What he doesn’t realize is, I already know. And when I say that, I mean; everything.
Bec wasn’t shy about sharing the details of her and Jonas’ relationship, or at least, the physical aspects of it. I may not have spent much time with her, but the twice I visited with Avery before her, Beth, and Bec were taken, Bec didn’t hold anything back.
At the time, it hurt, horribly. The pitying looks Avery gave me hurt even more. But again, I withstood the burn, braced for the impact, and absorbed the pain her careless words caused.
It wasn’t Bec’s fault that I was dying a slow, excruciating death with every memory of Jonas she shared. She wasn’t to know how I felt about him, no one did. No one except Avery and my Mom. But nevertheless, her words scored new scars on my heart and opened old ones I thought were long since healed.
So, with that said, I reply to Jonas by murmuring,
“I didn’t, but I would have listened to anything you had to say if it meant you would come back to us.”
“I know you would’ve, Blaine, but I wanted to spare you that. You’d already been trying for months to get me to pull my head out of my ass, and the last thing I wanted was to throw all that in your face by discussing shit that’ll only hurt you more,” he returns.
Nodding at him, I fold my hands in my lap and wriggle my toes into the plush cream carpet underneath my feet. It’s a nervous habit, the feet thing, one I’m yet to break, and it gives me away every time. This time being no different.
“You don’t have anything to be nervous about, baby. This is a good talk, I promise.”
I wish I could believe him, but I don’t. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to a place where the blind trust I used to have for Jonas isn’t a thing of the past. Choosing not to share this, I stay silent wanting him to be done already.
I’m not sure I can take much more of his brand of sweet. I can feel my defenses slipping already, and the last thing I need is for Jonas to break all the way through because he will. I know it, and he does too. It wouldn’t take much for him to convince me that he’ll try harder, do better, and lead us back to the friendship we had before everything fell apart.
“Going back to work today, I should have known you’d come in to check on me. Because you’re right; I had been avoiding you. But it wasn’t just you, baby, it was everyone. I spoke to Fury yesterday, and he had enough left in him to get my ass realizing it was time to get back to the shop, but that was about it. Everything else, I was gonna leave until I had whatever shit I was gonna face at the shop sorted and had time to sit back and wade through it all. I get that everyone thinks that’s what I’d spent the last ten months doing; I hadn’t. Most of the time I was too fucking wasted to think straight, let alone think about anything past if I had a shower in the past few days. Tried to drown it out, drown her out, and I did it through booze,” Jonas discloses sadly.
This too isn’t a surprise.
For weeks, I banged on his door, called, text, and eventually stooped to checking his trash to make sure he was at least eating. What I found wasn’t copious take-out boxes, however, it was dozens of empty bottles of Jack. Dozens and dozens of them.
Jonas’ Mom, Angie, and all three of his sisters, Melanie, Jessica, and Bella were terrified he would turn into a man like their husband and father that had been evicted – forcefully no less – from their home by the police when Jonas was sixteen and helped to put him out.
*****
An alcoholic, Leon, Jonas’ Dad had turned violent as he sunk deeper into the disease that eventually and inevitably took his family, and what little of the respect the town of Furnace had for him.
Once an upstanding member of the community, Leon had been the Chief of the fire department, a good friend, loyal husband, and devoted father. After a horrific accident in which three of his men – one of them his best friend, Davis – perished in a house fire turned monstrosity that engulfed a whole residential block, Leon was never the same.
He began drinking to numb the pain of his loss. Born of the belief men didn’t whine and bitch to counselors, or anyone for that matter about their problems, Leon instead claimed hard liquor as his therapist of choice.
His wife, Angie couldn’t get through to him, neither could his son, no matter how hard he worked to give his Dad something else to focus on. Not even his three young daughters were enough to break through the wall of grief that was consuming him more and more every day.
Eventually, the dam broke, and Leon was no longer the man they knew and loved, but a shell of him. The alcohol took over, as did the anger and bitterness, and the resentment that he lived, and they died beat at him night and day.
With no one else to take it out on, Leon turned on his wife and son. His daughters were thankfully left unscathed, emotional scars notwithstanding. However, Angie and Jonas were not remotely so lucky.
The day the paramedics attended a call placed by a terrified eight-year-old Bella Williams will be forever burned into the hearts and minds of every Furnace resident, young and old.
If it hadn’t been for Bella’s shocking honesty at why her Dad was no longer part of her life, I probably would never have heard about it. Small town or not, people kept stories like theirs to themselves.
The story goes like this…
Angie – tired from having to take a second job as a house cleaner to subsidize the family bank balance – returned home after working her regular job, at the then owned by the Laughton’s diner, to find Leon pining Jonas to the wall by his throat.
Strong from years of physical labor as a fireman before he took the job as Chief, alcohol had yet to diminish his ability to overpower his not yet adult son. Jonas might have already been six-foot or just over, but he was not match for his father who at six-four and two hundred and twenty pounds, outweighed him be a good deal of muscle and sheer bulk.
