The answer, as vague as it was, appeared to appease Max’s curiosity. “Yeah, it has a way of doing that.”
“Sure does,” she agreed. “Just jumps up out of nowhere and takes the feet from under you and you lie there wondering what the hell just happened.” Even though she tried to keep her voice upbeat, Grace watched as something wretched and broken flashed across Max’s face, before the barrier he carried around with him snapped shut behind his eyes, darkness clouding him once again.
Damn. Chitchat over.
He cleared his throat and picked up his book. “I’ve got to be someplace,” he muttered, standing from his seat. “It was nice to see you. Thanks for the muffin.”
Grace smiled at his politeness, even with the disappointment that bloomed in her chest. “Oh, yeah, sure.” He wasn’t always so flustered, fidgety. If anything, it was Max’s stillness that she found so entirely fascinating. Something was different.
She watched him retreat quickly out of the coffee shop, his strong shoulders tense, rounded, and his long legs striding purposefully across the street toward his truck. He pushed a hand through his messy hair, once, twice, before climbing into the vehicle and peeling away.
Seven hours later, Grace was more than surprised when Max wandered into Whiskey’s with two guys she recognized from the work site. He dipped his chin in her direction and parked himself on a stool by the bar while his friends strolled over to the pool table.
“Orange juice?” she asked, trying not to notice his shadowed expression. Whatever had been bothering him at the coffee shop had apparently not been rectified and now shrouded him with a dangerous quiet. He looked ready for a fight.
“No. A shot of Jack,” he said, slapping a twenty onto the bar.
Bourbon? This was new. And potentially catastrophic. Grace had no idea whether Max was a recovering alcoholic or what the hell he was, and a shot of Jack would be a colossal leap off the proverbial wagon. She didn’t want to be responsible for that. Grace quickly scanned the bar for Vince, but he wasn’t there. Neither was Holly, who she was filling in for, for another two hours. Apart from Max’s friends and two other groups of regulars, the place was quiet.
She tapped her fingers on the bar top. “You sure?”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. Why?”
Grace nibbled her bottom lip. “I just . . . should you be drinking?” Jesus, how awkward could it get? “With you—I mean, you always drink juice.”
Understanding flittered over Max’s face and a bark of humorless laughter erupted from his chest. His stare was unfriendly and angry and nothing like what she’d faced in the coffee shop. “I’m not a drunk, Grace,” he spat. “I’m a fucking drug addict.”
“Oh.” Grace swallowed that piece of information as though it were a razor blade.
She knew too well the damage drugs could do. She also knew Max really shouldn’t be drinking. Substituting one addiction for another was something she knew plenty about.
“So,” Max continued with a sarcastic wave toward the bottles of spirits. “Unless the bourbon around here is laced with narcotics, which, I’ll be honest, would be fucking stupendous, I’d like a shot of it, if it’s all the same to you.”
His words weren’t mean, but the tone he used was. It skittered down Grace’s spine and left her cold. It wasn’t as though she and Max were friends, as much as she wanted them to be, but the man sitting in front of her wasn’t who she’d grown to know. He was volatile, and sharp, and unsettled Grace to her very bones. Without another word, she turned and poured the drink. She placed it on the bar and watched as he took it from her, staring at it as if it were a grenade about to detonate.
Minutes passed and still he stared at the drink. His lips moved in inaudible mutterings until with a loud “fuck it” he knocked the drink back. He hissed, cursed, and coughed, but the slam of the shot glass back on the wood bar was triumphant. “Another,” he ordered.
Grace’s heart clenched for him and the war blatantly raging within his head. “Max, honey, why—”
“Are you deaf?” he snapped, glaring at her. “Do your job and keep the drinks coming, okay? I don’t need a friend or a chat. I need to get shitfaced. That’s all.”
Wounded by his sharp tongue, Grace poured the drinks and he shot them.
