The Boss

Chapter 16

Chaz

Emotionally dead, I replayed the surgeon’s words over and over in my head, wishing I could at least bring myself to anger since grief refused to hit like it ought to. My sense of shame intensified over my inability to cry or rage over the loss of my wife.

And…a baby?

After thirty some months of trying, she finally conceived?

How the hell was that even possible? We hadn’t?—

A man sprinted into the ER, rushing past the waiting room’s entrance. “T-Tara!”

the man sobbed. He choked on his own spit, sputtering in his distress as he stumbled forward.

“One minute, honey,”

the reception said. “I’ll go get her.”

The man paced past where I sat, frantically yanking at his too-long, dark hair, mewling whines of anguish slipping past his lips. “Please, God…please.”

He turned leaking eyes to the ceiling but didn’t stop walking or even bother wiping the wetness off his face.

Why did empathy fill me for the pain he suffered while I couldn’t shed a shingle tear for myself? Disbelief or denial seemed like the reasonable answer, but I knew she was gone. Believed what I’d been told. Maybe I was in shock. Unlike when I’d first gotten the news, I didn’t have difficulty breathing, and my heart beat steadily without pain. The fuck was wrong with me? What kind of spouse was I?

Widow.

Even that word whispering through my brain didn’t rouse the type of emotion pouring from the frantic man nearby.

The doors leading back to the triage area clanked opened, and the man spun around. “Oh, God.”

A blonde woman in pink scrubs met him halfway across the distance between them, and they fell into each other’s arms in view of where I sat. Their shared sobs echoed in my ears, and I cringed, wishing I could disappear and give them privacy.

“T-Tell me she’s okay. Please,”

the man begged, clinging to the back of her shirt.

“I’m so sorry,”

his friend whispered.

He wailed, slumping to the floor, lost in his grief as I ought to have been. The nurse went with him, wrapping him in her arms.

My throat ached for the man and the loved one he’d lost?—

Fuck.

Tara.

Shelly’s best friend was a nurse and lived in Berlin.

I stared at the two hanging on each other in shared grief, my brain stuttering briefly.

Need to get out of here.

Can’t—breathe.

Standing, I walked past them on stiff legs, ignoring the two on the floor, my focus on getting outside where I could fill my lungs with fresh air.

Shelly had been traveling to Berlin a hell of a lot since midsummer. Visiting her best friend, my ass.

That man sobbing his heart out had been in love with my wife.

And she’d been pregnant.

Ice chilled my bones, keeping me blessedly numb.

The automatic doors swished open, and a quick glance revealed Jamie a ways down the sidewalk to my left, sitting on the cold ground, head in his hands. I longed to go to him but needed to be alone in silence for a while, to find a place to allow myself to fucking feel something other than nothing.

My work boots scuffed on the cement walkway as I headed right. Once around the corner of the building, I stared up at the night sky, cloud cover blocking out stars that would have brought me a sense of peace or at least a good memory to possibly take away the horror of my life my emotions hadn’t yet caught up with.

My cell burned a hole in my pocket.

Closing my eyes for the span of a single heavy heartbeat, I pulled it free.

Shelly’s message from earlier in the day shone back at my eyes, bright in the darkness.

Shell: I found out this morning that there are men who can keep their promises. Tomorrow, I’m meeting with an attorney to file for divorce. Please do something right for a change and don’t make this difficult for me.

I re-read her first sentence twice. Her meaning hadn’t computed when I’d been anxious to get to the hospital, but I understood now.

That man on the hospital floor had given her everything I hadn’t.

If I’d done more, listened to her griping, and changed my behavior, neither of us would be where we currently were.

Me standing alone outside a hospital, her body growing cold on a metal gurney.

Why didn’t sorrow send me to my knees?

Was there something more I could have done to keep our marriage from falling apart? Had my actions or lack of them been the reason she’d sought out another lover? I hadn’t hated my wife, so why wasn’t I a crying mess?

Sighing when a good husband would have been half-mad with grief, I dropped my head. I put my cell where I wouldn’t be tempted to reread her text over and over since I didn’t need additional agony when my thoughts were a swarm of angry bees.

“Chaz?”

Leave it to Jamie to find me when I needed him most.

But I didn’t deserved his comfort or his faithfulness considering the lines I’d crossed with him. Yeah, Shelly had cheated too, but that didn’t make what me and my best friend had done behind her back right.

We’d chosen an unethical path, and even though my act of infidelity hadn’t caused Shelly’s death, I couldn’t help but feel somehow responsible. I’d vowed to love and honor. Cherish. Care for her in sickness and in health—emotionally as well as physically.

I’d failed in keeping every single promise I’d made on our wedding day.

My throat swelled as Jamie drew nearer, and I swallowed down tears of self-pity as he tugged on my arm with a soft touch.

“Come here.”

I went willingly, allowing myself this one thing, a single hug wrapped in strong, warm arms. He smelled like soap and natural underlying musk.

Home.

