Chapter Three #3
“Almost half of marriages end in divorce. Divorce leaves people broken. My mom was devastated when my dad left. Uncle Dan’s wife killed a piece of his soul.
And poor Melissa has spent the last few years believing she’s worthless.
” Jackson huffed out a harsh breath. “Then there are the children, like my niece, left scarred for life.”
“Yeah, I can’t understand why anyone would give that kind of control to another person. My independence is way too important to me. I can’t imagine being we.” Henry shook his head, stepping down from the ladder.
“Yeah, we is totally not worth the hype.” Jackson used one last piece of tape, completing the job. “Even boyfriends are way too much trouble.”
“Agreed.” Henry laughed, looking around. “Wow, with you helping, this is going much faster than I expected.” Henry chuckled then continued in a flirty tone. “It’s definitely much more fun.” He grabbed the painter’s tarp from the table of supplies then rolled it out.
“I think you might be right. I didn’t enjoy painting for Melissa nearly this much.
” Fuck. Jackson’s smile as he covered the other half of the room with a tarp made his heart race.
Henry turned, busying himself with shaking the can of paint.
Jackson got the trays and rollers ready.
“This time, I’ll do the top and you do the bottom,” Jackson suggested.
Henry nodded as he poured the pale-gray paint into the trays. He then dipped his roller in the paint, removed the excess, and glided it over the wall with smooth strokes. “You mentioned you had a niece. Is it just the one?”
“Yeah, my Ladybug, Piper. She’s such an awesome kid. We talk all the time, even when I’m deployed. How about you?”
“No, none of my brothers have settled down yet.”
“What’s your family like?”
“It’s kind of an interesting dynamic to say the least. My parents are nice enough people, and my two middle brothers and I are pretty close.” Henry tried to be vague. As much as he was enjoying talking to Jackson, that was not a subject he liked delving into.
“What about your oldest brother?” Jackson asked the question he’d hoped he wouldn’t.
“He’s the golden child.” Henry shrugged. “We don’t really get along.”
“I’m sure there’s more to that, but something tells me that you don’t really want to talk about it.”
“I just don’t want to bore you with my crazy family stuff.”
“How about you tell me about the brothers you do like?”
“My brothers are the best. Jasper is the oldest. He’s a kindergarten teacher. Then Lincoln, he’s a physical therapist. There’s only a year and half between each of us, so we did everything together,” Henry relayed. “Are you and Melissa close?”
“Melissa was my best friend growing up. We tell each other everything.” Jackson sighed. “I hate what she and my Ladybug have been going through these last few years.”
“I’ve never had any experience with divorce, but it sounds like a horrible thing.” Henry shook his head then put his roller down and looked around. “Looks like we’re done.”
“Great, what do you say we get some takeout while we wait for it to dry?”
“That would be great. I’m starving,” Henry agreed.
“Is pizza okay?” Henry nodded. “Any objections to pepperoni and mushroom?”
“I’m allergic to mushrooms, so maybe just a slight objection.” He chuckled.
“An allergic reaction is not on my agenda for tonight, so what if I sub in black olives?” Jackson shook his head with a smile.
“That, I can live with.” His lame joke made them both laugh.
Jackson placed their order. “I guess we’re going to have to have dinner on the floor.” He laughed. “We kind of covered my table.”
“That’s okay.” Henry shrugged. “It’ll be like a picnic.” He sat down next to the recliner. Jackson joined him. “You said your sister was going through a hard time. What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Her husband, Eric, wasn’t the greatest guy. She found out a few years into their marriage that he had a porn addiction. He was spending obscene amounts of money on several sites.”
“Is that why they split up?” Henry wondered.
“Sort of. Melissa confronted him, and for a little while he saw a counselor. Things got better, but it didn’t last long.
She found out he’d gone back to his old ways when he started asking her to perform incredibly degrading sexual acts.
” Jackson shook his head. “He got mad because she wouldn’t play his disgusting games.
One night, he told her that if she wouldn’t, he’d find someone who would.
He was gone the next morning, and he cleaned out their bank account. ”
“What a low-life jerk.”
“She found out a few days later that he hadn’t paid any of their bills in two months. Everything was in danger of being disconnected. I paid everything off, but being a stay-at-home mom, she couldn’t sustain herself and Piper.”