Time and again he sat with the drink between his hands before he’d knock it back and, time and again, Grace’s urge to cry for him and the memories his actions evoked inside her intensified. His buddies from the site did nothing to help. They bought several rounds of drinks, as well as inviting a group of three girls over to join them. Although normally so indifferent to the women who approached him in Whiskey’s, tonight Max eyed the girls in a way that made Grace nauseous. It was feral and hungry.
Was this the dangerous stranger Deputy Yates had warned her about?
Was this the real Max O’Hare?
She didn’t know.
All she did know, when she watched Max stagger out of the bar hours later with his arm wrapped around an eager blonde thing with googly eyes and her hands on Max’s ass, was that the tiny piece of hope she’d kept deep inside, waiting patiently for someone good enough to share it with, had splintered into a thousand pieces.
There was banging.
Loud fucking banging that rattled Max’s already hurting brain within his very skull. He lifted his head from his pillow, and damn if it wasn’t a lead weight, squinting against the sunlight pouring through the open drapes.
“Max, open the door.”
Motherfucker.
Tate.
“Max.” His voice was hard, angry. “I don’t give a shit if I am a cripple; I will break this door down. United States Marine Corps, asshole. Let’s go. Get your stupid ass up. I don’t care if you’re naked, either. I’ll shoot whatever the fuck I’ve not seen before.” He hammered the door further. “Now, Max. Get up! I know you’re in there.”
The room tilted like a freaking roller coaster when Max sat up and his stomach sloshed in a way that really didn’t feel good or normal. He stood on wobbly legs, pulled a pair of jeans over his underwear, and stumbled to the door, kicking a pizza box and an empty bottle of Jack out of the way.
“All right,” he croaked as he rested his forehead against the door and unlocked it. He took a deep breath and pulled the door open. When he saw Tate’s expression, he really wished he hadn’t.
“Morning, Starshine,” Tate snapped. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?”
Max leaned his cheek against the door’s edge, trying to put into words and full sentences just exactly what he’d been thinking when he went to the bar last night and drank his body weight in liquor.
“Get dressed,” Tate said. “We’re going out.”
Max glanced at his watch. It was past noon but he could easily have slept for another twelve hours. “Tate, man, I can’t, I need—”
“No,” Tate barked, his eyes flashing with a disappointment that made Max want to go fetal. “I’ve driven two hours to get here. I’m tired and I need coffee and I don’t give a shit about your hangover.”
Lacking the energy to argue back, and knowing he was the dick-head Tate was implying he was, Max pulled a clean T-shirt from a drawer, pulled on his boots, grabbed his wallet and his jacket, and headed out of the door, wishing the sledgehammer sticking in the front of his head would just back the fuck off.
Max directed Tate into town, unable to drive them himself, and to the coffee shop he frequented, ordering the strongest coffee on the menu, as well as a chocolate muffin. They sat at the same table he’d been sitting at when Grace had joined him the day before. Max’s headache strengthened at the thought of her. Jesus. She must think him an absolute prick. He was an absolute prick.
“So you wanna explain to me why I got a phone call from you at two o’clock this morning, at three o’clock this morning, and at four o’clock this morning?” Tate asked, showing him the missed-calls list on his cell phone. “As well as several texts telling me how much you wanted to drink yourself
to death, how you couldn’t stay clean, how you were giving up?” Tate dropped his cell to the table and crossed his arms over his chest, serious and stern despite the T-shirt he wore, which read “A salt with a deadly weapon” underneath a picture of a salt shaker holding up a gun to a pepper shaker.
Max dropped his forehead to his forearm on the table and groaned. He only had a vague recollection of speaking to Tate. In regard to the texts, he was fucked if he could remember. “Christ, man, I’m sorry,” he mumbled before sitting up again. “If it’s any consolation, I feel like death wrapped in shit, wrapped in death. I’m really fucking sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Tate retorted firmly. “Tell me what the hell happened.”
Vomit crept up Max’s throat. He took a huge gulp of coffee to chase it back down. “Yesterday was . . . Lizzie—it was when she left. It was the date of when she left me.”
