Another reminder that life goes on.
“You’re killing yourself for what? To keep your mind on some continuous loop of grief? Constantly beating yourself up over something you have no control over? He’s dead, Ash. He’s dead and there isn’t anything you can do to bring him back. We all miss him—trust me on that. And pretty soon, if you don’t turn yourself around, you will successfully drink yourself to your own death, and please tell me what the hell that will fucking accomplish?”
“What the fuck do you know about loss, Maddox?” I scream, losing my tight hold on the control that’s been my only weapon against crumbling into nothing the last few months.
“I know every-fucking-thing about loss, Asher Cooper. I know what it’s like to lose your family, your friends, your life like you’ve always known it, and yourself. I fucking know what it’s like to have NOTHING, and trust me, what you feel right now is heavy, but it doesn’t hold a fucking candle. Work out your shit. Talk it out, fight it out, but stop fucking drinking it out. When you’re ready to take that step, you let me fucking know, but meanwhile, stop bringing sluts back to my house…and find my damn cat!”
He storms past me, knocking my shoulder so hard I fall right on my ass in the middle of his living room, and the only think I can think of is that he’s fucking right, but I have no clue how to fix my life.
Chapter 6 – Asher
Why anyone would think I should be responsible for something breathing is beyond me. I can’t even take care of my own damn self, and obviously I can’t take care of anything else since I lost a cat. An indoor cat. There aren’t many places this beast could hide either. I can hear Maddox slamming shit around and grumbling under his breath about me getting my shit together. Meanwhile, I’ve been crawling all over this damn apartment looking for his stupid cat.
And I say cat loosely since this thing is about forty pounds. I wonder if I can get by with telling everyone that his cat beast scratched me to hell and not some crazy chick.
“Come on, Cat. Come out wherever you are,” I say through clenched teeth. Stupid damn animal.
I’ve checked the kitchen, the laundry room, and living and dining rooms. Nothing. I’ve looked in each bathroom and in Maddox’s room. Surely I would have noticed a large cat living in the same space I had for the last seven days?
“Where is Cat, you idiot?” Maddox bellows through the apartment.
“Bastard,” I grumble.
Just when I’m about to give up, I spot a fluff of fur move in the back, darkened corner of my closet. It’s not hard to miss since it seems to be Maddox’s stuff-all hole. There’s box on top of box and even more crap piled on top of that.
“Come on, Cat. Your keeper is home.”
“I’m not a fucking keeper. I should be the keeper of your ass. Bet you wouldn’t get in half the trouble you seem to be getting into lately,” Maddox’s deep rumble says directly behind me, causing me to jump slightly and knock a bunch of boxes on top of my head.
“Motherfucker,” I spit out.
I try to move the boxes out from on top of me. Maddox is no damn help since apparently I scared Cat enough to have her run over me, and I can hear Maddox cooing at her. Seriously, is he talking baby talk to a cat?
“A little help would be nice.”
“Yeah, it would, wouldn’t it,” he calls on his way out the door.
I spend a good ten minutes trying to wiggle my wide frame out of the avalanche of boxes. When I finally get myself free, I spend some time picking up the mess that stupid cat caused. I refuse to believe that I did this, but I still feel like shit for trashing Maddox’s house.
Right when I finish up, I catch something out of the corner of my eye. Bending over, I pick up the picture that must have fallen out of one of the boxes. Turning over the picture, I see a younger, happier, Maddox Locke. His arms, minus the tattoos that heavily cover them now, are wrapped around a tiny, blonde chick and he’s smiling a smile I’ve never seen on his face. He doesn’t have one ounce of the heaviness that cloaks him every second now. No, in this picture, he is the example of a man happy and in love.
“Where the fuck did you find that?”
Before I even have a second to reply, the picture is ripped out of my hands and crushed inside his fist.
“Want to talk about that?”
“Do you want to talk about your shit?”
I shake my head, knowing that I should but that I’m not there yet…and I’m not sure if I will be anytime soon.
“Is that part of your nightmares?”
“This is my fucking nightmare.”
He storms from the room, slamming the door hard enough that the walls shake.