Chapter Text
The air on the balcony was sweet like honeysuckle. The usual smell of the estate- manure- wasn’t as strong in the spring, which was one of the reasons it was Tulip's favorite time of year. The other being that spring was when business was slowest. Summer was the worst- Tulip had had a foster mother that always said the heat could make a person crazier than a shithouse rat. The way people flocked to Angelville in the summer proved this to be true. The hotter it got, the more problems people could invent for themselves. The more problems someone had, the more likely it would be that they came crawling to beg for a potion or a hex or whatever else Jesse could shyster off to them in exchange for every dime they had and their soul too.
So Tulip liked springtime. When the sun was out, but it didn’t smell like shit and death quite yet.
She saw Jesse’s truck pull onto the road up to the property before she heard it. That was one thing about the house- it was impossible to be snuck up on. That and the clawfoot tub in their bathroom were about the only things Tulip liked about the house anymore. Years ago, when she was a teenager who had never had her own bedroom before, there wasn’t a damn thing she didn’t like about the house. She could overlook anything back then. That the estate was a former plantation, slave quarters still standing out back, and everyone expected her to be just fine with that. That the house had been around since before even the secession and the eternal draft and termites would never be taken care of. That there was a crazy old bitch barely alive in the basement.
She overlooked some shit about Jesse too. His job, how he made his money. The fact that there was a difference between ‘gettin kicked out of school and robbin a bank or two’ bad and ‘Angelville bad’. That if she married Jesse that she, the former, would be involved in the latter, whether she wanted to or not. That, years into it, she didn’t want it.
She stepped back halfway inside so Jesse didn’t spot her watching him walk from the truck to the house. She still wanted him, most the time. But what was Jesse without his job? What was a L’Angelle without Angelville?
Jesse made Tulip feel all kinds of ways. Infuriated, like no one else could, when he’d hide away from her. Giddy, in a schoolgirl kinda way, when he’d hold her waist and kiss her like no one else ever had. In love, since more or less the day they met, every moment of every day.
But not bored. Not ever. That was his saving grace- that he was never boring, didn’t offer the Tulip the same life she’d been running from her whole life.
Tulip had been nineteen years old when she married Jesse L'Angelle. She’d loved him. She still loved him. But she was less and less sure she loved him enough to waste her life being the wife of the worst man this side of New Orleans.
“Where you been?” Tulip met him at the front door, and didn't care that she sounded nagging. She wasn’t afraid of being a bitch if it got results.
“In town.” Jesse shrugged off his brown leather jacket, hanging it up, revealing a white button up. His gator boots scruffed against the old plank flooring as he turned and then he was looking at her. “Seein a friend.”
“What friend?”
“Proinsias.” He said it like Francis with a p instead of a f and a o instead of a a.
There is no way in hell that’s a name, Tulip thought. She said- “Who the hell is that?”
“An in-town friend,” Jesse said, dry as dust. “Now can this interrogation be over so I can grab us a couple of beers? We need to talk business.”
Tulip let it go. They got beers, and talked business. Jesse needs her to break into an associate of the Boyds- teach a lesson something something take back what’s ours. Same old shit.
That’s not what Tulip is thinkin about. She could do that job in her sleep. What’s on her mind is the suddenly all-encompassing certainty she has that Jesse is cheatin on her. Jesse. Looks at her like she hung the moon Jesse. Supposed to be giving each other everything Jesse. Til the end of the world Jesse.
Tulip’s mad, of course. Late tonight eating rocky road standing up in the kitchen, she’ll even admit she’s sad. But the overwhelming feeling, the biggest betrayal of all, is how goddamn boring it all is. She got married and now her stupid husband was having a stupid affair with some dumb skank who didn’t have the first idea about the kind of man Jesse was. It was all so fuckin boring.
***
It was all heat. Cassidy felt the burn in his thighs- the heat of Jesse’s body under his. Jess’ big warm hands guiding his hips. Even the sun- the blinds were drawn, of course, but Cassidy could feel some of it seeping in, lighting up his bare shoulders with static. Dangerous. Everything about this- about Jesse, about sleeping with Jesse- was dangerous. Flying too close to the sun indeed.
He arched his back when he came, panting with his cock untouched. He watched his spend hit Jess’ chest and groaned, stumbling a bit from overwhelm. Jesse tightening his hold on him, kept him bouncing on his cock even as it was uncomfortable, a cramp in his thigh strengthening and the battering he was still receiving not helping. But Jesse was closing his eyes and coming not a few moments later, almost entirely pulled out. It was a habit Cassidy had noticed when they first started having sex- that even though Cassidy didn’t have the parts to get in trouble, Jesse still had that instinct in him.
They always smoked after sex. Cassidy would roll the joint and lay his head on Jesse’s chest and they would share it that way- Cassidy holding it for himself and then raising it up and holding it for Jesse too. It’s a thing now. A bloody sexy thing.
The first time, months ago now, had been drunken and fast- Jesse angry about something and festering, Cassidy bored and lonely and saying- as irony infused he could make it with how genuine his desire was- “Wanna shag and smoke?”
Jesse hadn’t hit him or walked out- in fact his protest wasn’t that he was married, or that he didn’t want to, or that such a thing repulsed him. What he said was, “I don’t have sex with men.”
Cassidy could work with that. He showed his teeth, raised his eyebrows. “You can fuck me like a woman, if you like. I’m awful bendy.”
And that had been that.
In the beginning it was just that- getting wasted and being had on his back like he was a common whore and Jess barely touching him. Cassidy had no problem with that- he’d loved many a common whore- but it wasn’t until he showed up one night in leggings and a gray flowy woman’s blouse he’d picked up in the gutter that Jesse L’Angelle fell on his knees in the entryway of that shitty apartment and attempted to suck what remained of Cassidy’s soul out through his dick.
Things had changed after that. Cassidy wasn’t so blind to his own bullshit he couldn’t admit he liked Jesse a little too much for this to be sustainable. But after that… it got realer than Cassidy was anticipating, when he started hanging around this self-important, handsome wannabe hoodoo man. Every time it happened, it became less something Cassidy could pretend didn't.
“I have to be honest, mate.” His voice was rough with smoke and sex. Jesse didn’t look at him. “I feel a little bad us doing this with you being married and all.”
“If you feel bad doin it, then stop doin it.” Jesse didn’t open his eyes, or say anything else, but Cassidy could tell he wanted another puff. He resisted the impulse to let him have it, pulled one himself as a little rebellion.
“It’s not that I harbor any illusions of illicit grandeur,” Cassidy said, meaning it. He wasn't so dumb to think Jesse would ever give him anything worth more than an afternoon- if Cassidy even wanted it, which he didn't. “But I do hate to be the source of heartbreak.”
“Cassidy.” Jesse did open his eyes then, but he stayed staring at the ceiling. “Are you sick?”
It wasn’t what Cassidy was expecting, and he didn’t know what he meant. “I beg your pardon?”
“Any infectious diseases?”
Oh. “No.”
“You planning on talking to my wife anytime soon?” Then, Jess did look at him, eyes dark and searing. Even like this, hair silly from sex and pupils blown from drugs, there was something about him. Something authoritative.
“Not bloody likely, given I don’t know her.” Cassidy didn’t even know her name- it bothered him and made it all easier in equal measure.
“Then there ain’t gonna be any heartache,” Jesse closed his eyes again, satisfied. Cassidy finally brought the joint up to his mouth, unable to look anywhere but Jesse’s pink lips as he touched it to them. “Because she ain’t gonna find out.”