“Through the red door to your left,” the man said, handing Chuck’s ID back. “The guards will take you into the visitation room.”
Chuck staggered toward the door.
This was all too surreal.
He was buzzed through the metal door, frisked, sent through a metal detector, then led past another metal door that slammed as soon as he’d crossed the threshold. In front of him was a bank of windows, divided off into individual booths. The walls were the same institutional beige as the building, and the hushed tones of the other visitors echoed in the room. Chuck was ushered to the last booth and told to take a seat and wait.
He pulled back the cracking plastic chair, sat down and slid himself closer to the ledge where a corded phone hung from the wall.
Chuck slumped forward and scrubbed his hands over his face, then through his hair.
He couldn’t believe that Jesse was actually here. He’d hoped when Kam had called him that this was some kind of sick joke. The events from last night—recounted by Kam with gory, violent detail—didn’t fit with the Jesse Chuck knew. Chuck had never seen Jesse get that angry. Sure, Jesse had a reputation and Chuck had seen just how big of an asshole he could get when he was drinking. But the Jesse he knew wasn’t violent—not like this.
But there was no denying this was reality. Emily’s husband, Ian, was in the hospital. Because of a beating Jesse had given him.
There was no hiding from the truth as he squirmed on the uncomfortable chair. The fluorescent lights above him hummed. A hot blast of air fell over him as the heat shifted on in the already too-warm room. Chuck removed his jacket and set it on the back of the chair. He fidgeted. Couldn’t stop moving. There was no comfortable position in this chair or in this room. But it was a jail for fuck’s sake, what did he expect?
He couldn’t stop the thought that Jesse didn’t belong here. He was a big guy who could easily hold his own, so Chuck didn’t worry about any of the other prisoners messing with him. And this wasn’t prison—it was county lockup. With all hope, Jesse would be out on bail in a couple of days.
Chuck rested his head in his hands and slumped forward, his knee bouncing. He heard another door slam, this time muffled behind the thick pane of glass separating the visitor area from the prisoners. A sheet of glass installed there to protect him. From people like Jesse.
The thought stilled him.
There was a tap on the glass. Chuck lifted his head and looked at Jesse.
He was in a striped jumpsuit, his eye blackened, with a split lip. The cracked knuckles of his right hand gripped the phone he’d already taken off the wall on his side of the partition.
Chuck took a deep breath and picked up his phone.
The soft sound of Jesse’s breath found him over the line, reawakening a memory of Jesse’s quiet snores while Chuck waited for him to wake up. Chuck’s chest ached.
“Hey,” Jesse finally said.
Chuck stared at him and shook his head. He didn’t reply.
Jesse cleared his throat and sat back in his chair, as much as he could since he was almost twice as big as the seat he was sitting in. “I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Me either,” Chuck answered honestly.
Jesse frowned. “So, what are you doing here?”
“Jesus Christ, Jesse.” Chuck couldn’t filter the anger out of his voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Jesse’s eyes flashed. His lips turning down into an even more pronounced frown. “At least Emily’s alive.”
“And you’re in here.”
Jesse flinched. “For now. Hoping to get my bail hearing today.”
Chuck stared at the man on the other side of the glass. He could pick apart every feature of Jesse’s appearance and match it up with the hundreds of good memories he had of Jesse. None of what he was seeing now—and what he’d learned about Jesse over the last week—fit with the man he’d been thinking about the long-haul with.
“Why didn’t you call me, Jesse?” And he didn’t mean about the incident last night. He meant after the party. After Rachel. He hadn’t realized until now that he was hoping Jesse was going to call him and at least try to explain his actions. But there had been nothing. And now there was this. This massive gulf between them that had opened up the night of the party and was now so large that Chuck didn’t know if it could ever be bridged.
“I figured you were better off without me. Guess I proved myself right.” Jesse gave a dark laugh. “I’m going to lose my job.”
“Your job?” Chuck said with disbelief. “You have a lot worse things to worry about. You beat the shit out of Emily’s husband. He’s still in the hospital in serious condition.”