But I refused to buckle to want, to show how desperate I was to lean on him, soak in his strength, and lose myself to an onslaught of emotions that hovered beyond reach.

Jamie cradled me against his hard chest, his exhales hot on my neck.

I shivered, eyes clenching shut at the raw need far beyond lust clawing through my insides.

While now free to pursue the man I loved, I deserved to wallow in my loneliness for how badly I’d failed my wife. I’d done nothing to stop the train wreck we’d headed toward, and she in turn sought out the happiness that I hadn’t supplied.

Who could blame her?

If I’d been as miserable as she’d been, I’d have done the same.

I did do the same.

Fucking hell, my head hurt, and I wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and feel sorry for myself. And her. She’d lost even more than I had.

Shit had to get done, and I needed to pull up my boot straps and see to my responsibilities.

“You got in touch with my parents?”

I asked with a deadened tone rather than revealing evidence of my emotional downward spiral.

“I called my dad, had him reach out to them,”

Jamie said, his voice low and steady, reassuring as always.

I exhaled loudly as though emptying my thoughts of everything but necessities, nodded, and stepped out of his arms. Gaze on the ground, I shoved my hands into my pockets to keep from clinging to him. I could stand on my own two feet and would. “Thanks for being here for me, Jamie.”

“Of course—always.”

Fuck, that word. I used to love hearing it on his lips.

Now it brought just as much pain as the other one I hated—failure.

I swallowed hard, determined to remain steady and in control. “Why don’t you head north,”

I suggested when I wanted to slump back against his chest and fade away into oblivion. “I can imagine I’ve got a long night ahead of me—papers to sign, calls to make, that sort of shit.”

“Chaz.”

I forced my focus upward.

Pain and empathy filled his dark blue eyes, and I clenched my jaw to keep my overwhelming yearning for him contained inside my body. “What can I do to help?”

“Go home,”

I croaked out. “Give me space to make sense of this mess. Figure out the next couple of days and the laundry list of responsibilities ahead of me. I’ve got to go see Shelly’s mom. Bury my wife. Not get so backed up on work that I lose the shop.”

Fuck.

How was I going to pay all the bills—and the ones racked up thanks to today’s accident?

I was so screwed.

“Let me?—”

I shook my head while straightening my spine. “No. I…I need to do this on my own.”

“You don’t have to prove jack shit to your father right now, Chaz,”

Jamie snipped.

“This isn’t about him.”

“The fuck it’s not!”

His eyes blazed, and while I appreciated him having my back, I had to prove to myself that I could take care of shit like a real man, that I didn’t need anyone’s acceptance of myself but my own.

A shitty time to recognize the truth of how badly I lacked self-confidence, but I wouldn’t quit until I found what I’d been missing.

“Please, Jamie,”

I begged, wishing I could make him understand all the shit sloshing around in my head.

Jamie pressed his lips tight, thankfully not arguing further. “Okay.”

He finally relented even though his eyes stated he hated doing so. “I’ll go, but I’m available if you need me, no matter when.”

I nodded that I’d heard, not as an acceptance of his offer he’d clearly meant with all his heart.

He leaned in, and I allowed one last hug, his lips branding my forehead.

Fucking hell.

I gritted my teeth, refusing to pull away from his tenderness that would have me caving to weakness. Healing wasn’t going to be found by Jamie’s mouth or his dick. I needed to walk this journey on my own.

He left me there as I’d asked for, and cold seeped into my bones until I felt brittle—fragile—like a simple fall to the ground would shatter me into pieces.

Hours passed in a blur of doing shit exactly as I’d expected to have to do.

When I got home, I could barely see straight. Rather than slamming back a couple of shots of whiskey to fuck with my eyesight even more, I crawled into bed and passed the fuck out. Who expected emotional exhaustion to be worse than stress? I slept, but nightmares haunted my mind, not allowing the kind of rest I desperately needed.

The doorbell rang in the back of my consciousness, but I ignored it and whoever wanted to poke into my life and bother me right now. Didn’t matter they meant well—I wanted them fucking gone and leaving me the hell alone.

A long, hot shower rid my body of the filth from work on Wednesday. Shelly would have bitched if she’d been around to see me climb between the sheets un-showered after a long day in the shop.

Why didn’t my eyes fill with tears at the thought?

Silence hung heavy over the house we’d shared, but I couldn’t be bothered to hate the absence of another living soul inside the walls. Talk about making me feel even shittier.

I brewed coffee.

Nibbled on toast.

Ignored my ringing cell.

The quiet should have had me huddled over in despair or at the very least teary-eyed. Instead, I sat on the couch, staring at the TV’s dark screen, my eyes dry as a fucking bone.

Shelly had an affair, and while I hadn’t fucked Jamie, I was no less guilty of the same. We had both broken our vows to each other, so why didn’t that truth ease my conscience?

It was the pregnancy that bothered me the most, even more than my wife’s death. Did the guy even know she was—had been—married? Had he just not cared and was so desperate to love her, fulfill her desires, that he would fall into bed with her and give her all the happiness I hadn’t been able to?