Jonas was fighting tooth and nail, kicking, flailing desperately to escape the suffocating hold his Dad had on him, but it wasn’t until Angie started screeching at Leon to let him go that Jonas had a chance to break free, and he took it.
At Angie’s entry, Leon dropped his hand from Jonas’ neck and turned his rage to her instead. In true protecting her cub fashion, Angie took the beating Leon meted out and then some. Not done, Leon focused his anger back on Jonas, but Jonas was done.
Seeing his mother cowering on the floor, beaten, bloodied by her husbands’ fists, Jonas let loose the monsters his Dad had spent the previous two and a bit years cultivating inside him.
Hit after hit, kick after brutal kick, Jonas kept at his father until eventually the police arrived and dragged him off his Dad’s unconscious body.
I would like to say that’s where their nightmare ended, with Leon being arrested and incarcerated for the abuse he perpetrated against his family, but it wasn’t. Angie and Jonas would have to weather the storm that was Leon once more.
Released – or more aptly put, escaping – from the hospital after recovering from the injuries Jonas inflicted on him, Leon returned to what was his family home, and with him went his service weapon.
How he got access to it, how anyone could think to let him get a hold of it is still a mystery, but somehow Leon managed to evade the police long enough to get to the house and fire his gun twice. Both times he shot at his one and only son, and both times he hit true.
Jonas took one to the shoulder, which depending on how you look at it was lucky, seeing as the second nicked the artery in his neck and scored a path through the flesh so deep it would be a permanent reminder of his near brush with death.
I, of course, as most everyone else has seen the scar – it’s impossible not to notice – but as soon as Jonas hit eighteen and was assured it was as healed as it was ever going to be, he went to the closest tattoo shop and covered it up. The work was good, but nothing would ever completely erase what he had been through, regardless of how much he wanted it gone.
The image Jonas chose to replace the jagged, raised section of skin couldn’t b
e more him. A tiger, watchful, fierce, and protective prowls from the base of his neck where the shoulder meets his throat climbing up until it reaches the base of his skull. It isn’t the depiction of the animal that is all Jonas; it is what it represents that fits the man so perfectly.
Primarily, a tiger is a lone hunter, will fight to the death for its territory, and even though it prefers to live alone, the tiger can recognize its family and will do battle for them regardless of time, distance, and separation. That is my Jonas. That is who he is to me, and who I know he is to his Mom and his sisters.
Incarcerated now, and probably God willing for the rest of his life, Leon hasn’t stepped foot on Furnace soil since the police stormed the house and arrested him for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.
Hence, why Angie, his sisters, and I were so worried about Jonas’ newfound relationship with the bottle. Not that any of us actually believed he would follow in his fathers’ footsteps, we knew he wouldn’t, but we were all concerned nevertheless.
*****
“You still with me, babe?” Jonas asks, pulling me from the myriad of memories of his past.
“Uh-huh,” I mumble sightlessly at the spot I focused on over his shoulder.
“Where’d you go? Those were some heavy thoughts you were having there, baby.”
“It doesn’t matter. Can we please just get this over with?” I push.
“You’re not gonna make this easy for me are you, baby?”
“Should I?” I question.
“It’d be nice if you would, but no. I wasn’t expecting you to,” he acknowledges. “That scene back at the shop, I get why you felt you need to cut me loose, babe, and I don’t blame you. If I were you, I would’ve given up on me fucking years ago.”
Scoffing, I quirk an eyebrow at him.
“Really? Self-deprecation doesn’t suit you, Jonas.”
“Not what I meant, Blaine, and you know it,” he whispers ominously. “All I’m trying to say is that I don’t fucking blame you for having enough of my shit. I wouldn’t blame anyone at this point if they told me to shove it.”
“Well, you’re lucky your brothers would never say that then aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am, and I’m not making light of that, but they aren’t who I’m worried about, babe. You are. I might get why you’re doing it, why you feel like you need to protect yourself from me, but that doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it. You and me, Blaine, we’ve stood steady like a fucking rock through worse than this and made it to the other side. What’s different this time? Why are you so hell bent on cutting me out of your life once and for all?”
Incredulous, I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. He can’t seriously be that dense, can he?
“Please tell me you’re joking?” I practically beg. “I explained why this morning, Jonas, and from where I’m sitting, I couldn’t have made it clearer.”
“Well, fucking try, Blaine, because all that shit you told me this morning boils down to one thing for me. You’re running scared,” Jonas growls.
“Excuse me!” I gape.
“You heard me; you’re running scared. For once I don’t have anything holding me back. No woman, no job taking me out of the country away from you, and no one demanding shit of me that’d occupy my attention in a way that’d mean I didn’t have time for us. Nothing. So now, when I can finally see a way clear for there to be an us, you’ve decided you’re done waiting for me to get my shit together and you’re running scared.”
