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ChapterNineteen
Jax
I hadn’t seen muchof Arlo the past two days, given it had been a mess of sleepless nights and work. Charlie had decided sleep was for wimps, and at the same time, I was juggling admin and accounts to at least keep up my end of the company up. Two nights ago, Arlo hadn’t even left the site until nine, and when he’d gotten here, we’d kissed, hugged, and then slumped in front of the television.
Same as last night.
So, tonight was going to be different. I had plans for dinner, or something, and sleeping, and sex, and Arlo, but when I rolled out of bed, I was tired and out of sorts, and it threw me back to when the twins were the same age as Charlie. How did Paula and I ever handle twins who didn’t sleep, when a few short years later, it seemed I couldn’t even handle one baby?
And Charlie wasn’t even grumpy, unlike me, who was restless and messing things up, such as putting salt on my cereal. I mean, who the hell did that? Me; that was who.
Arlo was working extra hours to keep ahead, although Dan, one of our other carpenters, was holding his own and putting in a ton of overtime. I didn’t have to be the guy who did the company books to see that profits would be cut into every day I couldn’t get out there and work.
So yeah, sleep-deprived, anxious over stupid things, missing Arlo, and feeling as if we needed time together—it was that Jax that my mom found in the kitchen staring at the salt and wondering how my life had gotten so upside down.
“Sleep.” She shoved me out of the kitchen.
“But—”
“I’m here. Now, sleep.”
“Keep the doors locked, keep…” I stopped talking when she threw methatexpression that warned me not to argue, and I blinked when Leo sauntered into the kitchen as if he didn’t have a care in the world, Daisy and Jason trailing him.
“We’re here as well,” he said, and hell, I wasn’t going to argue—no one argued with Mama Byrne. Also, she was backed up by a cop, even if that cop was the same Leo who’d broken two of my G.I. Joes doing God knows what with them. I went upstairs and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, waking early afternoon when my growling stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunch. I took a shower, with the door shut for the first time since Charlie had arrived, then after getting dressed, I wandered downstairs.
There was no sign of Mama, or Charlie, and it was only Leo in the kitchen creating a mammoth pile of sandwiches. “In the garden,” he said before I could ask.
“Cool.” I grabbed a PB&J and inhaled it. Whatever he’d done to my G.I. Joes, or indeed the awful atrocities he’d carried out on my Game Boy, he’d grown up to become a sandwich hero.
“We’ve got this. You don’t need to stay.”
“Huh?” Maybe I hadn’t woken up properly, but Leo wasn’t making sense.
“Sleep all caught up?” he asked, which again, I wasn’t following.
“Some.”
“Go to site, check in on Arlo, settle your worries.”
“I’m not worried,” I defended.
He pointed to the plans and paperwork on my counter, the ones with all the red question marks. “Go and see that Arlo is doing absolutely fine. We’re all good here.”
I glanced past Leo to the garden, watching Jason lift Daisy and swing her around. I should stay, I should make sure Charlie is okay, but then, why wouldn’t he be okay?
“You’re staying. With Charlie?”
Leo nodded. “Until you come back, and there’s no rush; we’re good.”
So, I did what I knew I needed to do—what I wanted to do—I went to site to see Arlo, and to stop worrying, and to get my head out of my ass.
Mostly to see Arlo.
* * *
“What the hell, Jax?”Arlo called down when he spotted me.
For a while, I’d hidden behind a tree in the long driveway, observing, becauseclearlythat was what idiots in love did. All I wanted was to stare at the summer house he and Dan were working on, only to make sure everything was on track.
