Vulnerable

by Tymber Dalton

  A puddle of puke had started drying on the floor near her. As he swooped in, he was relieved to see her chest moving. He checked her pulse, found it strong.

  Kneeling next to her, he got her sitting up and slapped her cheeks. “Eva!”

  She moaned.

  It took every last ounce of self-control he had not to punch her. He slapped her cheeks again, a little harder. “Eva! Wake up!”

  Her eyelids fluttered open, her gaze everywhere at once before focusing on him. “Jesse?”

  He reached in and started the shower, cold water. Hauling her to her feet, he dragged her into the shower with both arms wrapped around her and held her directly under the cold spray.

  She shrieked, weakly struggling, then sobbing as she started coming to. He wasn’t sure if she’d aspirated any vomit or not. He hoped that the puking had occurred before the passing out portion of her solo festivities.

  He struggled and lost against his anger as he stood there, the cold water making him shiver as well as drawing gooseflesh up all over her arms and legs and plastering the T-shirt to her body.

  “Let me make something perfectly fucking clear to you, Eva,” he said through gritted teeth and trying to keep his voice down. “You do not fucking get to check out on that little girl. Do you understand me? So grow. The fuck. Up.”

  Her head slumped against the wall, where he was now leaning, forcing her to stand directly under the spray. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just meant to have one drink, and then…” Her voice deteriorated into ragged sobs.

  Once he knew she was alert, he reached over and adjusted the water temp to the cool side of warm and turned her around so she faced him. His hands clenched around her upper arms and he shook her, hard, not even caring if he left bruises behind.

  “I forgave you for snooping. That was your one fucking chance with my good graces. The only reason I’m not walking out of here with Laurel right now is because I know you’re in pain and scared. So you fucking listen to me. No more chances. I get it, you’re upset and scared. Well, I’m upset and scared, too, but we don’t have the liberty of drinking ourselves into oblivion right now. You want to fucking do that shit? You wait until we get Leo healed up and home. How long have you been drinking?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t. That was Leo’s favorite. I haven’t drank anything since he left. I just…” Jesse couldn’t tell what was tears and what was water flowing down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t think—”

  He shook her again, hard. “No fucking lies, Eva. I catch you lying to me, you will never see that little girl again. I don’t want to be an asshole, but don’t you dare fuck with her life. I will do what it takes to protect her. Do you fucking understand me?”

  Did this explain why she’d caved to the outrageous legal demands? Was this why she’d insisted on him being named Laurel’s guardian? Was there a secret she’d been hiding that they hadn’t known about?

  “I swear,” she said. “I haven’t.”

  Jesse was running on adrenaline and anger and autopilot. “I talk to that counselor you and Leo go to and find out you’ve been drinking, you’re done. Last chance to come completely clean to me. Right now.”

  “I swear. I haven’t even been in that cabinet since…” She dissolved into sobs again.

  Leo always insisted to Jesse that Eva had never lied to him. No whoppers, just the occasional little white lie, which he always easily spotted. That she could be closemouthed and noncommunicative, but she wasn’t able to lie to him.

  He trusted Leo and hoped his partner hadn’t been seriously deluded by her all these years. Or that she was able to lie to him and not to Leo.

  He held Eva against him and warmed the water even more as she painfully sobbed. He sank to the shower floor with her wrapped in his arms, holding her, rocking her, both of them soaked to the skin. He also looked at her foot, the cut not too deep and no longer bleeding.

  “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me you will never lie to me. You lie to me, I’m gone, and I’m taking her with me.” He still wasn’t completely convinced of the legal weight of that argument, but all that mattered right now was that Eva believed its validity.

  “I promise,” she choked out. “I swear.” She dissolved into more tears and he let his own flow as he sat there and held her. “My parents hate me,” she said. “They never liked Leo. They didn’t want me to marry him. My mom said last night I’ve wasted my life and ruined Laurel’s by marrying Leo. That I’m a horrible mother for letting Laurel spend time with Leo. They told me not to call them unless he…” More hitching sobs.

