Chasing Serenity

by Ashley, Kristen

  Jamie’s jaw clenched.

  “So, can you get over it?” Judge pushed.

  “I fucked up,” Jamie declared. “I did it trying to guide a son who’d already become a man. You think I have an issue, but I don’t. I wanted to contribute to your life. I wanted you to understand you could come to me for advice. I wanted you to know I want the best for you. The bottom line I didn’t get across is that I want you to be happy. That’s it. If what you do makes you happy, that’s it.”

  “But you said—”

  Jamie interrupted him.

  “I did what I did in my life, and I was driven to do it because I had a deep need to prove my father wrong, and then rub his nose in it, and not stop. That got in my way when I finally had a line to you, and I didn’t know how to be your father. That was all I knew. Pushing is not guiding. Judging is not offering wisdom. I learned that when you pulled away. But you don’t have anything to prove to me, Judge. I’ve always been proud of you.”

  I’ve always been proud of you.

  Jesus shit.

  His jaw jerked sideways and up.

  And then he and Dad were hugging.

  “I’ve always been proud of you,” Jamie whispered in his ear, his voice hoarse.

  This time, Judge swallowed.

  They held on.

  And they did that a long time.

  Belinda Oakley lay silent beside them.

  But it wasn’t lost on Judge that what she’d threatened happened.

  Over her dead body he’d be with his father.

  Judge just didn’t know what to do with that.

  * * *

  “I love this,” Chloe whispered to him.

  She was lying on top of him.

  It was late by the time they’d had lunch and gone out to Lucas to check in with the funeral home, deal with some of the details (his dad did know what his mom wanted, and after a memorial, she’d be cremated).

  They decided to return, have dinner, and chill out before they went back the next day, to the house where Judge grew up. The house Jamie had bought for them. The house Belinda nearly lost countless times and would have if Jamie or AJ hadn’t stepped in to make sure she, but mostly Judge, wasn’t turned out into the street.

  After dinner, they all hung in the living room of Chloe, Judge and Rix’s suite, Dru drinking wine, the rest of them sipping bourbon.

  Eventually Jamie drifted away. Then Dru followed him. And Rix said he had to hit the sack.

  So Chloe and Judge moved into their bedroom, prepared for bed, and that brought them to now.

  Judge had just told her about his conversation with his dad.

  “You seem okay,” she noted.

  He gave her a squeeze with the arms he’d had light around her.

  “I told you, I am.”

  She was back to whispering, like Jamie was still in the other room. “He’s wrecked.”

  “I know,” Judge whispered back.

  She lifted a hand and tracked whatever pattern moved her on his cheekbone, temple, along his hairline, jaw.

  Then she said, “Love just doesn’t die.”

  Duncan and Imogen.

  Corey and Imogen…and Duncan.

  Tom and Imogen.

  Jamie and Rosalind.

  And Jamie and Belinda.

  No.

  Love just didn’t die.

  “Baby,” he murmured.

  Her gaze went to her finger at his jaw to his.

  “Thanks for taking over.”

  She assumed a mock severe expression. “You take the fun out of being bossy, because you’re so easy.”

  He gave her a small smile.

  She pushed up and kissed it.

  When she pulled away, she tried to hide the concern that had dug deep in her eyes, and she failed.

  So he threw her something.

  “Can I ask a favor?”

  If it was possible, not even a nanosecond passed before she said, “Anything.”

  “I don’t know if they can do things like this, but can you call the funeral home tomorrow? Ask them to dye Mom’s hair so it’s…right. No one’s going to see her before…they finish things for her. I just can’t have her—”

  “First thing in the morning, honey,” she said softly.

  “Thanks.”

  She touched her mouth to his again then moved away, his asking a favor doing nothing to alleviate her worry.

  “I’m totally okay,” he said again.

  “All right, mon beau,” she whispered.

  She didn’t believe him.

  He sighed.

  Then he rolled her to her back.

  And he gave her something she could believe in.

  And he gave it to her good.

  Chapter 26

  The Fury

  Chloe

  The next morning…Monday…

  “Judge’s whole ‘I’m totally cool’ act is fucking creepy as fuck.”

  “Hmm,” I hummed to what Rix muttered to me under his breath as, ahead of us, tentatively, Jamie followed Judge, who was not tentative at all in walking up to a highly dilapidated, but obviously it had once been a rather nice, large, ranch-style home.

  It was out in the middle of nowhere.

  However, I might be wrong, but it seemed like that wasn’t the intention when it was built.

  That said, I could see from a property that veritably screamed I don’t give a shit! why no one else would build anywhere nearby.

  Looking at some of the siding that had slipped, the peeling paint around the eaves, the yard that had long since given up any hope of being a yard and was a tangle of knee-high weeds and scrub, I grabbed a stranglehold on my temper.

  Because Judge grew up here.

  My glorious Judge grew up in a home where the woman who owned it, the mother who had charge of him, didn’t even bother to mow the fucking lawn.

  “Has he ever talked about her with you?” I asked Rix, also under my breath.