Jesse snarled. “Fuck him. He deserves to die.”
Chuck could’ve argued the point that everyone deserved life, but after talking to Kam he’d have been lying if he said that Ian was a person worthy of a second chance. Chuck couldn’t agree with the course of action Jesse had taken, though, and it was obvious that Jesse believed he’d done the right thing. He wasn’t thinking beyond his anger.
“Jesse. You could spend the rest of your life in jail if he dies.”
Jesse scratched at the stubble on his chin. He was always clean-shaven. It was the first thing he did in the morning. That Chuck knew that made his heart ache even more.
“Then that’s what I deserve. And Emily will be free.”
“Are you sure about that?” Chuck asked. “Shit. If he lives, how do you know this isn’t going to make her want to go back to him in sympathy?”
“He’ll live. That fuck has nine lives and I only took the first one.”
Chuck stared at Jesse in disbelief. “I don’t even recognize you.”
“I know this jumpsuit isn’t entirely flattering….”
Chuck leaned forward and gripped the phone tightly. “You’re fucking joking with me? Grow the fuck up, Jesse. You’re in jail! Charged with aggravated assault. If Ian dies the charges will get much worse.”
Jesse looked away, mumbled something to himself that Chuck couldn’t pick up. Then faced Chuck again. “Kam knows.”
Chuck furrowed his brow. “I know. He’s the one who called me and told me you were in jail.”
“No. Not about this. I mean he knows about you. I asked him to call you.”
Chuck didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to.
Jesse sighed. “I don’t want to lose you, Chuck. Not over this and not over something as stupid as what my childhood friends will think of me and the man I—” Jesse cut himself off, bit at his bottom lip, and Chuck could see the tears gathering in his eyes. It was the first glimpse of the Jesse he knew that he’d seen today. Jesse took a deep breath and continued. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
Chuck’s heart was in his throat—it had lost every tether holding it in place and crawled its way up his chest to lodge in a spot that would cut off his oxygen and kill him. There was no other explanation Chuck had for how fragile he felt in that moment.
Jesse was wounded—damaged. Possibly beyond repair. It was going to take the patience of a saint for anyone who tried to put him back together. Chuck wasn’t that patient. And for a man who had now been sitting in front of him for five minutes and only now said that he was sorry? And what exactly what was he apologizing for? For Rachel? For beating Ian to shit? For ending up here? The list of things Jesse had to apologize for was growing exponentially.
Chuck ran his hand over his nape. “I can’t have a conversation about us here. I’m not even sure why I came. I just couldn’t…not come.”
Jesse ran his fingers through his hair. “Well, there was a reason I wanted you to come. Something I need to tell you.”
Chuck’s stomach dropped.
“Fuck, Jesse. No. Not here. Not like this. I can’t….” Chuck broke his eyes away from Jesse and pulled the phone away from his ear. His hand hovered over the base. On the other side of the glass, Jesse’s mouth moved and Chuck could hear the cadence of Jesse’s voice on the other en
d but couldn’t make out any of the words. He slid the phone back on to the hanger, scooted the chair back, shrugged on his jacket, and started for the door.
He didn’t want to look back. He couldn’t bear to see any emotion from Jesse right now that might make him knowingly walk back into a situation that wasn’t right for him. But he couldn’t stop himself from glancing over his shoulder. Jesse was leaned over the table, the phone still off the hook, his head in his hands.
Apparently, he couldn’t watch Chuck walk away either.
But that was exactly what he had to do.
He’d spent almost half of his life fighting for a real relationship with his parents, then nearly as long fighting to keep Adalric at his side, and he’d been left with nothing. He’d chosen to engage in battles where no victor could ever be declared. Standoffs that could never be won. His only remnants of those failed relationships were embedded in his skin.
If he had any chance of breaking his patterns and being better to himself, then this was a fight he couldn’t take on.
Jesse had the Kensington boys and his family. Chuck wasn’t leaving him without support. It was going to have to be enough.
