The Boss

Chapter 22

Chaz

I’d lain in heaven, suspended in time while wrapped around Jamie’s hard body. Wishes to freeze that moment forever had whispered through my mind as I had become fully conscious. Hungover like never before and playing the sleeping idiot with morning wood had been easy.

Jamie had been tense, but it’d been at least five minutes before he finally pulled from my clingy limbs. I’d let him go, still feigning sleep, the scent of his musk thick in my nose from where I’d buried my face in his armpit. A body part I hadn’t known could cause arousal and comfort.

Might be a new favorite place to linger if I could ever allow myself to seek out happiness.

The second he’d left the bedroom, reality crept into my throbbing brain, bits and pieces of the night before playing out in my head.

He’d taken care of me as no one had ever done, the same as I used to for Shelly when she went overboard with the booze.

I’d loved her in some ways but not the kind that could ever last a lifetime where happiness tended to shroud the bad. Perhaps a part of me did grieve her passing. I’d considered my heart while Jamie banged around in the kitchen, searching out emotion beyond pity for the woman I’d failed.

Beneath feeling shitty about myself, I was sad her life had ended at such a young age. We’d had some good memories that had been overshadowed by the rough patches of the past year. She deserved for me to focus on those rather than the negative as I tended to do thanks to childhood trauma. Overall, she hadn’t truly been a bad person. Just not right for me. We would have been better off staying friends, never crossing the line into a relationship that had been bound to fail from day one.

Because of me.

My head was a fucked-up place to lose myself in. Maybe I really did need help, some direction to get past this. If such a thing was even possible.

Jamie had cooked us breakfast, and even though my stomach wasn’t exactly happy with me, I would need sustenance for the long day and evening ahead.

Maybe a few shots of whiskey for courage after work too before heading to my parents.

Hadn’t been able to look at Jamie fully while sitting across the table from him. I couldn’t bear for him to see the true extent of my depression. I hadn’t lied the night before about not wanting to be here anymore. A magic wand to erase every single one of my failures would have come in handy, but I could be satisfied with at least being numb again.

Tears slid down my cheeks while I showered, longing to lean on Jamie in every way I could, making me feel like I wasn’t strong enough to stand on my own two feet like I’d been determined to do. He’d been my oak as a kid, and going through this shit without him was damned near impossible. It’d been difficult to stop myself from arguing when he’d said he would get out of my hair.

It would have been easy to accept his offer to run interference with my parents. Having the comfort of him nearby would have made dinner with them bearable, but I wanted him too much. Couldn’t be this weak around him, especially not in front of my dad who would easily sniff out my true feelings. No doubt, he’d give me shit for disrespecting my recently deceased wife and warn me not to spoil our name by moving on too quickly. He wasn’t a homophobe, as far as I was aware, but seeing as how he couldn’t be pleased, he’d find a negative to point out.

Babs had told me to lean on my friend in my time of need, but look where that had almost landed me. Clinging to him like an octopus in my bed would have eventually led to sated balls if he hadn’t pulled away.

But I wasn’t ready emotionally, no matter how badly I wanted him.

Not yet.

Work passed too quickly, but I couldn’t complain over the lot full of vehicles that kept me busy. Since I would be seeing Dad that night, I wrote out my loan check—three days early. Handing it over would keep him from having to stop by the shop next week after he left the office. Who knew…maybe being on top of shit would get him to say something kind to me for a change.

While I would have preferred having a couple of shots before heading to my parents, Dad had a bloodhound nose and would know if I’d been drinking, so I abstained.

Showing up sober had my guts in knots, but at least I had a check that might help things remain pleasant enough I could eat, thank them for their help with Shelly’s wake, then take off immediately afterward without issue.

Mom met me at the door promptly at six as I’d been instructed to arrive, kid gloves in place while offering a gentle hug. She avoided questioning my current level of grief.

I was so sick of the goddamn carefulness everyone took around me, like they thought I was some fine china or such shit. Sure, parts of me felt broken inside, but I wasn’t about to let the world see how poorly I handled my emotions when not numb. If only I excelled at fake smiles like my father.

Yet something else I couldn’t seem to get right.

“Dinner will be ready shortly,”

Mom said as I followed her back the tiled entryway toward the pristine kitchen.

“Charles.”

Dad greeted me from where he carved the chicken Mom had roasted for our dinner. He wore an apron over his starched shirt, his actions with the fork and knife precise like a chef’s.

The only thing he’d ever failed at?

Being a good father to his son. It didn’t get much worse than that, and I had to remind myself whenever those goddamned comparison thoughts crept through my mind.

“Got this month’s payment,”

I told him, setting the check on the island, shoulders back, feeling a hint of pride in myself for the first time since closing on my house.

Dad nodded and continued on with his task as though unimpressed I’d put pen to paper before its due date.

I should have known better to expect anything other than indifference over my finally meeting an expectation, but his dismissiveness still stung.

Fuck him and his high horse.

I turned away from him, done for the night and ready to leave. “What can I do to help, Mom?”

I asked even though I could see the dining room through the archway. She’d already set the table, had ice water poured and everything.

“If you wouldn’t mind carrying in the potatoes.”

