Page 12 of Silent Verity

I sure as fuck hoped it did.

11

Dalton

I shifted, my arm tightening around Jesse’s waist as I burrowed my face in the back of his neck. He smelled of weed and liquor, but more than that, he smelled like himself—mahogany and teakwood. It was a heady scent that was all him, and I could never fucking get enough of it.

I had no idea how we’d made it to my bed early this morning. All of us had been beyond wasted, but after getting well and truly fucked up, Jesse had finally stopped crying over the loss of his mom. He’d curled against me, remaining plastered to my side for the entire night until he finally began to doze off. I didn’t remember getting off the couch, but we had to have at some point. None of the other guys had been in any condition to help us last night. They’d been just as fucked up as we were.

Jesse shifted, making the mattress jostle, and my stomach lurched. Quickly, I released him and got out of bed, padding barefoot to my bathroom. I barely got my bathroom door shut before I bent over the toilet and proceeded to empty my stomach. My head pounded, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to will it away, though I knew that was pointless. This headache was going to be here to stay for the day.

The roiling stomach could go though. I just needed to locate my phone and order some extra greasy food and get some pain pills in my stomach. And a coke. The acid in the Coca Cola would settle my stomach.

Groaning, I flushed the toilet and managed to brush my teeth with the light off, knowing the light would just burn my retinas and make my hangover headache worse. After rinsing my mouth out with some mouthwash, I opened my door and padded barefoot back to my bed. Once I was back beneath the covers, I grabbed my phone and wound my arms back around Jesse, typing in my code.

“What are you doing?” he whispered, his voice scratchy with sleep.

“Ordering food,” I grumbled. “You want something? Might help your hangover.”

He groaned quietly and slowly nodded his head. “I feel like death.”

I hummed in agreement. “We haven’t gotten that fucked up since high school.” Resting my chin on his shoulder, I clicked on a fast-food restaurant. After placing two orders for burgers and fries, I locked my phone and set it on the mattress, then tugged Jesse against me. He sighed as I nuzzled the back of his neck.

“We need showers,” he muttered.

“Mmm,” I hummed noncommittally. We did need showers, yeah, but I wasn’t keen on letting him go so soon. He was being oddly calm, which wasn’t normal for him. Not after he’d been so fucking upset last night that he’d been damn near having a panic attack while I held him. Not when he’d intentionally sought me out after pushing me away yesterday.

We just needed to lay here in bed for a little while longer until I was sure he wasn’t going to fall apart the moment he was out of my sight. Seeing him so distraught last night had fucking wrecked me. I couldn’t handle it again.

“How are you feeling?” I asked quietly.

Jesse grunted, not giving me a real answer. I sighed. “Jesse…” I murmured.

He rolled over and burrowed his face into my chest, his fingers curling into my shirt. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered.

“Bottling it up isn’t going to help you,” I gently reminded him. “You never cope well when you just keep all your emotions locked up inside. You know this.”

“This is different,” he said, his voice muffled by my chest.

I began stroking my fingers through his hair, knowing it always soothed and relaxed him. “Is it?” I prodded. “You lost your mother last night, Jesse, and while your relationship with her was… complicated, at best, she was still your mother. You were…” I drew in a deep breath, trying to think of the right word but something delicate enough, too. “You were distraught,” I finally settled on. “I’ve never seen you like that before.”

“Being upset over her doesn’t even make sense,” Jesse quietly confessed.

No… No, it didn’t, I silently agreed. But if there was one thing I’d learned about Jesse and his mother in all the years I’d known him, it was that the relationship between a mother and son was complicated. Spike had told me that most days, he was glad he’d never known his parents. That he didn’t have to worry about that tie after seeing how fucked up his friends were over their own parents.

Jesse both loved and hated his mother, and that was something he would have to come to terms with on his own.

“It doesn’t,” I told him softly. “But it’s okay to still hurt over her. To mourn what should have been. To mourn the woman she could have been.”

He audibly swallowed. “Is that why it hurts?”

I shrugged, my chest aching. Fuck, I wished I could just take his pain away. So he never had to be sad over that fucking bitch again. Even while dead, she was still fucking him up inside.

“I don’t know, baby.”

He jerked his head up, and I didn’t move back in time. When his lips brushed mine, even though it was by accident, my heart lurched into my throat and stomach swooped, this time for an entirely different reason than my hangover.

Jesse had kissed me.

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