Chuck was done.
13
It took two more days for Jesse’s bail hearing. Then less than fifteen minutes in court with a judge who barely looked at him and Jesse was being escorted to a holding room where they gave him his clothes back. Only hours after being in court, his parents were picking him up from the jail and Jesse was walking into an unseasonably warm and sunny day.
Jesse tipped his face up to the sun and closed his eyes. His clothes were stiff where the blood had collected the most. The tread of his shoes caked in it. His body was weary, muscles sore, hands scraped and scabbing over. But his mind was clearer than it had been in a long time. It had now been over a week since he’d had a drink of any kind.
Ian was going to live. His lawyer had reassured the judge of that this morning. While a couple of days ago Jesse would’ve been okay with the man’s death, the realization that he’d almost killed someone sat sickeningly heavy with him in the warmth of the sun.
He wanted Emily to leave Ian. Ian had—without a fucking doubt—taken things too far with Emily that night. But Jesse had let out years’ worth of pent up anger and bitterness—and rage about the inherent unfairness of life—without thought to the repercussions. He hadn’t just been fucking with Ian’s life, he’d been fucking with his own.
Personal responsibility. Apparently, all the cool adults were doing it.
It was time for Jesse to grow the fuck up.
Jesse’s mom ran to him when her husband slowed the car enough for her to jump out. Jesse leaned down and kissed the top of his mom’s head, her arms wrapped around his waist in a fierce grip.
“Hey, Mom,” he whispered into her ear.
“Hey, darling,” she mumbled back. When she pulled back her cheeks were wet with tears. “You ready to go home?”
“Yes, ma’am. Is Emily there?”
“She’s there.”
Jesse got in the back seat of his parents’ car, buckled in, greeted his dad with a tap on the shoulder, then crossed his hands on his lap and closed his eyes.
Emily had come by the jail to ask if she could move in. The compound fracture on her right arm had been repaired with minor surgery. The whole ordeal had left her exhausted. But it had been her visit, with her face stitched, arm immobilized, telling Jesse that he had to fight the charges, that she didn’t care if she had to testify, that had almost done him in. Her strength astounded him.
It wasn’t solely her support that Jesse was relying on. He’d never be able to thank the Kensington boys and wives enough. All the wives had taken turns stopping by his house to check on Emily and grocery shop for her. Kam had taken Precious to his house in the immediate aftermath, plus coordinated with his parents on legal counsel and the trial. All of the boys had shown up at the jail at some point to tell him that whatever he needed they would get for him.
He didn’t deserve this much love. Not for doing something so evil.
His attorney had said it would be a couple of weeks before the trial, at least. Maybe a couple of months. The next thing he had to deal with was his job and deciding what he was going to tell them.
His job paid well and was steady, but it had never been something he got excited about getting out of bed for. He didn’t know if he cared or not if he lost it. He was pretty sure they couldn’t fire him since he hadn’t gone to trial yet and the charges weren’t drunk driving or drug-related. But he really didn’t know.
And he was finding out he really didn’t care.
He tried to make some kind of a to-do list as his parents drove him home. More like an IOU list. But every thought circled around to Chuck. No matter how much he tried to keep the man out of his head, he couldn’t. Seeing Chuck walk away from him again, this time while he was sober, had been a knee to the nads. Or a rusty spoon to the heart. Whatever it was, the pain and regret weren’t letting him go. He inhaled and exhaled it. It existed inside him, on him, around him, and he couldn’t escape it.
He didn’t know why he couldn’t get free of it.
He’d been with Chuck for less than two months. They’d never officially gone out on a date. No one besides Kam, Lila, and Emily even knew who Chuck was to him. Okay yes, the sex had been hot. Scorching, bone-melting, collapse into the bed face first ‘cause he couldn’t hold himself up any longer satisfying, and pushing at a line Jesse hadn’t even realized he wanted to cross….
Fuck.