She handed me a white serving bowl, steam rising off the fluff of white and glob of butter at its center.

It’d been days since that meals on wheels thing had ended. I hadn’t had a warm, home-cooked meal since, but I’d only agreed to dinner because it was long overdue.

We sat at the dining room table built for eight, Mom and I bracketing Dad at the head like we used to do every night when I’d been a kid.

Dad said grace while I grimaced over the bowl Mom had set down beside my plate.

Fucking peas.

After his deep and reverent, “Amen,”

Dad nodded as though giving us permission to begin.

I managed to keep the disgust off my face this time even though I hated their old traditional values of the man ruling the roost.

Made me want to vomit.

“How are you doing, Charles?”

Mom finally asked what I’d expected the second I had walked into the house.

At least one of my parents showed concern of my well-being, but having zero wish to repeat the last conversation she and I had in my kitchen, I decided to keep it short like I did with everyone else who asked.

“Fine.”

I scooped mashed potatoes onto my plate even though my stomach wasn’t feeling up to food no matter how good it looked or delicious it smelled.

Her disappointment in my answer lay heavy in the air. Imagining her pursed lips was disheartening enough, so I didn’t bother glancing across the table.

“We heard you were at the bar last night.”

I closed my eyelids briefly, fighting off the need to shake my head. Of course they would catch rumor of the grieving husband finally showing his face outside the auto shop—and find my choice of where I decided to socialize distasteful. Dad’s tone made that clear as the brilliant green balls of shit in the bowl beside me that I ignored.

“I met up with Jamie for a few drinks,”

I said, not feeling the slightest bit guilty.

“A few?”

I ignored Dad’s inquiry. He obviously already knew I’d been slamming back shots of whiskey. Choosing dark meat, I stabbed a thigh off the platter of chicken and set it onto my plate. “Gravy, please?”

Mom handed the boat over, and I covered everything on my plate. “Have some peas,”

she suggested with her mom tone I didn’t often ignore.

I shoved a mouthful of potatoes in my mouth instead. Creamy, buttery perfection coated my tongue, but I struggled to swallow while waiting for the disproval to rain down.

“You have a reputation to uphold, Charles.”

There it was, right on target and on time.

Dad’s stern voice sounded as though I were nothing more than a child, his words exactly as I’d heard from him steadily throughout my life. “Henderson is a respected name worth protecting.”

“There’s nothing wrong with going to Frenchie’s, Dad,”

I said even though I knew better than to argue with anything he said. Annoyance and feeling at the end of my rope had given me the balls to stand up for myself for a change, so why curb my tongue? “Everyone else in town has gone there at one point or another,”

I tacked on before he could speak.

“Not everyone,”

he snipped, and yeah, he had a point. He and Mom hadn’t ever stepped foot into that place. “I would appreciate it if you considered possible consequences before making that kind of decision in the future. As a grieving widow, you don’t want people believing you need alcohol to cope. A Henderson ought not to show such weakness.”

“And I would appreciate if you would mind your own damned business,”

I shot back, the words spewing because fuck him and fuck being treated like a stupid kid.

Dad’s hands paused in cutting into his chicken breast, and he cast a glance my way, one eyebrow raised. Red crept up his face and clear over his bald head he attempted to hide behind that ridiculous comb-over. “Excuse me?”

Talk about a patronizing-as-fuck tone. Shouldn’t he have been a little more sensitive considering I was recently widowed?

It had taken having my entire existence turned upside down for me to finally find some balls, and I. Was. Done.

“No.”

I set down my fork and whipped my cloth napkin off my lap, tossing it onto my barely touched plate. “I don’t think I will excuse your words or condescension. While I appreciate you taking care of Shelly’s wake and being laid to rest, I’m twenty-four, not ten, and like you said, a widow. Pretty sure that means I’m a goddamned adult who can make his own decisions. Thanks for dinner, Mom, but I’m not hungry. I’ll see myself out.”

“Charles Clifford Henderson!”

I ignored Dad and stalked up the hallway, grabbed my coat off the rack in the entryway, and shrugged it on.

Mom sat silent as usual. Anything to keep the peace.

Rather than storming outside like a pissed off teen as I was sure Dad expected, I shut the door quietly at my back, leaving them both behind.

A weight shuddered off my shoulders, and I stomped down the stoop, something that felt a lot like another shot of pride simmering inside me.

For half a second, I’d been tempted to spill the truth of Shelly’s affair and her pregnancy—that would have shut Dad up for sure—but I didn’t want to tarnish her reputation. I also wasn’t so selfish to use her sins to make me look better in eyes that would never see me as anything other than a failure.

Most likely, Dad would have pointed out she’d committed adultery because I hadn’t paid her enough attention, just like Shelly had complained to Mom about.

Nope. I was done and didn’t need someone reiterating what I already knew deep in my marrow.

I might not have been capable of forgiving myself and moving forward, but at least I’d taken a step in the right direction. It had felt damned good too.

Perhaps I would find even more freedom in doing what Jamie had suggested…talking to someone and hopefully rousing the will to keep persevering in whatever life that would offer me a sense of purpose. While I didn’t believe I deserved happiness, I would be content, at least, with that.