“That is so not what is happening here. You know, Jonas. You know everything. I never made a secret of how I feel about you. Sure, I might not have shared it in so many words with you, but you knew.”
Jabbing his long calloused finger at me, he counters with,
“See, that right there tells me you’re not really done. You said how you feel about me. Not felt, feel. But you’re right; you didn’t tell me, and I didn’t fucking tell you. I am now, though, Blaine. I’m sitting right here trying to tell you how much I care about you; how much you mean to me. I fucking adore you, babe, and if me showing up after you delivered your death blows earlier isn’t enough to prove that, then tell me what I need to do to make you see it.”
“Jesus, Jonas,” I yell. “Can you even hear yourself? You care about me? You adore me? Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. I told you I love you. I told you I will never love another man the way I love you. But what you give me in return is your undying affection? I think not. It’s not enough, that will never be enough. Not for me, and it shouldn’t be for you. I want more than that. I need more than that. I want a man who loves me, and would tie himself in knots to show me every day how much he does and do it off his own back. Not because I said the words first, not even because I felt them first, but because he can. Because he does.”
Jonas doesn’t look at me as he begins to pace restlessly back and forth behind the length of the couch.
“I want to. Fuck me, I want to give you the words, Blaine, but I can’t lie to you, babe. And me saying them, that would be lying to both of us.”
For over a decade I’ve been wrong when I thought Jonas would never do anything to hurt me. It wasn’t just physically I believed him incapable of inflicting pain, it was emotionally too. Because no matter what, until today that is, Jonas has been nothing but gentle with me. Patient. Kind. Sweet. He took care of my feelings as if they were made from spun gold. Now, however, Jonas just undid me with his blatant carelessness.
“Get out,” I whisper with deceptive calmness.
“Fuck no. I’m not leaving until you and I have our shit straight. If that means I’m here for the long haul, then count me in. You’ve gotta give us a chance to see if we can both get there, baby. You’ve had years of freedom to feel how you want, I’m only just getting to a place where I can admit I was an asshole for wasting my time with anyone other than you.”
“Get. Out,” I bite out.
“I’ll do just about anything for you, babe, but I won’t do that. I walk out that door, and I know I’m not walking back through it. So do me a favor, yeah? Give it up. I’m staying, and you’re telling me what I can do to convince you what we’ve got between us could be fucking magnificent if we both invest some time in it,” he challenges.
“Fine,” I snap. “You say you’ll do anything but leave?” I counter questioningly.
“Yeah, babe. I’ll do anything but that,” he returns forcefully.
“Then I want you to fuck me,” I demand without one iota of hesitation.
“Repeat that,” Jonas barks, stopping his pacing long enough to pierce me with a glare.
“I want you to fuck me,” I repeat unnecessarily. “We’ve been dancing around the chemistry we have for years, avoiding it like the plague. You say nothing is holding you back anymore, then that’s what I want from you. No promises. No avowals of love. Nothing, just sex.”
“Babe, you do not want to test me on this. You say that’s what you want, but you don’t have the first clue what you’d be getting asking for that from me,” he warns.
“Oh, I think I’ve got a fair idea of what I’m asking for, Jay,” I reply, using the nickname I’ve never once before now said.
Jonas made it clear the first time he spoke to me that he liked how his full name sounded when I said it. Since then, I’ve never called him anything but. However, to separate what he once was to me and what he now is to me, Jay is all he’s going to get from me.
“I might not be as experienced as you, but I’m not as sheltered as you think either.”
Now that is a lie.
I don’t have the first clue what I’m doing, in or out of the bedroom. I’ve never had the occasion to flirt, go on dates that lasted past number three if they were lucky, or round more bases than second.
Like I said, I grew up with three brothers and an overprotective, altogether too interested in my dating life father. Sure, two points of the triangle of holy terror are younger than me, but that has no bearing on ho
w involved they made themselves when it came to, ‘Operation Deny Blaine Romantic Entanglements.’
Watching Jonas carefully, I can see that he’s considering it. What man wouldn’t? I’m offering him exactly what he wants with no strings attached. I’m not asking him for anything he’s not capable of giving me, but even still, he’s undecided.
Bracing his hands on the backrest of the couch, Jonas asks,
“Not gonna lie, Blaine. Seeing your body spread out for me, naked, wet, and begging for my cock would be sweet, fucking beautiful even, but you aren’t built for no strings, baby.”
“How about you let me decided what I can handle and what I can’t. I told you before; I’m a grown ass woman Jay, and I can make my own decisions now. I choose this,” I say quickly.
“I’ve got a feeling that if I take you up on this, you’re gonna show me the door as soon as we’re done. I might not be in the position to negotiate terms, but I’d ask you let me stay and take care of you after,” he hedges cautiously, observing my reactions carefully.
Vengeance MC Box Set - Volume 1: Call Me...Vengeance ~ Fury ~ Jonas Page 68