Page 106 of Chad's Chase
Love justis.
At least, that’s what Isabel, my mother, said.
“That’s okay,” I whispered, laying my head down to his chest again. “Iwantto be stuck with you.”
With a kiss to the top of my head, his arms tightened around me. “Hate you so much, Jhay.”
“Love you, too, Blood.”
Isabel hadn’t spared me this one truth, though…
Love, in its purest form, is madness.
Piercing sunlight unapologetically poked my eyelids open. Chad was missing.
I flipped onto my side and espied him out on the balcony, leaning over the railing, a burgundy towel slung around his lower half, cellphone pressed to his ear, rapt in his conversation.
Slipping from between the sheets and out of bed, I trudged to the bathroom to freshen up. Fifteen minutes later I popped out with clean, moisturized skin, fresh breath, and a revived face, then realized neither of us had clothes in the room. We would either have to borrow clothes from the other famous couple occupying the house, or redress in our dirty habiliments from the day before. The latter sounded more likely.
I glanced out to the balcony and Chad was still on the phone, now with two fingers pressed to his forehead as though the conversation was a headache-inducing one. So I dragged the top sheet off the bed, wrapped it around me ancient Egyptian-style, and went in search of our clothes we’d negligently left out in the hall the night before, hoping the other two—Roman Prince and Rock Princess—weren’t yet awake.
Drifting noiselessly from the room, I tiptoed down the hall, finding not a single item of our clothes. We’d left our stuff littering the hall: of course a more civilized person would have picked them up.
I decided to just suck it up and go seek clothing for me and my man, borrowed or dirty. Didn’t matter. We were both still targets, still walking dead, so at this point it wasn’t really relevant whose clothes we were wearing.
As I neared the end of the hall, I heard discord, voices raising higher, and higher. The two were quarreling. Oh great, marital problems.
“…just not ready, JK. Not at this point in my career when—”
“Your career,” JK’s voice said, sounding more like a sneer. “Do you realize you use yourcareeras excuse for everything? I have a ‘career’, too, Sassy, and I’mstillplayin’ my part as your husband. Play your fuckin’ part as mywifeand do what you promised me you’d do in your vows!”
“It’s just bad timing, yeah?” Saskia returned, her voice now pacific and forbearing. “I’ll run it by Lion and—”
“ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME?!!” JK roared, and even I jumped at the reverberating explosion. “Mywifeneeds to ask hermanager’s permissionon whether or not she should carry my motherfuckin’ baby?!”
“I don’t—”
There was a loud crash of something, followed by a jumble of other noises like a few things got tossed and kicked over. Then silence. Then a contrite “JK, wait!” Then the echoing bang of the front door.
I figured JK had stormed out, but waited a few minutes before resuming my journey down the hall. Saskia was standing still in the center of the massive kitchen, staring blankly at a completely ruined blender shattered all over the kitchen counter, pinkish smoothie running and dripping over the edges of the island. Four bar stools on the other side of the island were topsy-turvy.
I probably should be asking her if she was alright, offer her some help or something, but, yeah, I wasn’t that kind of human being.
“Excuse me, were you the one who picked our litter up from the hall?”
Saskia’s head jerked up at the sound of my voice, as if she’d been on another planet, only then becoming aware of my presence. “Oh, um, no. JK did.” As though she hadn’t just been a participant of a heart-imploding marital war, with a cool expression, she walked away from the debris, from the helter-skelter scene created by her Megatron of a husband, and rounded the island, heading into the open living area, towards an ivory couch that had a few pieces of clothes folded in a low stack.
“I could only save yours and Chad’s boots, and Chad’s trousers. Everything else got burned. So you’ll have to wear something of—”
“Burned?”
She fumbled needlessly with the folded garments, and I figured, despite her brave face, she was still on edge from the argument. “Yeah. JK was the one who took them up from the hallway…and threw them in the fireplace.”
“Thatasshole,” I muttered under my breath. I was close enough for her to hear me, but I didn’t give a damn how she took it. Her husband was a piece of shit asshole.
Pretending she didn’t hear, even though I was positive she did, she took up a skinny black jeans from the pile. “You’re taller than me, but I’m sure we wear the same size, yeah? And don’t worry, these are brand new. Never been worn.”
I bet they were. She washer. The famous kind who wore clothes once then tossed them aside, until she decided to make space in her closet for new stuff and donate those “old” ones to charity.
