“You cool staying back at my place, Shay? Give the love birds their space?” Carter asks, raising a challenging eyebrow at me.
“Absolutely,” I say with a faux smile. “It’s just down the hall and my stuff is already there.”
“Cool,” Quinn says. “You guys entertain yourselves then for a bit? I want to unpack and take a quick shower, we’ve been on the road all damn day.”
“Sure thing, Quinnlette,” Carter says. “Why don’t Shayna and I take care of dinner? We’ll bring something back by in a couple of hours?”
“Sounds good. Not that Thai place you like though. All of their sauces taste like feet,” Quinn calls from her bedroom.
“You’re an asshole,” I mutter under my breath.
“For giving you a place to stay?” Carter counters. He gives me the cockiest smirk I’ve ever seen and then says, “Let’s get home, doll.”
I stomp down the hall after him and as soon as the door is closed behind us say, “Home my ass! You knew I wouldn’t turn you down in front of Quinn. That if I did it’d look weird. You can’t freaking hold me hostage, Carter.”
Carter steps in close to me. So close I can smell a fresh, citrusy scent. He must have showered before he came over to Quinn’s like a barbarian to track me down. “I’m not holding you hostage, doll. I’m just being a good friend.”
I take a step back even though I’m so angry I want to punch him in the throat. He moves with me until my back is pressed up against the wall.
“I missed you,” he says.
“Wh—”
But he cuts my question off with his lips. Hard and hungry on mine. It’s only been a couple of hours but I missed him too. He pushes the hair off of my neck and replaces it with the warmth of his lips. Still, I push him away.
“That is not how you kiss a friend,” I say, catching my breath.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I just want you to be straight with me, Carter. What’s going on? One minute you’re skipping out on me, the next you’re kissing me like you can’t stand to be away from me.”
“I don’t want to be away from you,” he says. “And that’s crazy, right? We’ve talked on the phone, but… But the truth is, I’ve thought about you—I’ve thought about that Christmas Eve talk. I’ve wondered about you every day since then.”
“You have?” I’m gob smacked. “Why?”
“Why?” Carter repeats, like I’ve just asked the most absurd question ever. “Because you’re so god damn beautiful. And smart. And so—” he links his fingers through mine and kisses my knuckles. “So sexy. Even if you’re so wounded—”
I drop my hand. “I’m not a project for you, Carter.”
“I didn’t say that. I just meant that you don’t realize how amazing you are. And me feeling like this—me wondering about you for the last several months—you showing up here—that just wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“Of course not,” he says. “I want you here with me.” He loops his finger through the belt loop of my jeans and tugs me closer. “I want you closer to me.”
I slip my hand up his shirt and feel his warm skin and taut abs. He sucks in a quick breath through his teeth, and grins down at me.
“Because, I can still go,” I tease. I rub small, soft circles with my index finger on his skin. “If you want to continue this pretense of you and I being friends, fine.”
“It fucking physically aches not to take you right here and now, Shay,” he says. His voice is ragged. “And that’s why I had to bail earlier. Because I know if I do—if I cross that line, there’s no turning back. There’s no way to not screw this up if I give in.”
“You’re not going to screw up anything, Carter.”
He sits in one of the chairs and pulls me down onto his lap.
“Tell me you want me to leave,” I say. I shift my weight slightly, like I may get up and walk away. It takes only that slight movement for Carter to grip my hips and pull me back down to him.
“I just… There have to be some boundaries. For both of our sakes. Until we figure out what exactly we’re doing.”
“How’s this for boundaries?” I ask. I pull my shirt up over my head. “Am I crossing any lines here?” I’m half joking, half waiting for him to shut things down again.
Carter pulls his brows together, looking pained. “Shayna—”
“Because if you want me to leave, if you want me to stop… say the word.” I pull his face closer to mine.
“Stay.” The word comes out like a beg. He grips at my waist and tugs me into his chest. “I know what I want. Stay.”
“What about dinner?” I ask as he scoops me up into his arms and carries me to his bedroom. “You promised Quinn we’d bring dinner.”
“They’ll figure out dinner for themselves. You just promised me dessert,” he growls in my ear.
***
Shayna’s nails rake gently over my chest in a way that should be soothing. I should be able to fall asleep to the rhythm of her soft breaths, but all I can think is, ‘tell her.’ Each rasp of her nail on my skin is another slice in my resolve though.
The homesick feeling we’ve both talked about—the feeling of searching for something that maybe doesn’t even exist—the feeling that has gnawed at me for as long as I can remember is gone when I’m with her. Being with Shayna is like a bandage for my damn soul. But she’s here trying to get her life back together. She gave up every vice to be the person she thought her parents wanted her to be. I can’t expect her to understand. We’ve just started something, something I don’t know if I can wholly throw myself into. I don’t know how close I can let her get. I don’t know if I can be what she needs. We were supposed to be friends, nothing more. How did it turn into this so quickly? Boundaries are a joke when it comes to her. I want her. I need her.
The only thing to decide is if I tell her now, and let her rip the bandage off quickly as she walks away. Or if I’ll drag it out. Let the corners of our relationship fray until the truth slips out when I least expect it, letting the bandage fall and taking the rest of whatever Shayna and I have with it.
