Cowboy Up (Lucas Brothers)

And love. Definitely love.

Chapter 44

Jansen

I rub my hand hard across my chin and jaw as I take in the broken glass littering the sidewalk that leads to the front door. There’s an empty bottle of Jim Beam in the midst of it—correction make that two… Fuck, three. As I look at the broken window, there are three separate points of impact, telling me at least the idiot didn’t try to drink all three bottles at once. One even seems to have hurled through the top of the window which is a good twenty feet up. I walk to the front door. I don’t bother knocking. Blue gave me a key long ago, ordering me not to tell his mom. I haven’t. It’s one of those little secrets you keep for the greater good. Now, if she ever asks me if I have a key to Blue’s house, I’d tell her. With any luck, it won’t come to that.

I walk into the house, my nose curling at the smell of stale pizza and dog. Blue normally keeps his house clean. It’s just him and those two damn dogs he was tricked into taking home. So, I don’t imagine it takes that long. To see it in this kind of shape is startling. There are at least three empty pizza boxes on the bar and I’m pretty sure I spot Chinese there, too. Blue hates Chinese food, so I’m not even sure what that’s about.

I go through room by room of the house, not finding him. I do find Seymour in the utility room. His horny-but-grouchy woman, Miffy, is on top of the washer looking down at Seymour—as if daring him to follow her. Seymour is not impressed. He does seem to be afraid to climb up where she’s at. I can’t figure out if he doesn’t like heights or he’s afraid of Miffy. If it was me, it’d be the latter.

It’s deathly quiet, so there’s a chance that he’s not here. I don’t think that’s likely though. I open the door to his bedroom and sigh. The covers are off the bed and lying helter-skelter around the room. There are more empty whiskey bottles.

Christ, he’s single-handedly responsible for keeping Jim Beam in business the last week. I don’t see him, but that changes when I walk through the doorway of the adjoining bathroom. Over by the tub lying on the tiled floor is Blue. As I walk closer, I reach over his body and pull the lever for the stopper on the tub and turn on the water—just cold. He doesn’t deserve hot water.

He looks like hell. His eye is swollen and black and blue. Someone gave him a hell of a shiner. The rest of his body is untouched—and unfortunately—I can see all of it. It’s mostly covered in pizza sauce, dirt, and noodles. Noodles. I shake my head. He even has the dang things in his hair. I guess the Chinese was for him.

I lean against the wall, arms crossed at my chest as I take in my boy. He’s going to have to pull his head out of his ass. I hope he can clean up his act before he loses Meadow completely—if he hasn’t already. I know what the problem is. Blue came to me years ago when he and Meadow broke up. I warned him then that the grass isn’t always greener. He said he had wild oats to sow. Bet he’s regretting those oats pretty damn bad right now.

I look over and see there’s enough water for what I need, so I switch it off. Next, I wrap my hands under Blue’s arms. He’s dead weight and he’s a big guy, so it’s not that easy. Then again, it’s not that much different from wrangling bulls—which I’ve had a hell of a lot of experience with. I turn him around and pull him over the top of the tub. I leave him leaning on it so I can put a leg on either side of his back. Through it all he might have moaned a little, but he’s out cold. I hold his head and dunk him under the water. He wakes up and tries to fight me and pull himself out.

“What the hell?” he splutters. Once I’m sure he has oxygen in his lungs, I dunk him again.

“If you want to be an idiot and lay around drunk, destroying your house and ignoring your duties, I’m going to treat you like one,” I snap lifting him back out. He’s still coughing and trying to get away. He’s cursing at me, which annoys me. It sure as hell doesn’t work in his favor. I’m already pissed because he’s worried his mother—and me. For that reason alone, I dunk him once more, then get out of the way when he comes back up.