Page 24 of His Holy Chaos

A couple on the nearest leather couch shifts uncomfortably. The man in the rope harness gives me a look that clearly communicates handle this.

Jude is already moving away from me, careening toward the lounge area where a group of people are.

"He said he doesn't do brats!" Jude announces to a man in a leather vest who is trying very hard to pretend this isn't happening. "Isn't that hilarious? He doesn't do brats! And then he comes after me!"

The man in the leather vest gives me a look of strained sympathy. Behind him, I see Glynn pushing through the crowd, definitely coming to intervene. But that's not their problem to handle.

It's mine.

Jude is my problem and has been since the day he entered my life, in this same space.

I move. I get close to him, and he stumbles in my direction with that drunk mocking face, ready to say something else. But I do it first.

"I can't with you, boy," I say, frustrated. I want to grab him by the nape of his neck and throw him in the back of my car, spank him red and raw, and then take him home, where I can punish him for days for making me look like a clown. Instead, I take a deep breath, centering myself, and tell him again: "If you don't stop right now, I'm leaving."

"So fucking GO. I never wanted you here and you definitely don't want to be here, so just GO, it's exactly what you want. LEAVE me ALONE! Get OUT of my life, I never want to see you again," he screams at me, and everybody around us stops what they're doing to watch.

Part of me wants to go, leave him there, make him regret it. The bigger part of me growls: "You fucking wish, boy. Come here, right now."

There it goes. My self-control. Always so fragile when it comes to him. I grab him by his shirt and then secure the nape of his neck under my arm, just as I planned. He squeals and tries to break free, but he has no chance. I'm much stronger than him. "You're going to regret this when you can't sit for a week. I'll make sure of it."

He thrashes against me. Someone nearby gasps. I don't care. I tighten my grip on the back of his neck and half-drag, half-carry him toward the parking lot, his boots scraping uselessly against the ground.

"Let me… go… you fucking…"

And then he goes rigid in my arms. I know the signs before his body does. The way his throat convulses, the way his whole frame shudders like something electric has passed through him. I pivot him just in time.

He vomits violently all over the curb and the toe of my left shoe. The sound is awful, wet and guttural, and it keeps coming in waves that rack his body until there's nothing left. His knees buckle. I catch him before he hits the ground, and he sags against my chest like a marionette whose strings have been cut, his skin the color of curdled milk.

"Jude. Jesus Christ." I tap his cheek. His honey eyes roll, unfocused, the lids fluttering. "Jude, stay with me."

He mumbles something incoherent, might be Emmett, might be sorry, might be nothing at all, and then his head lolls against my shoulder, and he's gone. Not dead. Breathing. But gone from the world in the way only the truly self-destructive can manage, having drunk themselves past the point of consciousness.

I stand there for a moment in the parking lot, holding his limp body against mine, the smell of vodka and bile sharp in the cool night air, and I feel something crack open in my chest.

I allowed this to happen.

I might even have caused this myself by repeatedly pushing him away. Playing with him, just like everybody else in his life did.

I carry him to my car. He weighs nothing. I buckle him into the passenger seat, tilting his head to the side in case he vomits again. I don't drive to the house. Angel is there with Rose, who I called to stay the night when I decided to come to the club. I won't bring Jude near my daughter like this. Instead, I drive to the penthouse, the apartment I keep in the city for late work nights and the occasional need to be somewhere that isn't home. I haven't used it in weeks. It'll do.

I carry him up the elevator. I'm grateful no one else is around to see us like this. I open the door, literally inviting him into my life. The main living area is one fluid space with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the park, the city spreading out below. The furniture is minimal: a deep leather couch, a single slab of reclaimed wood serving as a coffee table, a fireplace that's more show than functional. The art on the walls is black and white photography. No personal photos anywhere. That's how I used to like things. Orderly and impersonal. I don't think that's how it is anymore.

I strip off his soiled shirt and his jeans, leaving him in his red boxers, and lay him on his side in the guest bed. I leave water and two aspirin on the nightstand. I stand in the doorway for longer than I should, watching the shallow rise and fall of his ribs, the faint scars on his torso. His body is lean but strong, defined arms, abs, legs. But I don't want to see him like this. Not in this situation.

I close the door and pour myself a bourbon and sit in the study in the dark, listening to the grandfather clock tick, and I do not sleep.

☐

Morning comes, smelling of coffee I've already brewed. I hear him: the creak of the guest room door, the shuffle of bare feet, a groan.

Jude appears in the kitchen doorway looking like a beautiful catastrophe. His eyes are red and swollen, bloodshot, reduced to thin rings of honey around blown-dark pupils. He's still wearing nothing but his boxers. But his face is of absolute regret. He looks as guilty as a puppy who ripped the couch open and is waiting for a scolding.

"Sit down," I say, not looking up from the tablet I'm not actually reading.

He doesn't sit. Of course he doesn't. He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms over his bare chest, and I can see him constructing his armor in real time.

"Nice place," he says, his voice rough. "You bring all your charity cases here, or am I special?"