That had been the problem from the very beginning. Being in a relationship with a man had been a line he never wanted to cross. He’d actively kept any hook-ups completely under wraps, anonymous, and short-term for a reason. But Chuck…was Chuck.
He was genuine. Everything about him just so real and unapologetic—his humor, drive, desires, goals. Chuck just was. He didn’t apologize for it or try to convince anyone that his way of living was the right way for him.
There were so many things left unsaid between them. At the jail, Jesse had been on the verge of telling Chuck that he was falling for him. Somehow Chuck had picked up on his idiocy before anything could fall out of his mouth. But Jesse couldn’t leave everything unsaid. If there was anything that he was sure of it was that he needed Chuck in his life. He wasn’t quite sure if he deserved him—pretty sure most days since Ian that he didn’t deserve any kind of happiness—but he had to at least try.
“Jesse? Wake up honey,” his mother’s voice coaxed.
Jesse’s eyes flew open, and he looked around, disoriented. His mom was leaning over the passenger seat and his dad watched him warily from the rearview mirror. He must have fallen asleep at some point on the ride home.
He tried to smile. And failed.
His dad stared at him, eyes unreadable. “You want us to come in with you?”
Emily would be inside and now probably wasn’t the time for a family get-together.
“Probably better if you don’t for right now. Thanks for the ride.” He leaned forward and kissed his mom on the cheek and gave his dad a one-armed hug over the headrest.
His clothes crinkled as he unfolded himself from the cramped backseat and opened the car door. His house looked the same. Still tiny and that dated shade of yellow he’d wanted to paint over for years but had only touched up instead of repainting.
The front door opened as he walked up the steps and Precious came bounding through the door. She jumped on him, tail going nuclear, and pawed at him, trying to fit her entire one-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame in his arms. Jesse squatted down and let his dog envelop him. He scratched behind her ears, not stopping her when she gave him messy, wet, stinky kisses all over his hands and face. He heard a short beep from behind him as his parents pulled out of the driveway and he freed one hand to wave goodbye.
“Welcome home,” Emily said from the stoop.
He looked up at his sister. She was so tiny in the doorway, hunched into
herself, arm at her side in a sling. Jesse’s heart sank. She was still covered in bruises, a tapestry of purples, browns, and greens that mottled her face and down her chest, visible in the old flannel button-down shirt of his that she was swimming in. She wore a pair of grey sweatpants that swallowed her minuscule frame up even more and pooled at her feet.
“Hey, sis,” he said as he stood and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek.
Emily tipped her head in the direction his parents had driven away. “They didn’t want to come in?”
“I told them not to.”
“Thanks.”
Jesse pulled her to the couch and settled her down, then snuggled around her. Emily laid her head on his chest and sighed.
“How you feeling?” he finally asked.
“Sore. Exhausted. Confused.”
Jesse’s heart squeezed. “You’re not going back to him are you?”
“Never. But that means I may be here for a while.”
Jesse ran his hand over her hair and tucked it behind her ear. “As long as you need.”
“We’ve made a mess of our lives, Jesse. And I’ve dragged you too far into mine.”
“Never apologize for that. I’d do anything for you, Em. Anything.”
“Maybe I would’ve left sooner if I’d been alone.”
Jesse clenched his jaw. “You’d be dead.”
“Maybe that would be better,” she said.
A line of tears dropped from her eyes and Jesse brushed them away. He’d thought his heart was breaking when Chuck had walked away, but this…. Jesse struggled to breathe at the guilt and profound sadness that rolled through him. “Never, sis. Never.”
Emily sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “I’m going to bed. Come in and give me a kiss at midnight, but I can’t stay up. I just can’t celebrate the New Year tonight.”
Fuck. He’d completely forgotten it was New Year’s Eve.
“You need any help?”
“I got it. You coming, Precious?”
Emily kissed his cheek and he helped her to her feet. She tapped the side of her leg to call Precious then walked slowly up the stairs. When she was at the landing he heard her hesitate.
Out of the Shade Page 16
