of shows with women in them. And I was fascinated.”

My heart swells completely as I stare up at him, even as my stomach drops to my feet. Because how – how does this man exist? On one hand Jackson is so brutal, and so powerful – and on the other…

God damn it, he’s just so sweet.

“What did you watch?” I ask, my voice a whisper. noveldrama

“Anything I could find that had women on the screen,” he says, completely honest. “I mean, you have to understand, Ari, we were always fascinated by girls and women when we were growing up because we were forbidden to talk to them – even looking at them was discouraged. Women were these great, entrancing mysteries. And there were like, rumors? Passed down between the boys? About what girls were like, and that you could kiss them – whatever kissing was - and that there was once a guy in the military training who had found his mate, whatever that was, and he tried to run away with her, and they killed him for it.”

My face goes pale at the idea of it, but Jackson just strokes my cheek.

“I don’t even know if that was true,” he says softly, shaking his head. “But you have to understand how forbidden women were. And then to come to a place where I just got this magical box where I could stare at women? And listen to their stories, and hear them talking to each other?” He exhales deeply, shaking his head. “God, I…I couldn’t get enough.”

I smile up at him, nodding, doing my best to understand as he starts to laugh, remembering something else.

“The guys I lived with,” Jackson continues, “they were pissed, because I was always hogging the tv, and I never wanted to watch sports. I liked the boxing – that’s where I first saw Luca, too – because I understand fighting. But the other sports,” he screws his mouth to the side and shrugs, “I mean, who cares? Why would I want to watch another guy play a game instead of playing it myself? I was shocked that they wanted to watch them – like, didn’t they know that there were stories about women? I mean, I know these guys liked women, sometimes they even brought them home. But they didn’t want to watch the kinds of shows I watched. It never made sense to me.”

“So, what did you watch?” I ask, soft.

“I liked sitcoms,” he says, again stroking my hair as he smiles at me and tells me his story like it’s a great secret he’s been dying to share. “I liked that they showed women talking to each other in their everyday lives, and being friends, and that they talked about what they wanted from life. It felt like… like I was finally getting answers to things I’d been wondering my whole life. It allowed me to see women as just…people. Not forbidden, mysterious things.”

My heart swells in me with every word my mate says. “Did you have any favorites?” I ask, my question a whisper, not wanting to break the spell.