Page 26 of Midnight Ink

I walk to his room and find his dresser, pulling it open and instantly snapping it shut when I see the hot pink dildo on top.

Oh my god.

“It’s fine. Just get him a new shirt. He can change his underwear when he gets up.” I will not be doing that. I open a different drawer and grab a new shirt then join him back on the couch. I wrestle him out of the rancid one and he flops back down. You know what. Fuck the shirt. I grab the dirty one with my two fingers and drop it into the washing machine.

I wish I could get him to drink something. I was only been gone about an hour, what the hell happened? I mean, we fought but . . . that couldn’t have caused this, right? Where’s Jamie?

Ian snores loudly, which I’ll take as a good sign. His softly rising chest is the only thing keeping my blood pressure from bursting. I find a little wastebasket in his room and slide it over to his head just in case. He’s going to hurt when he wakes up And he stinks, but he can take care of that by himself.

I head back down to the shop and grab our appointment planner. I have an idea.

Ian is going to kill me.

Yet if he keeps going like this, he’s going to end up killing himself.

I need to take charge, because I know he won’t.

It takes me about an hour, but I finally get through all our appointments for the next two weeks and tell them all we have an emergency. Most understand. I let them know that in two weeks we’ll call them with new appointments, and we’ll take ten percent off.

Yeah, Ian’s going to kill me.

With my socked feet on his coffee table and sketchbook in hand, I smile at the picture I’m drawing. Only, in my drawing Ian is peacefully sleeping, not passed out drunk. As I fill in the shadows of his features, he stirs. “Oh. Oh, fuck.” Ian groans, leaning forward.

I grab the basket before he can throw up, and he heaves, emptying his stomach into the trash.

After a moment his body settles. “What the fuck,” he whines.

“You only have yourself to blame.” Watery red eyes blink up at me. Then he flips me off. Then he heaves again. Serves him right. “Do you know how fucking heavy you are? How about a ‘Thank you, Julian, for carrying me upstairs in your big strong arms.’ I barely dropped you.”

“You dropped me—” Head back into the can. Oh, cleaning that out is where my job ends and his begins.

Finally he stops throwing up.

“I feel like shit.”

“Feel like you chugged about three-quarters of that bottle of whiskey?” His bleary eyes blink at me.

“Don’t speak to me in fractions. My head hurts.” He attempts to sit up. “Fuck.”

“You need to go shower and change your clothes now. You stink. I’m going to make something to soak up all that alcohol.” I stand up, looking back at him. He doesn’t move. “Now.”

“Jules, just go home. I’m fine.”

“If you say you’re fine one more time, I’m going to quit.” I glare at him. “Go take a fucking shower. I’m going to make food.”

Ian sits a moment before he concedes. I don’t know whether it’s to be stubborn or he needs to remember how to stand. Either way, he gets up slowly and walks into his bedroom and opens his top drawer then looks back at me.

“I didn’t see the dildo.”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, grabbing a clean pair of boxers and disappearing into his bathroom. Okay, food. I look in his fridge and notice how bare it is. I see cheese, eggs, bacon, hot sauce.

Breakfast for dinner.

I find English muffins on the counter. Not exactly my favorite, but I’m working with the basics. My mind stays mostly on what I’m about to tell him. It’s necessary, but I know he’s going to kill me.

I did text Anna while I waited for him to wake up and she was more than on board with my plan. I know Ian’s going to fight me, but I’m ready for it. I can’t keep going at this pace and neither can he.

I’m toasting the muffins when Ian walks out in his boxers, his blue-green eyes much clearer. I look back and drink in the tattoos on his thighs. I’ve noticed Ian has a thing for animals. He has an elephant on top of one thigh that goes over his knee, and he has some sort of a pelican on the inside of his thigh done in an American traditional style. He’s got the antihero Venom on his other knee, the creature’s tongue out dripping saliva in that same sketched-ink style as the one on his back. He’s got a sword on the inside of his other thigh, and a giant tattoo of a humpback whale on the outside. I can only see the first half; its lower half disappears under his boxers.