  He got it now. He understood all too well having asshole parents. He also understood why Leo had agonized over his decision to leave her for so long before he did. Why he’d kept trying for so long.

  But Eva was an adult. She was going to have to learn how to deal with this loss like an adult and not like a child.

  The divorce was forcing her to fully grow up in a way she hadn’t needed to. First her parents ruling her life, probably, then meeting Leo and gladly letting him take the dominant role, even though neither one of them had ever realized it before.

  Once her tears mostly stopped, he helped her to her feet and shut the water off. She looked a little wobbly. “Do I need to take you to the ER? You threw up.”

  She shook her head. “No. That was before I passed out.”

  He cupped her face in his palms like he had earlier that day. “I mean it. You work with me, or you are totally on your own and alone. Got it?”

  She nodded, still sniffling.

  “I’m not a Dominant. And I can’t be your Dominant. I just…can’t. I can be your friend. Family, even. If you need me to lean on right now, I know Leo wouldn’t mind it. But once we’re through this, you have to move on and find someone else who can be that guy for you. You don’t even really know what you want right now because you’re in too much pain to know what or who you need. And it cannot be the first guy who comes along and dots all the Is like that just because you’re hurting and afraid. Understand?”

  Of course, as he said that, he realized the hypocrisy of his words.

  That was exactly how it’d been between him and Leo when they’d met. He’d had enough experience under his belt, but then he’d fallen hard for Leo, too. Who was he to say what was right and wrong?

  “Yes, Sir. I’m sorry.”

  He hugged her to him, only his love for Leo and Laurel allowing him to shove his anger aside.

  “Okay, sweetie. Clean slate from this point forward. Part of your punishment is you are going to clean this mess up. And you don’t ever lock your bedroom door again when we’re alone. Laurel came and woke me up to make her lunch. If you’d pulled this shit alone with her, what would she have done, huh? Been scared because she couldn’t wake you up? Or if you’d done this and left the door unlocked and she’d walked in on you like that. What do you think that would have done to her? What if I hadn’t been here and she called 911 and then ended up in state custody, because you were Baker-acted, huh?”

  “It won’t happen again, Sir. I promise.”

  “Damn right it won’t. You’re going to clean this up, and then you’re going to go out to the kitchen and dump every ounce of alcohol in this house. I don’t care what it is or how expensive it was.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I’m going to get my shower. I expect to see this mess cleaned up, you dressed and cleaned up, all the alcohol dumped—leave the empties in the kitchen sink for me to see—and then you need to get Laurel’s room and bathroom put back together. Understand?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Her muddy brown eyes were bloodshot. She would have one hell of a hangover later, if she didn’t already. Her breath was an acrid cloud of rum and puke and old coffee and morning breath.

  “And brush your teeth.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He carefully stepped out of the shower, avoiding the mess on the floor, and stripped off his soaking wet shorts and briefs. He wrung th
em out over the sink and wrapped a towel around his hips to get himself back to his bedroom.

  He grabbed clothes and his shower kit and peeked around the corner of the living room to find Laurel still in front of the TV, eating and watching.

  “You all right, sweetheart?” he called out.

  “Yes. Is Mommy okay?”

  “She’s fine, sweetheart. She didn’t hear me knocking because she was in the shower. She’s okay.”

  He hated lying to her, but it was for the best.

  He went to grab his shower.

  When he finished, Eva wasn’t in the kitchen. He went to check on her, opening her bedroom door without knocking first. She wore a bra and panties and a towel wrapped like a turban around her hair. She was getting something out of the dresser and was slow to turn when he entered. Without speaking, he walked over to the bathroom. She’d cleaned up the mess, and looked like she’d gotten a shower.

  He headed for the door. “Good girl,” he said on the way. “Hurry up and meet me in the kitchen.