  “Mentions. Not much. He’s shared about his life. Talks about his grandfather more, but not much about her. Or he says shit, but not about how he felt about her. She was just the woman who gave birth to him who he had to put up with until he left.”

  This was the same thing he gave me after he’d explained some things that day stuff exploded between Sasha and me.

  “I’ve met her though,” Rix remarked.

  I stopped dead.

  Rix stopped with me.

  “You have?”

  He nodded.

  But his expression was dark.

  “She’d come to Prescott. Judge would pay for her to do it. Obligation. She’d be on about healing breaches and talking things through. What she really wanted was money. He was gone, she was fucked. No more child support and the granddad stopped propping her up.”

  That startled me.

  “Propping her up?”

  He jutted his chin. “Yup. She pissed away any money she could get her hands on. Settlement went up in smoke on the legal battles. Child support was gone before she even got it with dealers she owed money to and tabs she had at bars. She’d remortgage the house, it’d go into arrears. Once Jamie got sick of doing it, probably in hopes she’d be evicted and he could pounce on Judge, AJ stepped in, so she wouldn’t be evicted, and Judge wouldn’t go anywhere.”

  Rix stopped talking.

  I didn’t start walking.

  “Babe?” he called.

  “Just a second.”

  “Woman,” he got closer, “you can’t blow a gasket when our boy in there is going for an Academy Award with his performance.”

  “I’m not going to blow a gasket.”

  “Your hair is about to catch fire.”

  “Don’t be dramatic, Rix,” I scoffed.

  “The temperature of the entire state of Texas just amped up fifteen degrees because of your attitude. Lock it down.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  But his gambit was well played.

  He amused me enough, I didn’t “blow a g
asket.”

  It was close, though.

  “Let’s just get this done,” I murmured.

  Rix again jerked up his chin in assent and walked by my side.

  However, we both reared back in unison several feet from the opened front door.

  The smell wafting out was unspeakable.

  “How long was she dead before they found her?” I asked in horror.

  “That isn’t dead body smell,” Rix said, taking my hand, clearly for fortification purposes. “That’s not cleaning your house for fifteen years smell.”

  I wanted to know, but at this moment didn’t ask how he knew what dead body smelled like.

  “Was she a hoarder?” I whispered as we inched forward.

  “No clue.”

  With trepidation, we walked in.

  The good news, Belinda Oakley was not a hoarder.

  The bad news, Rix’s estimate on when this house was last cleaned was off substantially.

  By about a decade.

  It was clear she drank.

  And smoked.

  Not only marijuana, but cigarettes.

  A lot of them.

  Overflowing ashtrays were everywhere, ash and butts spilling out on surfaces and on the floor. There was a thick layer of dust you couldn’t only see, you could see how thick it was because there were swipes, fingerprints and smears wherever someone had touched.

  Everything had a brown/gray pall on it, likely from the smoke, but also simply dust, dirt and grime.

  The cigarette odor mingled with a pot scent and that loitered with spilled booze and lingering vomit smell. This wrapped around the overall aroma of neglect, spoiled food and rotten milk.

  I had a highly honed sense of smell.

  It took everything not to gag.

  Judge and Jamie both stood in the midst of it all, tall and straight—so very obviously father and son it was uncanny (also quite adorable)—staring around the place.

  It took effort, but as I glanced around, I peeled back layers and years.

  As laid testimony outside with this decrepit but still expansive family home, at one time, the bones of the house, including the furniture and blinds, had been stylish and attractive. The walls might once have been a soft peach. There were pops of color in what could once have been cobalt blue and shamrock green armchairs. A now faded, perhaps once vibrant red couch. There were pieces that were Nordic, solid, good quality, Scandinavian design.

  '90s chic.

  But it was all now worn, stained, nicked, or just plain grimy.

  I peered through the large living room into a massive kitchen that was open to the space but had been cut off by overhead cabinets that would, to any design-scheme-minded person in the early aughts, have been removed to create a true great room.

  And I saw that the kitchen was an absolute pigsty. I could barely look at it, it was in such a state.

  I wanted to move no further into this hellhole.

  I actually wanted to grab my boyfriend and walk right out.

  On these thoughts, my gaze fell on some windows at the back. Through the yellow tinge staining the glass, I saw a pool that was undoubtedly a health hazard. It hadn’t seen chlorine or a pH test in at least a decade. In fact, it had so been taken over by weeds, scum and rainwater, it could be described as a pond.

  A fetid one.

  But there were rotting loungers around it that had once been quite lovely. A table and four chairs with a skeleton of an umbrella impaling it. A rusted charcoal grill that had fallen on its side.

  “Judge.”

  Rix’s low, clipped utterance of his name made me shift my focus to my man.

  And my desire to flee faded as something much stronger took hold.

  “Where was she found?” Judge asked, probably his dad since Rix and I didn’t know.

  Though I could answer because Jamie couldn’t tear his eyes off it.

  “The couch,” Jamie said, his tone guttural.

  It was a piece of furniture I’d already glanced at.

  I gave it my full attention then and noted it was clearly not only where a lot of the living occurred, because the ash and dust were unsettled, chip bags and fast-food wrappers scattered about, pill and booze bottles everywhere, and a mirror with heavy white residue on it was within close reach on the coffee table. But also, a lot of recent activity had occurred there, undoubtedly when the police or paramedics dealt with her.

