Chapter Thirteen – Jace
JACE
“Okay,” Charlie pants beside me, and I feel his eyes burning a hole into the side of my face. When I don’t respond, don’t so much as turn my head, he continues. “Maybe we should take a break?” he asks, and I immediately shake my head.
“Not tired,” I answer, pushing my feet to move faster, harder. My lungs burn and my legs start to ache, but I don’t stop. With every lap, the haze that had such a firm grip over my mind begins to loosen just a fraction.
Just enough for me to wrangle back a sliver of control, enough to feel a sense of shame over the state I left the house in, followed by guilt. Because yet again, Charlie is left to deal with the fallout of being with me. Someone who is constantly battling their own mind.
Someone who couldn’t let a fucking joke go.
A joke that I’ve heard dozens of times.
A joke that I’ve made myself for fuck’s sake.
But not enough for that incessant itch to fully dissipate. So, I push my legs to move just a little faster, trying to force my mind into submission by exhausting myself physically.
“But I am,” Charlie wheezes out before he vanishes from my peripheral all together. Turning, I watch as he collapses onto the grass, coughing and chest heaving.
“Fuck,” I breathe out before cutting across the large field to the bench where we left our shit when we arrived earlier.
Quickly racing back, I pull his arm until he’s seated upright and then thrust the water bottle into his hands. “Drink.”
He smiles, accepting the bottle before guzzling about a quarter of it. “Thank you,” he chokes out, handing it to me. Absently, I take the bottle and take a sip.
“Why are you thanking me?” I ask, taking another mouthful of water. This is my fault. I ignored him when he tried to get us to stop, multiple times. I insisted we keep running when he asked for a break and Charlie, being Charlie, didn’t argue.
I’m the reason we’re out here. I’m not an idiot; he brought me here to get me away from the house, hoping it might pull me from my episode.
“Why not?” he asks after a few minutes of us sitting side by wide whilst we catch our breaths, and I realise I’ve almost finished the entire bottle.
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really,” I mutter, shaking my head and taking another sip before holding it out to him.
“Want to anyway?” He takes the bottle, drinking the last of the water and I sigh, picking at the grass by my feet.
“I don’t know what happened. I just-” my voice cuts off as I struggle to form the words, lying back on the grass.
“Every time I think I’ve got a handle on this, that I’m in control, it all goes to shit.
It was a joke. I knew that and yet-” I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes, letting out a growl of frustration.
He doesn’t push me, just sits quietly beside me in support and I appreciate that, but it has me shaking my head.
“Why do you put up with this bullshit?” The question has barely left my mouth before Charlie moves and straddles my waist, his hand gripping my chin firmly so that I’m forced to give him my full attention.
“Because I love you,” he enunciates every word so there’s no room for doubt or argument. “I love everything about you, Jace. Including this.”
“Really?” I ask incredulously, letting out a sarcastic, almost hysterical, laugh. “Because I just destroyed half of your house!”
“Our house. And so what? It’s just stuff. We can buy more stuff.
“With what?” I scoff. “We’re not exactly swimming in cash. Bee’s isn’t making much of a profit yet. We’re living off your income. I’m not contributing anything except to literally destroy shit.”
“Hey-” his voice turns serious, “-don’t talk about yourself like that. It’s been less than a year since you started up Bee’s and it’s doing great. You’ve got three clients this week and you’ve collected a fair amount of subscribers from the videos you upload.”
“Wow, three whole clients,” I say sarcastically, venom dripping with each word as I roll my eyes. It’s been almost a year, and what do I have to show for it? Up to three clients a week – if I’m lucky, and less than a thousand subscribers online.
When I started this, when we started this, I had high expectations.
I figured by now I’d have enough subscribers and views on my videos to earn enough to be able to offer free grooms, especially pets in need.
But, let me tell you, it’s not as easy it looks.
Instead, I’m barely able to cover expenses.
“Do not talk down about yourself, Jace,” he growls out, his grip tightening. This is probably a bad time to sport a semi right about now, but the growl in his voice has my cock twitching with interest. “You’re doing great,” he reinforces, but I’m no longer listening.
This isn’t even remotely the time or place, we’re in a very public park for crying out loud. It’s like last night unlocked something in me, and now I want nothing more than to climb into bed with him again.
Charlie must feel my interest, because he gives me a smug grin, grinding himself onto me with just enough force that I let out a groan. “Stop looking at me like that, you’ll give me ideas.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” I breathe out, folding my hands beneath my head and Charlie hums, pretending to think it over before he presses a kiss to the side of my neck.
My eyes roll back, and he whispers in my ear, “Yeah, in fact I have the perfect way for you to burn off all of this energy.” My cock is completely invested in where this conversation is going, fully erect now. “Do you want to know what it is?”
“Tell me,” I beg, my mind focusing on nothing except the feel of him pressing down on me, wishing there was nothing between us.
“Well, it involves us getting up.” He bites down on my ear lobe. “Then going home." A kiss to my jaw. “Our home.” A kiss to my lips.
“Yes,” I agree, and when he doesn’t continue, I press on, needing to hear him outline exactly what he plans on doing to me as much as I need to breathe, maybe more. “Then what?”
“Then what?” he repeats, a teasing lilt to his voice as he pulls back enough to look down at me with a wicked gleam. “Well, then we have a house to clean.”
Just like that, he climbs off me, grabbing the bottle and standing up, watching my stunned expression as his words sink in.
“W-What?” I stammer out, my head lifting.
“What? What did you think I was going to say?” he muses, his eyes travelling down my torso and locking onto my very hard dick.
“Fuck. Obviously, I thought you were going to say we were going to fuck-” a noise pulls both of our attention behind Charlie to a kid who is probably around ten-years-old, standing not too far from us with his mouth open. “-king clean,” I add on with a grimace. “Fucking clean. Let’s go.” Fantastic.
Charlie turns back to me, his shoulders shaking with laughter at my attempt to salvage the situation, and I narrow my eyes at him. He holds out a hand and I take it, letting him pull me to my feet, both of us smiling now.
“I’m going to get you back for that,” I whisper, and he laughs.
“Good-” he gives me a chaste kiss before taking my hand and pulling me towards our stuff. “Now, let's go home before we scar anyone else. We have a house to clean…and if you’re good, maybe I’ll fuck you after.” He winks and I immediately perk up.
Fuck. Me. Yes please.