“Your poor sister. How could he treat her that way? What did she do?”
“I offered to take care of it for her, but she said she couldn’t let me do that. I helped her move into our mom’s, she got into a nursing program, and landed a great job at a really nice doctor’s office.” Jackson smiled. “I am so proud of her.”
“She sounds like an incredible woman.”
“She is, she just can’t see it right now.
Eric left a note telling her that she wasn’t fun enough, pretty enough, fit enough, or young enough.
She really took the things he said to heart.
” Jackson shook his head. He stood when the doorbell rang.
“Pizza’s here. Can you grab some plates from the kitchen? ”
Henry went into the kitchen, opening a couple of cabinets before he found what he was looking for.
He looked at the plates and smiled. They were cream colored with a delicate ring of golden gardenias.
He had the exact same ones. He returned to the living room where Jackson had sat the pizza box on the floor and opened the lid.
He sank down to his knees next to the man. Jackson served them each a piece.
“How long are you home for?” Henry asked before taking a bite.
Jackson blew out a breath then shrugged one shoulder. “That depends.”
“On what?” Henry asked, taking another bite.
Jackson bit into his slice, chewing thoroughly while fixing him with an intense stare. He seemed to be contemplating whether or not to talk about it. “How long it takes me to complete physical therapy,” he finally answered.
Henry badly wanted to ask why he was in therapy, but he got the feeling that wasn’t something the man wanted to talk about. So, he went a different way. “Are you itching to get back, or are you enjoying the break?”
Jackson looked relieved. “Thanks,” he said before answering. “It’s actually a little bit of both. At first, I was pissed about it, but lately I’ve been really glad I’m on leave.” He reached out to run his fingertips along Henry’s jawline.
“And why is that?” Henry played dumb, for some reason needing to hear Jackson tell him it was because of him.
“You know exactly why, brat,” Jackson teased.
“Do I?” Henry did his best to look innocent, even going as far as to bat his eyes at the man.
Instead of answering, Jackson leaned over to lightly kiss his lips. Henry leaned into him causing Jackson to deepen the kiss. When he pulled back, he stroked Henry’s bottom lip. “Yeah. It’s because I met my gorgeous neighbor.”
Henry grinned at him then put a sassy yet seductive tone in his voice. “What a coincidence, I’ve been having an awesome time with my neighbor as well.”
Jackson stared at him for a few moments. “You’re okay with me being quite a bit older than you?”
“Well, I guess that depends on what quite a bit is,” Henry teased with a chuckle then shook his head. “No, I don’t care that you’re older than me.”
The corner of Jackson’s mouth turned up. “How old are you?” the man asked.
“You have to guess.” Henry raised an eyebrow with a smile.
“At least thirty, I hope.”
“Close. I’m twenty-eight.”
“Twelve years is a lot.”
“Is it? We’re both legal consenting adults. I don’t think it matters.”
“Henry, you were six when I enlisted.” Jackson shook his head.
“Yeah, but I’m all grown up now.” He leaned over, pressing his lips to Jackson’s so that he could initiate a deep kiss that soon turned scorching.
Finally, he pulled back to whisper in his ear.
“Do you still think it matters?” Before Jackson could answer, Henry kissed him again.
Jackson was breathing heavily when he pulled away.
“Are you done eating? I need to take off the tape and do the touch-ups.”
“I’ll put this away.” He gestured to the food. “Then I’ll come help you.” Jackson got to his feet, holding out his hand to Henry to help him up.
Henry watched Jackson pick up the pizza box before turning his attention to the wall.
He set up his step ladder, climbed to the top, then stretched up to take hold of the blue tape.
Slowly, he pulled the strip, rolling the used tape into a ball.
With each section he removed, he checked for any painting corrections.
Not to toot his own horn, but he rarely had to make any.
Jackson’s painting job was no exception.
By the time Jackson finished the cleanup, he’d removed the majority of the upper-level tape.
“Do you want me to pull off the bottom?” Jackson asked.
“No, I’ve got it. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it’s part of my process.
” He repositioned his stool to remove the last run.
It came off easily. Jackson was watching him as he descended, and his eyes remained on him as he stashed the ladder, ditched his tape ball, then started on the bottom.
“Does the difference in our ages really bother you?” He glanced over at Jackson as he slowly walked around the room.
“It seems like it should.”