I close my eyes and force myself to focus only on the feeling of her bare skin, molded to mine. Her legs tangled in mine under the sheets. Her breath steady in my ear.
I should wake her.
I should wake her and tell her every damn thing running through my mind. I should tell her how much it means that she stayed last night. That everything she’s talked about—feeling lost and out of place—I’ve felt all of those things my entire life and held it all in because I felt like I had to be the most together sibling of our fucked up family. That when I’m with her, I feel like things finally make sense. But I’m a damn coward.
So instead of kissing her lightly like I want to and watching her eyelashes flutter open, instead of seeing that sleepy smile cross her face when she sees that I’m still here beside her, I slip my arm out from under Shayna’s tiny body, praying to a God I’m not even sure I believe in that she stays asleep while I pull on my jeans and grab a clean t-shirt and my keys. There’s a 7AM meeting across town that I sometimes hit before I surf. It clears my head, and then when I hit the waves I feel that much more incredible. Shayna and I were up late. I can make it there and back before she wakes up.
I jingle the change in my pants pocket with my hand. It’s a nervous habit, because walking in and out of this place never gets any easier. It’s at minimum, a bi-weekly slap in the face reminder that I screwed up. But I have to do it.
I knew I had a drinking problem two years ago when I was still in college. They say admitting it is half the battle, but that’s a bunch of horseshit. Admitting it just makes it crystal clear in your own mind that you’re a fuck up. That makes you depressed—that makes you want to drink.
I tried quitting on my own, with no support, but I didn’t have the willpower. And even though I knew I had a problem, I really didn’t want to change i
t, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to admit it to anyone else. So I skated by in college because it’s okay to be a drunk in college, right? But when I showed up for my AICPA exam still buzzed, then fell asleep during the test that was supposed to the final stepping stone to my career as an accountant—following in my dick of a dad’s footsteps no less, I knew I had to do something. So I started coming to these meetings on the South side of town where there’s no chance I’ll run into Quinn or anyone else I know. But the fact that I can feel secure that I won’t be seen by anyone I know doesn’t make it any easier to show my face at these things.
“Carter,” Jane calls after me. I turn to the petite blonde who has about twenty years on me but based on that youthful smile alone would probably still get carded if she were still drinking and not the proud owner of a five-year bronze chip. Jane is my sponsor. “Two meetings this week already, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say. I’ll never lose the Southern manners, no matter how long I live on the West Coast. Plus, ladies like Jane love that shit.
“Everything going okay? You were quiet this morning,” she says.
“Everything is great,” I tell her.
“Alright now, handsome, don’t get cocky—don’t get complacent,” she says with a wide grin. I’m lucky to have wound up with Jane in my corner. She used to own a bar with her husband, till he drank all of the product and left her bankrupt and alone with two small kids. She had no choice but to get sober. She makes me realize I have no excuses. Jane had every reason in the world to want to curl up into a ball and cry about the unfairness of life into a bottle of Makers Mark. But those kids, they meant enough to her to make her get out of bed every day and swear it’d be a better day than the last. She tells her story almost every meeting, but I never tire of it. And when she gave the abbreviated version this morning, I was hearing it again for the first time because for once, I came even slightly close to understanding that drive—that motivation to pull yourself out of bed and come to these awkward as hell meetings, to really try to get better because there’s not only you that you want to be better for anymore.
Shayna.
I want to be able to tell Shayna everything. I want to tell her about growing up in my house. I want to tell her about the forty-eight-hour bender I went on and how I fucked up my test last year. How I don’t know how I got home afterward, but my car was out front so I must have driven and how that makes me sick to my stomach every time I look at my Jeep knowing I could have hurt someone else that day. How I never want to be that person again. How I never want to hurt her.
“Not complacent, Miss Jane. Just happy. Confident things are going to be okay,” I say.
“You remember what we talked about though in the meeting? You understood it?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say. I love talking to Jane, but right now, I want to grab coffee and croissants and slip back into my apartment and have breakfast in bed with the delectable woman I left snoring softly. “Character defects, I’ve got plenty,” I say with a laugh.
“Don’t we all, Carter.” Her smile is warm, but cautious. “I just want you to be careful. Just because the drive to drink is gone, doesn’t mean that all of those vices and triggers have lifted away as well.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, Miss Jane. I appreciate it.”
“Okay, dear.” She pats my hand with hers. “You call me anytime, you know.”
“I know,” I say. I pause because I know she can’t leave without giving me an inspirational AA slogan as a goodbye. She does it every time. She says goodbye then calls after me, “Expect miracles!” or some other nugget of wisdom that she wants me to ponder or carry with me.
“Oh and Carter?” she calls.
I grin, knowing it was coming. I look over my shoulder and say, “Yes, ma’am?”
“We are only as sick as our secrets. Keep that in mind.”
It wasn’t one of her usual goodbyes, that’s for sure. No, “Live in the NOW!” or “There’s nothing so bad a drink won’t make it worse.”