  He would make her do it, dump the liquor. Punishment, even though he could tell she felt like shit.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  She joined him there less than five minutes later. He stood there, now working on his second cup of coffee, watching as she emptied every bottle of liquor in the cabinet into the sink, including a half a bottle of Moscato wine from the fridge.

  When she finished, she turned to him but didn’t meet his gaze.

  Setting his cup aside, he walked over and pulled her in for a hug. “Good girl,” he whispered. “We’ll get through this. I promise. Together.”

  She crumpled against him, softly crying. “Yes, Sir. Thank you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After Eva got Laurel’s mess cleaned up, Jesse sat Eva at the kitchen counter and made her some toast. Laurel’s focus was on the TV show she watched, so he kept his voice down as he stood on the other side of the counter and slid the plate over to Eva.

  “Thank you,” she said, sounding lost.

  “So tell me this. Why did your parents act like that last night? What piece of the puzzle am I missing that you guys haven’t told me?”

  “Did Leo tell you I’m adopted?”

  He faltered. “No. Believe it or not, Leo doesn’t tell me every last factoid about you.”

  “All three of us are. We’re half sisters. My mom’s younger sister is our biological mother.”

  “What happened?”

  “She’d met a guy and got pregnant with my older sister, Ann. Then she dropped out of college and he left her while she was pregnant. She had Ann, then met another guy and got pregnant with me. She liked to party and stuff, I guess. He left her, too. Gayle was a third guy. She’d already lost custody of Ann and me when she got pregnant with Gayle.”

  “But I get the impression your parents don’t treat your sisters like they treated you.”

  There was a weighty pause he suspected contained far more than she let on. “No, because I look just like our birth mother. We always knew we were adopted and nothing I’ve ever done in my life was good enough. Only my grandmother never treated me like that.”

  She looked even more lost than before. At least it explained the strong bond she had with her grandmother. “My mother and father always threw it in my face that if I didn’t straighten up, I’d end up worthless, just like my birth mother.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Somewhere in Hudson, I think. We haven’t seen her in years. My mom and dad and the rest of the family don’t have any contact with her. She’s got a husband and son and they don’t know about us, apparently. We don’t even know our birth fathers.”

  Wow.

  Okay, so there was someone out there who had it worse, family-wise, than he did. He’d always known there was, he just never knew anyone personally who had it worse off than he did. Hearing the old pain in her voice allowed him to completely release his anger.

  He reached across the counter and took her hand in his. “You aren’t defined by them or anyone else. You are able to live your life the way you want to.”

  “That’s what Leo’s always told me,” she softly said.

  “Then it’s time to do it, don’t you think?”

  She nodded.

  He let go of her hand. “Eat your toast. You need something in your stomach. Make sure you drink plenty of water today.” He walked over to the bag of Leo’s belongings and looked through it, finally finding his work cell phone. It had been damaged in the wreck and wouldn’t power up.

  Item number one—Leo’s work. That would have to be kept going, no matter what. He could juggle his job and school around that, if he had to.

  He rejoined Eva at the counter. “How much do you know about Leo’s shop and running his business?”

  “Not much. He’s got a bookkeeper. He does stuff through one of those online accounting programs and he does direct deposit payments to his guys.”

  Item number two—find out what software and buy a book on how to use it.

  Sleep was beginning to look like a distant luxury. “Do you have the bookkeeper’s info?”

  “No, but it’s probably at the shop.”

  Leo’s keys had also been in the bag, his house keys and the shop and work truck keys.

  He heard a phone ringing in the guest bedroom and realized it was his. He bolted for it, relieved and disappointed to see it was Ed.

  “Hey,” the lawyer said without preamble. “Got everything filed this morning and will have official copies in my hands when Pat signs off on them this afternoon. How is he?”

  “Same. I’m at Eva’s.”

  “You’re…what? You’re where?”

  “We’ve reached detente. She’s not going to fight this.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “Is there anything I have to do?”

