I worked her words over in my mind.
Did I want help? Was I ready for it? Could this be it? A little push from Mia and I could be better again?
“Are you with him?”
She leaned back in her chair and sensed the change in my mood. “We’re together, if that’s what you mean.”
Dagger in my fucking heart. With him. Mia and Brett. Bile rose in my throat. Alcohol, liquor, whiskey, bourbon. I needed it.
“Is it serious?”
She shrugged and pursed her lips for a moment. “As serious as it could be, I guess.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means it’s really going to cause a problem that I kicked him out after he laid you on the floor last night.”
“Why? 'Cause you chose me?” I hit her with a cocky grin again as I pulled out another cigarette.
“I didn’t choose you. And you’re not smoking another one.” She swiped the stick and the rest of my pack out of my hands and threw it over the balcony.
“Fuck, Mia.” I jumped up and watched the smokes land on a car parked on the street. “Jesus Christ, you always ride my ass,” I huffed and landed back in the chair like a child. A chastised child was what I’d been reduced to.
“So then, why are you here?” Now it was her turn for the flirty, cocky smile to grace her lips.
I glared at her, wishing desperately for that smoke.
“You can’t keep doing this. Shit's really not working for you right now.” She placed a gentle hand on my bicep. I frowned and looked at her.
“I can’t do it alone.” I pleaded with her silently, my blue eyes burning into her green ones, begging for her to see, to know my meaning.
“We’re toxic. I can’t do this with you anymore.” The words were harsh, but her tone was so sad.
“Do what? We haven’t been doing anything, that’s the fucking problem.” I leapt up and planted my hands on the railing, clenching it tightly between my fists. “Amy lost the baby.”
“I'm sorry.”
My eyes cut to hers. They were emotionless. Void of emotion. I'd never seen her look so cold.
“I'm not.” There, I said it. I said what I'd been feeling. It made me a dick, but it was the truth.
“You need professional help. AA, NA; call your old sponsor.”
Her words started to meld together as I thought about a drink.
“You can do this, Ridge. You pulled yourself out once. You got clean. You walked yourself into that rehab and you stayed. And when you got out you took that money and made it into something great. You hired TJ and you didn't look back. That was all you. You're strong enough, Ridge. I promise you are. I have faith that you are.”
My mind raced with thoughts. I thought about bailing, heading to the nearest liquor store, and buying another bottle, picking up a carton of smokes, locking myself in my apartment, and smoking and drinking the rest of the day away. Rest of the week away. I fisted and shifted my hands on the railing as I ran through the possibilities.
“I took your wallet.”
“What?” I turned and shot her a death glare. DEFCON: One meltdown.
“I know what you’re thinking. Smokes. Booze. Coke. It’s not happening. Consider this your intervention.” She stood and crossed her arms.
I frowned as I watched her. Her stunning dark features were stern and no nonsense. Her full, rosy lips turned down in a frown. Wisps of dark hair framed her face with the rest up in a soft ponytail. Her arms crossed over her chest. She wore a ribbed tank top, nothing especially fancy or sexy, but fitted enough to have my dick growing in my pants.
“This is bullshit.”
“I know you.” She shrugged with a small grin.
“Where is it?” I stepped closer, into her space. Her eyes widened for a minute as she took a step back, right against the wall of the balcony. “Gonna make me search for it, Mia?” I set my hands at her hips and kneaded, before trailing them up her curvy body to land just outside of her tits.
“Stop,” she grit through her teeth.
“Stop? Or go? More or less? Yes or no? You know it drives me insane when you say no,” I murmured as I ducked into her neck and ran the line of my nose up to her ear, breathing her in. I placed the softest kiss under her earlobe and felt her body go rigid underneath me.
“Not gonna work.” She shoved at my chest with all her might and I stumbled into the chair behind me.
“We’re staying here until you promise to figure shit out. If I have to drive you to goddamn AA, I will, but this ends now. Get it the fuck together, Ridge. We may not be together, but I don’t want to see you do this to yourself. Now go take a fucking shower. You stink.” She marched back into her apartment and I stood frozen, completely dumbstruck, my eyes glued to the round curve of her ass in her pajama bottoms. My dick jumped and begged for attention.
“Fuck off,” I muttered to him. Or me. Or her. I wasn’t sure. I launched off the balcony railing and trailed in after her, making my way down the hall to her bathroom.
“This place looks like shit. Did you fire Louise?”
“No.”
“Umm . . . when's the last time she was here?” She hit me with a cocked eyebrow as she stepped into my apartment.
“Tuesday, same day as always.” I winced as I looked around my apartment; it did look awful. Like Louise hadn’t ever been here.
“You’re kind of living in squalor.” She turned up her nose as she stepped into the kitchen and assessed the mess of takeout containers piled on the countertop, empty bottles and ashtrays overflowing with butts. “In fact, you’re kind of a pig.” She uncapped a bottle of whiskey and poured it down the sink.