I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi as I walk to my car. We’re only as sick as our secrets. What the hell was that? The more secrets I hold, the sicker I am? Sicker than when I was drowning myself in case after case of beer every night? The truth shall set me free and all of that bullshit?
I push past the group of smokers that are huddled around the cigarette receptacles, trying to get their last drags in before they leave.
I say goodbye to a few more people from the meetings as I nervously flip my keys around my index finger. I almost drop them spinning them too fast. But that’s not what stops me dead in my tracks.
It’s the petite blonde making a mad dash for her car.
The car I drove last Christmas Eve.
No way.
***
I’m sitting in Carter’s apartment, literally twiddling my thumbs. It’s been almost two hours since I tore out of the parking lot, hoping he didn’t see me.
When I woke up this morning just as Carter was getting dressed, my first thought was that he was maybe going to get breakfast, but then I had another thought:
What if he was going somewhere that would explain his erratic behavior?
And I had to know. And maybe it was overstepping the boundaries that Carter talked about last night, but I don’t care. He dug deep into me, exposed scraps that had never seen daylight. He listened, he understood, he accepted me—but for some reason, whatever he’s hiding—he won’t give me the chance to do the same.
I didn’t find anything out. I watched as a crowd of people filtered out of a Community Center. Maybe he’s doing some sort of outreach? Taking a class? Why wouldn’t he say that, though? When I finally saw him leave, he was talking to a little blonde. I have no idea what they were talking about, but it suddenly hit me what a huge intrusion it was for me to be there. So I bolted.
He’s been gone for so long that I start to wonder if he’s actually coming back at all. I had this feeling that if he saw me, he’d be so angry at me for spying on him that he’d hate me. Why didn’t I think about that before I left? He should be back by now.
The door clicks open and Carter walks in holding two cups and a white paper bag.
“Here’s some coffee and bagels. I got a little of everything, wasn’t sure what you liked,” he says. His tone is curt.
“Thank you. Coffee sounds great.”
I start to get up off of the sofa, but Carter rounds the back and sits down across from me in the armchair.
He clasps his hands together and points his fingers up like a steeple, like we used to do as kids with the rhyme about the church and the steeple and leans forward, resting his mouth on the tips of his fingers.
“Please tell me you didn’t follow me,” he says. He shakes his head and lets out a chuckle—not a happy one, one that is dripping with disappointment and maybe even anger.
“Tell me that you had a killer craving for convenience store nachos for breakfast, and that every store that you stopped out in the entire county was out of cheese sauce except for the place across the street from the center I was at.” Carter says. His eyes are fixed on the coffee table, and I can’t help but feel a wash of cowardly relief because they are so intense that I don’t know what I’d do if he looked at me right now. “Tell me that you were scoping out the pottery class down the hall. Tell me that you ran out of gas on your way to an early bird sale and you couldn’t make it across the road, so you pulled in and coincidentally saw my car. Tell me whatever the hell you want, just please, please don’t tell me that you followed me, Shay.”
I pull my suddenly quivering bottom lip in. Carter finally looks up and he doesn’t look angry like I thought he would. He looks hurt. Devastated. I want to tell him those things; I want to lie if it’ll make him feel better.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“So you followed me,” he says, stating the obvious.
“Clearly I’ve stepped over another line that I shouldn’t have,” I say. “I should g
o.”
I reach into my purse and fumble for my keys, but Carter reaches over and closes his hand over mine.
“No, Shayna. You wanted to know what was going on so badly that you got in your car and drove across town to spy on me? Fine, then let’s talk.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. I interlock my fingers and stare down at them, unable to meet Carter’s eyes. “Is that what you’re doing? Taking some sort of class?”
“No.”
“That woman…” I don’t even know what I want to say. What’s my business and what isn’t. I’m sleeping with him. I’m sort of living with him, but I don’t have any idea what’s actually going on in his life.
I want to go back to lying in my bed. A little buzzed, a little high on the endorphins of talking to Carter. Him on the other end of the line listening to my inane stories and laughing along with me. I don’t want this moment. I grip the sides of the chair to keep from standing up and pacing. That won’t help me right now.
“Is my sponsor,” Carter finishes for me.
“Your sponsor?” I try the words out, hoping they’ll make more sense if I say them out loud. “Is this? Are you… are you in AA or something?”
“Surprise,” Carter says, his voice devoid of any flourish or glee that usually comes with that statement.
“But I don’t understand,” I say, thinking back over moments with Carter. “You brought beer camping, You have beer in the fridge and liquor—”
“Stupid? Yes. Necessary? To me, yes. No one knows, Shayna. No one until today.”
“Until I followed you.”
Carter doesn’t respond. “I know I owed you an explanation after all my sneaking out, Shay. That morning on the beach—I wanted to stay there so damn bad, but something in me just told me I needed to go to a meeting. I know that we’re getting closer. But AA—this wasn’t something I wanted to be backed into a corner in order to confess.”
“Of course not. I understand. I screwed up.” I say. This is a real problem. A grown-up problem. Not a problem created by a selfish girl who feels a little sad. I feel like I just proved everything my parents said about me correct. “So those boundaries…?”
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