“And instead of calling you decided to deal with that little detail by getting hammered,” Tate stated. “Great choice. I see your time in rehab has really helped you make spot-on decisions. You drank your weight in alcohol while on antidepressants and all the other pills that—”
Max’s temper flared. “Fuck you, okay, I had a bad day, and I wanted a drink.” His curse and loud voice brought the attention of the other patrons to their table. Glancing around quickly, Max swallowed and took a breath. When he spoke again, it was quieter but still angry. “I shouldn’t but I did. I know for damn certain I’m not the first it’s happened to. You can’t sit there all fucking self-righteous, either, when you know you did the same. I can’t change it. It is what it is.”
“No,” Tate argued. “It isn’t. Yes, I fucked up when I first left rehab, too. And I’m gonna tell you exactly what my sponsor told me: You have the choice, Max. You have the tools to make a good decision, to fight against days like yesterday. You have people who care about you, who want what’s best for you, and you can’t afford to forget that.”
Max clasped the bridge of his nose and sighed. He did know it. He knew he’d let everyone down, he knew it was a setback after months of hard work and fight. It was just that some days the fight in him just wasn’t enough.
“Open your wallet,” Tate said.
Too dizzy and tired to ask why, Max pulled his wallet from his jeans pocket and handed it to his sponsor. Tate opened it and pulled out the five NA medallions Max had received.
Tate pushed them into a circle. “These show how far you’ve come,” he said, his voice quieter. “These show the choice you made five months ago when you grabbed your addiction by the balls and said ‘screw you, bitch, I’m fighting this.’ ”
Max held his head in his hands. “It’s hard sometimes.”
Tate scoffed. “No shit. It’s hard all the time, Max. All the time. And it’ll continue being hard for the rest of your life, because that’s what we, as addicts, have to survive. You think I still don’t have bad days? Days where I just want to call my old dealer or steal a prescription and get dosed? I do.” He stared at the coffee cup between his hands. “But then I remember what that would do to my parents, my family, and my friends. To me. And that’s what you need to do.”
“I did,” Max mumbled. “I knew this day was coming. I haven’t slept all week. I’ve had nightmares like you wouldn’t believe, even with my meds. I painted for the first time since I got here. I went for a run, I tried to sleep, to read, I called Carter, Elliot, but it was like a fucking lead weight around my neck. I couldn’t breathe. The only thing I knew would ease it was a line.” He grimaced. “So I went to the bar to find the next-best thing.”
The two men sat in silence, both drained by their respective struggles. “Max, I get it,” Tate offered quietly. “You know I do. But these days will happen. They’ll poleax you and leave you desperate to throw your medallions away. But, I promise you, one day you’ll wake up and you won’t think about a line, or a pill, or any kind of fucked-up high first. You’ll find something that makes you want to leap out of bed in the morning and say ‘come on life, bring it, I’m ready.’ ”
Max picked a chocolate chip off his muffin and put it in his mouth. Grace was right. They were good, even with more alcohol in his veins than actual blood.
“Promise me next time you’ll call me before you get to the bar, not when you leave it,” Tate urged.
“Next time?”
“There’ll be many. That’s a fact.”
And didn’t that sound superfun? Max nodded despondently.
“Good. Now call Elliot for an emergency appointment.”
Max gaped. “I can’t. It’s Sunday.”
“Like I give a shit. Besides, I already called him first thing. He’s expecting you and he’s already on his way. Come on.” Tate stood, clutching his cane in one hand and his coffee in the other. “I’ll drive.”
By the time Tate dropped Max back at the boardinghouse, it was early Sunday evening. The session with Elliot had been as hard as Max expected, although being prescribed stronger meds to help him sleep was a bonus. He didn’t doubt, however, that with his hangover still teasing the edges of his brain and his stomach filled with Mickey D’s, he’d sleep like a fucking baby. Before he dropped fully dressed back into bed, however, Max knew he had to apologize to Grace. He’d spoken to her like a shit and, despite not knowing her all that well, he knew she didn’t deserve his temper. No one did.
So, with an uneasy fidget in his shoulders and nerves in his gut, he knocked on the door of her room.