  “Get her to call her attorney and talk to him. I’ve sent official notification of the filings to his office, but she needs to talk to him herself and tell him to back off.”

  Item the third——make that item the first—stop by Eva’s lawyer’s office on way to hospital.

  “Will do.”

  “I’ll come by this evening around seven. To the hospital,” he clarified. “Call me on this cell number if you need me before then.”

  “Thanks.”

  He returned to the kitchen. Eva was almost done with her toast. “Okay. Finish that, and we’re going to get moving. Prepare for another long day. Get some stuff for Laurel to take with us to do. Like her iPad. And for yourself. Don’t forget the chargers.” At the apartment, he’d grabbed his laptop and tablet, so he was all set.

  “Yes, Sir,” she softly said.

  Thirty minutes later, he was behind the wheel of Eva’s car and they were heading to her attorney’s office.

  Jesse went in with Eva, leaving Laurel sitting in the waiting room and playing a game on her iPad. When the attorney tried to get Jesse out of the room, Eva finally showed a little backbone.

  “Jim, I’m sorry, but this decision is final. It’s how I want it.”

  The attorney glanced at Jesse with suspicion. “We can file an appeal.”

  “No,” she said. “Just send me your bill and close it out. We’re done. I need to focus on Laurel and getting Leo better. You can call Ed Payne and talk to him if you need the info. I’ll sign whatever, but please, it’s done. It’s over.”

  On the walk out to the car, Jesse draped an arm around Eva’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Good girl,” he whispered. “I’m very proud of you.” He held the passenger door for her and closed it after she got in.

  He thought maybe he spotted the faintest ghost of a smile on her face.

  After getting Laurel buckled in, they took off again. This time stopping for a drive-thru smoothie for Laurel, and large iced coffees for him and Eva. Eva’s pallor had improved a little, but he suspected she was very dehydrated from her drunken spell. No, coffee wouldn’t help that, but he needed her vertic
al and functioning.

  At the hospital, they greeted everyone there with hugs before Jesse and Eva went to talk with the doctors. Leo’s vitals looked marginally better but it was still too soon to say. They would possibly be disconnecting the ventilator later that evening or in the morning, if he continued improving. The initial tests were promising, but it was just wait and see at that point.

  Jesse stood on one side of Leo’s bed, his fingers curled around Leo’s, while Eva stood on the other.

  Carefully leaning in, he rested his head on the pillow next to Leo’s and softly spoke into his ear.

  “Listen, Sir. Your subbie boy’s had to get Toppy with Eva. You’d better get your ass healed up soon before I go full-on switch on you next. I love you.” He kissed Leo’s cheek.

  Eva sadly stared down at Leo. “You two belong together,” she said. Jesse wasn’t sure at first if she was talking to him or Leo, when she continued. “I’m sorry I acted so stupid about the divorce,” she said. “If I hadn’t been stupid, maybe the schedules would have been different. Maybe you wouldn’t have been driving home then, and you wouldn’t be—”

  “Whoa,” Jesse said. “Stop. Right now.” Dom-tone.

  Her gaze flicked over to him.

  “I mean it,” he said. “Stop that. Moving forward, remember? This was in no way your fault.”

  She nodded before her focus returned to Leo. “Jesse’s taking good care of us,” she told Leo. “But we need you to get better. Please get better.”

  When Eva was ready to leave, Jesse once again draped an arm around her shoulders. She rested her head on his shoulder and curled an arm around his waist as they walked.

  * * * *

  With Eliza and Rebecca coordinating the schedule of the overnight volunteers standing vigil at the hospital, Jesse was able to get Eva and Laurel out of there and home by nine, where they ate a pizza they’d picked up along the way.

  Laurel would go to school tomorrow, despite her not wanting to. There wasn’t anything she could do at the hospital, and frankly, Jesse knew he and Eva both needed the respite from her presence so they could just be adults and grieve in their own ways.