Losing Control : His Madness, His Cure Chapter 18

The handjob is all I can think about.

Yeah. I know how that sounds. But it’s true. I’m still mentally stuck there like some desperate teenager who just discovered his dick. Some of the guys I've hooked up with were saints, honestly, with how giving they were. Generous. Creative.... Flexible. Yet somehow, somehow, one rough, unholy handjob from that bastard is messing with my head.

I’ve tried to work. Tried to focus. But my brain’s doing this annoying backslide into filth every time my hands are idle, or my eyes linger too long on anything vaguely masculine. I tried to sketch out a layout and I swear to God, I almost turned a mechanical arm into something phallic.

I had to Ctrl+Z my own brain.

The last text he sent still sits unread, and I’m avoiding it like it’s a bomb about to detonate in my lap.

" And we're still on for that actual meal. Unless you’d rather I feed you something else. "

Fucking jerk.

I’d told him nothing was ever gonna happen again. But now every time the door to Zig’s opens, I nearly jump out of my skin. I keep pretending to be immersed in Ink Master on my laptop, but I’ve rewound the same damn scene three times and still have no idea who’s getting sent home.

Layla and Addy have picked up on it. The way they keep giving me side-eyes in between their chat and nudging me like schoolgirls trying to get the gossip out...I’ve denied everything. Repeatedly. Like a criminal in a police lineup with blood on his hands.

' Me..Involved with Jax? Fuck no! '

Yeah. That’s why I flinch every time someone mentions his name. That’s why I can still feel phantom pressure on my skin when I’m alone.

Just when I think I might finally relax, my phone rings. I stiffen. For a second, a sick wave of dread climbs up my spine because, what if it’s him? What if he’s right outside, calling just to watch me squirm from behind the glass?

I look.

It’s my Mum.

I actually laugh...this dry, relieved little breath, and answer.

She’s checking in again. She always does. I’m the last of three kids and still very much the baby in her eyes. She pretends I’m not a grown man. I pretend I hate the coddling.

I swipe and bring the phone to my ear. “Hey, Mum.”

“ Hey, lovebug!” she says with far too much joy for a woman calling her twenty six year old son that nickname. I groan and rub a hand down my face. “You have seriously got to stop calling me that.”

“You say that every time,” she hums. “And every time, I remind you that I named you. If I still want to call you my little Xanny bear, I will.”

" Let's stick to lovebug. You're lucky I adore you. "

She tsks. “Don’t try to distract me with charm. I waited for your call last night. Do you know how long I sat there, staring at the phone? Alone, cold and abandoned?"

I mentally curse. “Mum–”

“And then nothing. Not even a sorry text. Just silence. Do you know what that does to a mother’s heart?”

Guilt punches me right in the chest. I always check in Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights.

I sigh and lean back in my chair, staring at the muted episode of Ink Master playing in front of me. “Shit, I’m sorry. I had a late client and I pretty much face-planted when I got home.”

That, and I was too busy trying not to think about Jax’s goddamn hands.

“You need to stop overworking,” she says immediately, that sharp motherly concern sliding into her voice. “Are you taking good care of yourself?”

“I’m trying.” I run a hand through my hair. “I’m sleeping. Eating. Existing, mostly.”

She huffs. “That’s not good enough. You can’t exist, Xander, you have to live. You need joy. Passion..... A lover.”

“Okay, wow. Where is this going?”

My mum’s an artist....acrylics, oils, the occasional bout of sculpting when she’s manic enough to haul marble into the garden, and she’s always been... different about how she feels things. Big, unfiltered emotions that pour out of her like paint water down a sink drain. She talks about love like it’s air, grief like it’s holy, and once cried over the shape of a dying tree branch because it reminded her of a lonely man she painted in '98. So yeah, she says things like that. About living, about lovers and passion. Like it’s all so simple.

“Your father just accepted a semester position in New York,” she announces, clearly changing lanes with no signal. “They practically begged him. Told him no one else could handle the level of depth he brings to nineteenth-century composition. Your father, the star.”

I snort. “So humble.”

“ I married the most modest Frenchman in existence. But now I’ll be all alone in this house. I miss you.”

Actually, my dad's only half French, but I don't mention that. I sigh again, softer this time. “I’ll visit soon. Promise.”

“You’d better. Everyone else abandoned me. Alyssa’s too busy being a supermum, Damien’s planning a wedding, and you...well, you forget to call.”

“I didn’t forget. I...okay, I forgot. I suck.”

“You don’t suck. You’re just…” she trails off. “Distracted.”

Distracted by long fingers, a wicked mouth, and the kind of intensity that makes my skin buzz? Yeah. Distracted is putting it mildly.

“How are Alyssa and Damien? I haven't checked in with them in a while.” I ask, steering this away from the danger zone. My siblings and I used to be super close, but recently it feels like life's happening too fast, I can hardly keep up.

“Oh, you know. I have this gut feeling Alyssa’s pregnant again...don’t roll your eyes, I was right the last two times. And Erin’s trying to convince your brother to have their wedding on a freaking mountaintop at sunrise. She says it’s ‘romantic.’ I say it’s hypothermia waiting to happen, but she’s still mood-boarding like she’s planning a Vogue cover.”

I laugh, and it feels like my lungs are finally relaxing after hours.

“Which brings us to you. My only unwed child. Are you intentionally trying to die alone?”

“Mum.”

"I’m serious! Even your father’s worried. And he usually only gets worked up over missing a good deal on vintage records or when the neighbour’s dog uses his herb garden as a toilet."

"I'm fine," I say, and instantly regret it. We've been down this road too many times to count. Probably because they've never met let alone heard about a single love interest of mine.

“Fine?” she repeats, as if I’ve just announced I’m giving up on tattooing and becoming an accountant. “Xander, ‘fine’ is the word people use when they’ve given up on poetry and settled for weather reports. You don’t get to be just fine. You were born with too much light in your bones for that.”

I start to speak, but she’s already off, like I said, she feels things differently, deeply. “You live in Seattle. There has to be someone....a beautiful, peculiar young man who gets you. Or a sculptor. Or a florist. Or someone who sings in a queer punk opera! Whatever your heart wants, darling, I’m open. I’m so open, I might be pansexual by proxy.”

“Mum, please stop.”