CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN #3
‘You’re not carrying me. Help me up.’
Jules is shaking from head to toe, works his jaw to loosen it from the adrenaline grip. Carefully, they navigate a path out of the summer house. ‘Got your phone?’ Lachlan asks him, holding the door open.
‘Yeah.’
‘Your shoes…’
Jules isn’t wearing any.
‘Leave them.’
‘It’s quicker to the car if we cut around the yard.’
‘All right.’
‘Can I carry you now? There could be thorns.’
‘God, fine, but don’t let anyone see.’
‘Heard.’
Lachlan carries him bridal style behind the summer house, around the back through nettles and thorns where it’s dark, emerging three houses down right by the SUV. He unlocks it with the key, very gently settles Jules inside the backseat. In this brighter light, he can make out the handprint.
A nasty blow, he knows that hurt.
Lachlan has hit Jules before just like this only no ring to snag.
Jules looks so pale, so fragile.
Lachlan says, ‘You kicked his ass,’ smiles the way a parent would or should, and gently pets his hair. ‘I’m gonna go back to get your shoes now.’
‘No,’ he says quickly, grips Lachlan’s shirt. ‘Stay with me.’
‘I’ll only be a minute.’
‘You’re gonna kill him.’
Lachlan is. ‘Jules—’
‘I asked you not to.’
‘He doesn’t deserve to live.’
‘It’s not up to you to decide!’
‘Of course it is,’ Lachlan tells him gently. ‘I’m your bodyguard.’
‘You’re a psychopath!’
‘But I’m your psychopath,’ Lachlan reasons fairly, looking around. ‘I’ll make it quick, OK?’
‘No, no, I mean it, Lachlan! Don’t you dare.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not being responsible for anyone else dying!’
‘You’re not responsible at all. I am. It’s on me.’
‘I don’t want that.’
‘Well I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he hurt you in exactly the way I never wanted you to experience,’ Lachlan says, mentally calculating methods, generally favours efficiency but this would be a time he’d make an exception. ‘He’s gonna die for it.’
‘I won’t forgive you if you do.’
‘I don’t need your forgiveness. Stay in the car.’
‘No, no!’ Jules scrambles out, almost falls hard on the asphalt but Lachlan catches him. ‘I don’t want justice or punishment. That helps you, not me!’
Lachlan supports his weight, confused. The simplistic mindset of Focus Mode can only allow for certain aspects of scrutiny. He can’t think what else Jules would want in this scenario.
What would Lachlan want? That’s easy.
Death. Justice. Punishment.
All the things Jules said he didn’t want.
The lava pit inside Lachlan yearns to erupt in pursuit of nameless vengeance. A monster whose eyes gleam red and whose hunger is second to none will take any opportunity to stretch and claw and sate ancient aches.
He forces it to still, to listen.
Eyes moving between Jules’ own, he asks, ‘What helps you?’
Jules clings to his shirt, mouth in a thin line.
‘You. You help me, but you have to stay with me. You’re my bodyguard.’ He puts Lachlan’s hand atop his own chest. ‘So guard me. Stay. Be mine.’
Lachlan doesn’t really understand it, but in this cold, pragmatic mindset where the world is very much black, white and red, he trusts Jules to know what he wants and needs.
He can come back later for the other.
‘All right,’ he says. ‘You got it.’
‘Let me sit up front.’
‘OK.’
Lachlan buckles him in.
Jules is watching him like a hawk until Lachlan gets back in the other side, starts the engine and drives carefully away.
‘Thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me.’
‘Well, I did so get over it.’ Jules exhales slowly, looks down at his own hands and then shakes them harder, as if he can dislodge the tremors.
‘It’s normal,’ Lachlan tells him.
‘Yeah.’
The first ten minutes of the drive is quiet.
Lachlan checks in with Danya, warns him they’re coming in hot, will need cover till they get to the Cove. Lachlan will have to fabricate a reason why Jules’ lip is split.
Jules breaks the quiet.
‘He wanted to pretend I was a girl,’ he says out of nowhere. ‘That’s why I said no.’
‘You don’t need to give a reason why you said no.’
‘I know, but I wanted to tell you.’
‘Heard.’ Lachlan frowns, throat thickening. ‘Did he…?’
‘No. I got him good.’
Lachlan smiles despite himself, despite the armour he wears in the moment that drowns almost all emotions out. ‘That’s my boy.’
Jules is staring at him while he drives.
‘I uh.’ He clears his throat. ‘I didn’t believe you until now.’
‘About what?’
‘That you’re a killer.’
Lachlan makes a left onto the backroads, avoiding the highway until they reach the private stretch that leads to the Estate. ‘I am.’
‘I could see it,’ Jules says so quiet Lachlan barely hears the words. ‘You were going to go back in there and kill him.’
He still is, he just won’t say anything about it.
‘Yeah.’
‘Is that in your contract?’
‘Full-neutralisation authority.’
‘I don’t want you to kill him. I know you’re probably planning to go back and do it later.’ Lachlan sighs. ‘All we have is honesty, Bodyguard. I’m gonna ask you every day forever if that guy’s still alive.’