“Just a minute!” Grace called from inside.
Max rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand and waited.
Why the hell was he putting himself through this again?
Oh, yeah.
Because he was an asshole.
Because Elliot had explained how important it was to apologize for his mistakes, so he could move through life without any regrets.
Because the NA Step Working Guide taught addicts how they had to own up to their behaviors.
Because Grace was a nice girl.
The door opened with a flourish to wide green eyes that were immediately suspicious.
“Hey,” Max said when she remained silent.
She exhaled hard, her shoulders dropping, her face hardening.
That right there was why he had to say sorry.
“Hey.”
Max shifted his weight from foot to foot under her glare, his eyes traveling from the loose ponytail in her hair, to her makeup-free face, and down her body. She was wearing running gear, a pastel pink vest, and tight black running pants that clung to her in ways that should be illegal. She was barefoot, the polish on her dainty toes matching her top.
“I, um, I’m sorry to bother you,” he stammered. “I hope you weren’t busy, but I wanted to give you these.” He held out a takeout coffee cup and a white paper bag.
She eyed them distrustfully, crossing her bare arms over her chest. “And what are these?”
Max shrugged and lifted the cup. “A peace-offering latte”—he lifted the bag—“and an apology muffin.”
Grace frowned, still not taking either. “What are you apologizing for?”
He sighed, his arms falling under the weight of his guilt. “I’m apologizing for being a bad-tempered asshole. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that; I put you in a really awkward position and I shouldn’t have.” He lifted the gifts again, smiling timidly.
She seemed to consider his apology for a freakin’ age before she reached out and took them with a small “thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied, pushing his hands into the back pockets of his jeans.
“I’ll have them when I get back.”
He gestured to her attire with a lift of his chin. “You’re going for a run?”
“Yeah,” she answered, the usual brightness slowly filtering back into her voice. “I have to fight off the chocolate calories somehow.”
“Sure,” he replied. “I go running, too. There’s a great route down by the stream.”
The sound that came from Max’s gullet was not a good one. “I’ll have to pass,” he murmured, toeing the floor. “I’m not feeling too great.”
Grace’s smile fell. “Oh, yeah. Well, anyone who can drink that much whiskey is bound to have the mother of all hangovers the day after.”
Max cleared his throat of the embarrassment that teased it. “Yeah.”
“And your girlfriend, was she feeling crappy this morning, too?”
Max’s head snapped up so quick he almost toppled over. Shit. The blonde. Of course, she saw him with her. He’d told the boys he wasn’t interested in hooking up with anyone, but they hadn’t listened, which was fine because after his seventh and eighth drink an anonymous fuck sounded pretty awesome to him, too.
“I don’t— No, I don’t . . . she’s not, we were just hanging out. Nothing—it wasn’t like that.”
He had no idea why he was rambling or why he felt the need to explain himself. The truth was, the girl had tried to get in his pants, and he’d been quite happy for her to, until she tried to kiss him on the mouth and call him baby. That put the brakes back on his libido right quick. That shit was far too intimate, too close to memories he was working to erase. Besides, it wasn’t as if he could get a hard-on anyway, what with the gallons of liquor sloshing through his system.
He’d walked her home, bought a bottle of Jack and a pizza, and headed back to the boardinghouse, where he’d apparently called Tate a million and one times.
“Well, thanks for these,” Grace said, avoiding his eyes. “I appreciate the gesture.”
She turned to go, but Max caught the door with the palm of his hand, startling her. “Sorry,” he blurted. “I was just . . . I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. I could show you the route then. If you want. If you’re not busy or whatever.”
What the hell was it about this woman that had his tongue in a fucking twist? And why the hell was he offering to share his run with her? Unlike her, he loved the solitary quiet of the route he ran every day. Grace would no doubt chatter away like a fucking chattering thing, shattering the serenity he tried so hard to cling to. She’d want to talk and shit and he’d just want to run—what the hell was he thinking?
An Ounce of Hope (A Pound of Flesh #2) Page 10