“Fuck.”

I rubbed a hand over my face and lifted my coffee mug for a sip.

It was empty.

Grumbling, I stood and shuffled into the kitchen, realizing as I did, that I’d never bumped the heat back up last night when I’d gotten home. I’d put it down the morning before since Shelly was leaving and I didn’t need the house to be as warm as she preferred.

Used to.

How long before my brain caught up with past tense in reference to my wife?

I was a widower.

Hard stop.

No one other than Jamie knew anything different about the state of my heart, and Shelly’s lover and Tara didn’t live in Pippen Creek. Nor were our lives intertwined now that my wife was gone, so the truth of the entire affair would fade into oblivion.

Hopefully, someday, my shame would do the same and allow me at least a slight bit of peace on this earth.

The doorbell rang, and I cursed. Who the fuck would bother me this morning?

I peeked out the window.

Mom. Holding a casserole.

Not in the mood but also not having a choice, I unlocked the door and motioned her inside. At least she’d come alone.

“Charles.”

She set her dish on the side table alongside my keys before throwing her arms around me.

I kicked the door shut and returned her hug, able to at least take some comfort from one of my parents. Mom smelled like roses, same as always, her short stature only bringing the top of her head to beneath my chin.

“How are you?”

I shrugged while stepping back. Mom clung to my arm, her hazel eyes wet with tears. She’d never been the nurturing sort, so her empathy surprised me.

Maybe I didn’t know my mom all that well after all.

“Hanging in there. Coffee?”

“I’m good, but thank you for the offer.”

She retrieved her casserole and followed me into the kitchen, her ballet flats whispering over the floor compared to my heavy footfalls. “It’s tuna noodle,”

she said, setting the dish on the cold stovetop. “Your favorite.”

Yeah—from when I’d been in grade school. Now? I couldn’t stand the shit. Even worse, she’d started adding peas a few years back, which made me want to vomit. But I would never admit the truth and hurt her feelings.

“Thanks, Mom.”

I retrieved another full mug of coffee and leaned against the counter as Mom settled at the table.

“Your father had to work today, but he wanted me to extend the offer to see to Shelly’s wake and funeral since money is tight for you.”

I took a few sips while digesting that bomb, hating that I never had enough funds for normal responsibilities never mind the hospital bills that would start showing any day. I doubted Dad offered out of the kindness of his heart though. There was no such thing inside that man. He probably figured I wouldn’t do the memory of his daughter-in-law justice. That I would just have her cremated without any ceremony or offer her friends the chance to pay their last respects as a good, upstanding citizen of Pippen Creek ought to.

Getting shit over with as quickly as possible was exactly what I would have done so her death wouldn’t drag on and intensify my shame over not being able to grieve.

“He can do whatever he needs to,”

I finally agreed.

Mom smiled, her tears gone as I guzzled down more coffee. “The community has already come together. Babs started a meals-on-wheels type thing online. Sign-ups filled within an hour, so at least I won’t have to worry about keeping you fed. Scone Haven has begun a fundraiser for burial expenses, since she’d told her boss Kel that you didn’t have life insurance on each other.”

I wouldn’t pass up free meals or the gift of having not to worry over money for something else I hadn’t considered. Both acts of kindness gave me more free hours at the shop without additional stress.

Speaking of…

“I appreciate it.”

I set my empty cup aside, wanting to be alone even though my mom meant well. “Sorry to cut the visit short, but I have to get to the work.”

Mom blinked, her spine straightening. “What? No! Charles, you need to grieve!”

“I’ll do that in my own way when I can,”

I explained. “I’ve got bills to pay, and the clock is ticking.”

She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Charles Clifford Henderson.”

I hadn’t heard my full name fall off her lips since childhood, but I didn’t cringe as I would have as a kid.

“Even in death you can’t make time for your wife?”

Talk about a low blow. What a way to make me feel even shittier—bring up Shelly’s bitching behind my back.

A muscle ticked in my cheek as I fought to keep from scowling or even worse, cursing both her and my mom out.

“She’s gone, Mom.”

I barely refrained from hissing the sad, fucking truth. “Shelly is dead. It no longer matters where I spend the bulk of my days since she’s not around to complain about it.”

Mom gasped, her eyes wide.

I rubbed a hand over my face, scrubbing at the scruff on my jawline. Perhaps I’d gone a little too far. Mom hadn’t ever been so brutally honest with me. She’d lost her only daughter-in-law and was probably hurting more than I was.

“I know it sounds harsh, but let me figure out how to move forward now that she’s gone, okay? Please give me space—and tell everyone calling and knocking on my front door that while condolences are appreciated, I need to be alone.”

It took her a few seconds, but she nodded and stood. “I’ll see myself out.”

I didn’t address her slightly petulant attitude or voice while she did just that. With how I’d spoken to her, I deserved it.

The door shut behind her, leaving me exactly how I wanted to be.

On my own.

I picked up the casserole and emptied the contents directly into the trash, my mind already going to the car on the lift I hadn’t been able to finish the day before.