‘So get used to hearing no.’
‘I don’t want that.’
‘He’ll just hurt someone else.’
‘That’s not why you’re doing it.’
‘I’m a professional. It’s not gonna flag.’
‘I don’t want you to end a life for me!’
‘He hurt you.’
‘He’ll think twice before he does that again, trust me.’
‘They don’t think twice. They just adapt.’
‘Lachlan,’ Jules says seriously. ‘I handled it myself. That means a lot to me, OK? If you kill him, you’ll undo all of that.’
Lachlan scowls. ‘He tried to—’
‘But he didn’t. I stopped him. Your CQC shit works. That’s enough. Maybe not for you, but for me it is. Do you understand?’
Lachlan sighs hard. ‘Heard.’
‘Yeah, I know you heard me, but say you understand.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good.’ Jules wipes his eyes, massages his pulse point with his thumb.
Lachlan drives them home, slowly coming back to himself.
Danya is waiting for them. He quietly assures Lachlan they have a clean forty-five seconds to get into the Cove, so they hurry up the staff stairwell, avoiding people, and make it inside where it’s safe, familiar, truly home.
Lachlan checks on Mimi, finds her fast asleep.
Against his better judgement, he goes to be with Jules in the bathroom.
?
Lachlan draws a bath while Jules brushes his teeth.
The warmth of a bath will help settle him. Lachlan dumps plenty of bubble mixture into the water, swishes it with his hand to keep busy while Jules strips down and then politely dons a robe.
Lachlan turns off the faucet. ‘It’s ready. I’ll be outside if—’
‘Stay?’
He shouldn’t. ‘Sure.’
Keeping his back turned until he hears Jules is in the bubbly water, then he grabs a hand towel and comes to kneel beside the tub, offering it to Jules who takes it. ‘Better?’
‘Much, thanks.’
‘How’s the scar?’
‘My little rose healed fine.’
‘Good.’
‘I still want to go out.’
‘I know.’
‘One bad experience doesn’t mean—’
‘I’m not gonna lock you up again, don’t worry.’
‘Thanks.’ Jules washes himself all over. Lachlan doesn’t watch, looks instead around the bathroom, fascinated by nothing. ‘I’m trying, y’know?’
‘Trying what?’
‘To get over you,’ Jules says between clenched teeth, scrubbing his skin a little too hard. Lachlan instantly regrets asking but his social skills are returning slowly after going into Focus Mode.
It takes a while to feel human again.
‘Over…’ he echoes dumbly, blinking and then it lands. ‘Oh.’
Jules rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah, oh.’
‘You don’t like me.’
‘Don’t tell me how I feel.’
‘I just mean.’ Lachlan should stop talking. ‘I mean that you don’t really know me, y’know? I’m a bad person. Ugly.’
‘I wish you were ugly.’
‘On the inside I am.’
‘You’re capable of things that I’m not and that makes you different, but it’s not ugly. You love her. You protect us both.’
‘I’m a killer.’
‘Do you think I’m grossed out by it? I just don’t want Brayden fucking Matthews to die because of me. If he hurt anyone else, I’d say go for it.’ Jules lifts the cloth to his face with similarly ferocious energy, but Lachlan stops him with careful hands.
‘Slow down,’ he warns gently. ‘Your lip.’
‘Oh, right. Thanks.’
‘We’re gonna have to lie about how you got that.’
‘Whatever you say.’
Minutes pass. Guilt trickles in as Lachlan’s humanity returns, dismayed to realise how badly he’s let Jules down. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Jules studies him warily. ‘For what?’
‘I made it about me when it wasn’t.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘You went through something awful and then you had to manage my anger.’
‘It’s not anything you need to apologise for. You’re my bodyguard. It’s your job to keep me safe. I get it, OK? Don’t get all choked up.’
‘It’s more than my job,’ Lachlan says before he can stop himself.
Jules pauses, not looking at Lachlan. ‘Meaning what?’
‘I care about you.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘Don’t say it, Lachlan, I’m serious,’ Jules warns him, voice uneven. ‘Do you know how hard it is for me? How hard I try to get over these fucking feelings I have for you? Don’t you dare say shit like that when what you mean is you see me the way you see her, just minus the love.’
‘It’s not minus anything,’ Lachlan snaps mildly, affronted.
‘You don’t love me. You don’t even like me!’
‘Is that what you tell yourself?’
‘Yes!’
‘God, I always fuck it up with you.’
‘It’s probably better that way. Look,’ Jules says, sniffling as the water ripples.
‘I know you’ve been making effort with me.
I’m not indifferent to the fact you probably move mountains so I can have a couple of hours to myself.
I know you do care in some way, but I think it’s better between us if it’s clear cut. ’
Jules seems so resigned to the worst of life at nineteen years old when he deserves all the best this world has to offer.
‘If what’s clear cut?’
‘Bodyguard.’
‘Jules—’
‘It fucking hurts when you say things you don’t remember because whatever you feel is at best some kind of parental instinct.
It fucking kills me when you walk it back right after and leave me feeling more alone than I ever have in my whole life.
So just… don’t. Please don’t do this. I don’t need it. ’