  Jamie looked to his son and asked, “Was it like this when you lived here?”

  From the expression on his face, that guttural tone did not indicate he was upset poor Belinda ended her days in such filth.

  He was livid his son might have grown up in it.

  “No,” Judge replied. “I cleaned.”

  He cleaned.

  I processed that, but my eyes narrowed on him.

  His expression was odd. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  And his voice was blank.

  Like he was not here, seeing what we were seeing, smelling what we were smelling, standing mere feet from the spot where his mother died.

  “Chéri,” I called.

  He didn’t look at me.

  “Judge.” I tried again.

  And that was when it happened.

  He bent to a side table, picked up a large, clearly heavy, glass ashtray, and cigarette ends exploded like a foul firework. Then the ash burst and began streaming in a gray cloud as he viciously threw it side arm through a window.

  I jumped at the sound of shattering glass filling the air.

  “Honey,” I breathed, starting to move to him, but Rix’s hand still in mine stayed me.

  “Are we seeing this shit?” Judge roared.

  Oh God.

  Rix pulled me to his front, let my hand go and wrapped both his arms around my chest.

  Judge turned to his immobile father.

  “Are we?” he demanded. “Are we seeing…this…vile shit?”

  “Son,” Jamie murmured.

  He made a move to close in on Judge but stopped when Judge also moved.

  And another ashtray flew through the window, ends tumbling, ash choking the air.

  After that, a liquor bottle flew, and I heard it smash outside.

  A coffee cup went next. One that had been sitting so long, when the contents escaped, they slithered out as sludge, splatting on the floor and wall with a sickeningly wet slap.

  Another empty bottle trailed after that.

  “I cannot believe this fucking shit!” he thundered.

  “Honey,” I called.

  He whirled on me but really on us because he said to Rix, “Get her the fuck out of here.”

  “Bud, no. We’re here with you through this. Let it out. Let it fuckin’ go,” Rix encouraged.

  “Get her out,” Judge gritted.

  “You know more than me she won’t go.”

  “GET HER OUT!” Judge bellowed.

  Tears filled my eyes at the fury saturating his face.

  I’d never seen Judge look like that. Not once.

  I didn’t even know Judge could look like that.

  Rix didn’t move a muscle.

  Jamie reached out to his boy, saying with forced calm, “Judge—”

  “What the fuck was the matter with her, Dad?” Judge asked him.

  Jamie’s arm fell.

  “I don’t know, buddy,” he answered quietly.

  Judge threw out a hand. “Was she okay with this?”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie repeated.

  “How could she be okay with this?”

  Jamie’s voice got stronger. “I don’t know, Judge. Now, take a breath.”

  “I can’t fucking breathe in here, Dad, can you?”

  “Maybe we should step out,” Jamie suggested. “All of us.”

  “What’d she OD on?” Judge asked.

  I was relieved Jamie didn’t push an exit and answered immediately.

  Because Rix was right.

  My man needed to do this.

  Here
and now.

  “Vodka and tranquilizers.”

  “Yeah, I remember those fucking nights. Fuck!” Judge shouted.

  “What do you remember about those nights, man?” Rix asked right away.

  I put my hand over his at my chest.

  He just wrapped his fingers around mine and held on.

  With what was to come, I would forever be grateful that he did.

  “I don’t know, Rix, bein’ fuckin’ eight and terrified the bitch wouldn’t wake up,” Judge answered.

  Oh God.

  God, God, God.

  With that opener, as was the only way it could be, it got worse.

  “Shaking her, pulling her off the couch, out of bed, throwing water in her face,” Judge went on. “That was vodka and valium night. Cocaine and tequila was all kinds of fun,” he said snidely. “She’d be so goddamned jazzed, dancing around, the only time she fuckin’ cleaned, she had so much energy, she didn’t know what do with it, because she was so coked up, it was a wonder her brain didn’t explode.”

  Rix’s fingers tightened in mine.

  Judge kept speaking.

  “She’d make me dance with her. Wake my ass up and yank me out of bed so I could dance outside with her under the stars. She’d build a fire in our Weber and I was scared as fuck she’d tip it over and it’d start a brush fire and catch the house. She’d dance and laugh and call some boyfriend, who was usually kitted way out with his own pharmaceuticals, and he’d show. I could go to bed then because she didn’t want me around when she fucked him in the living room on the couch where I watched TV. And in the hall outside my bedroom door. Fuck all night, loud and crazy. Then they’d pass out, so I had to get up, half dead because I’d have no sleep, and get myself to school.”

  He looked to the couch.

  “Vodka and valium, I should have known,” he snarled. “I shouldn’t even have had to ask.”

  I jerked in Rix’s arms when suddenly Judge jolted violently, turning on his father.

  It was only then I saw, and right on the heels of that, felt Jameson Oakley’s blinding fury.

  Rix did too and edged us back two steps.

  “Don’t take this shit on,” Judge growled to his dad.

  “How did I not know it was that bad?”