“Fuck.” I lunged at her and she cocked an eyebrow at me, holding her ground. I gritted my teeth together, worked my jaw back and forth, fisted my hands at my thighs as I watched the beautiful amber liquid glug glug glugging down the drain.
“Great, got anymore stashed?”
“You know I don’t hide it.” I rolled my eyes as she searched in cupboards for more alcohol.
“I know you never did before, but you were never an alcoholic with me, either.”
“I’m not—”
“Yeah, save it.”
I glowered at her while she emptied ashtrays into the garbage.
“Get over here and help me.” She emptied boxes into the garbage and proceeded to clean up the rest of my kitchen. I huffed and then made my way to her, stepping into her space, taking a deep breath of her honeysuckle scent, which nearly drove me to distraction.
She turned and arched her eyebrows to indicate I needed to get on with it. I narrowed my eyes in a playful glare before I set to work helping her clean up my pigsty of an apartment.
“Pizza and . . . soda?” A beautiful grin lit her face. I knew what she was thinking. Pizza and beer. That had been our normal Saturday night routine. Most nights, we stayed in when we were together. Neither one of us was much for social situations. And every Saturday, we had pizza and beer. It was our thing. It came to the point where we planned for it, scheduled around it. Pizza and beer nights were sacred.
And now, because I was back on the wagon, it was pizza and soda night. Way to make me feel like a twelve-year-old.
“Otto's?”
“Perfect,” I muttered as I swept the dirt into a dustpan and emptied it into the garbage. We’d spent the entire day cleaning my apartment. Why the fuck I’d been paying Louise when I was just trashing the place as soon as she left, I’ll never know. But shit was picked up, back on track, thanks to Mia and her metaphorical whip cracking.
It'd also kept me from thinking too much about booze, or scoring, or even smoking, for that matter. The symptoms of withdrawal hadn't set in yet. I knew from rehab that coming off alcohol worked in stages. The first twenty-four hours was often the calm before the storm. Then the shakes, hallucinations, anxiety, nightmares, vomiting, all of that would set in. I hadn't mentioned any of this to Mia, I didn't want to worry her more than I already had.
<
br /> She'd ducked out for a while earlier to grab cleaning supplies and had come back with one of those bullshit e-cigarette things. I rolled my eyes when she handed it to me with a smirk on her face, but twenty minutes later, I was puffing on it like a starved man.
They sucked. Were fucking useless.
But whenever I bitched and moaned, Mia crossed her arms and scolded me like a child.
My fragile ego didn’t like that, so I continued puffing and shut my mouth.
It would have to do, because Mia wouldn’t allow me anything else.
Because Mia was here. With me. My girl.
Later that night, I cleaned up the pizza and paper plates where we’d eaten at the coffee table in front of the Sox game. Anything could have been on; I was just happy to be near her. When I was with her, something inside me was at ease.
“You gonna be okay tonight?” She stepped up to me, her keys dangling off a finger.
“You're leaving?” Fear lurched in my throat as my eyes traveled her face.
Her features softened, and the faintest of sad smiles twisted her lips. “I can’t stay, Ridge.” She lifted a palm and stroked along my jaw. My eyes closed and I sucked in a long breath.
“I don’t know if . . .”
“If things get bad, call me, or call your sponsor.” She handed me the new phone she’d picked up for me when she’d gone out earlier. I owed her money for that, just another in a long line of things I owed her, starting with my life.
“You have to do this. You did it before on your own; you can do it again.”
“I can’t do it alone.”
“You won’t be. Not ever. I’m just a phone call away.”
“Mia—”
“You’re good, Ridge. Really.”
I scratched at a phantom itch on my arm, the exact place I’d so often shoved a needle to get high. I swallowed, completely unsure if I could make it through the night; make it alone. A phone call away was often bullshit. It was too far. Nearly impossible. What mattered was each minute, each second. That nanosecond when my mind was made up about wanting to get high, grab a bottle, take that drink, or not.
“I believe in you,” she murmured and placed a chaste kiss at the corner of my mouth. I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and inhaled her sweet scent. I wished desperately that she would stay, but she was right, I wouldn’t replace one addiction with another. Because that was what she was to me. Another addiction.
I only nodded as she passed me an encouraging smile and then gathered her purse and stepped out of my apartment.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” I murmured as I slowly came to, my entire body clammy with sweat, my heart beating so fucking fast it felt like I was on the verge of a heart attack. Christ, this was it. I was in deep. I hadn't realized I was so addicted. Twenty-four hours in and the shakes were starting, the sweats, the confusion.
I lifted a weak arm and it shook before my eyes in the dark night of my bedroom. Bile rose and rose and didn’t stop until I launched out of bed and threw myself into my bathroom and heaved in the toilet.
My whole body shook as I emptied out the pizza and soda Mia and I had eaten earlier. I laid my head on the cold porcelain as my thoughts drifted to the day we had spent together. Cleaning, laughing, nagging, all of it such a sweet memory.
I lay with my head dangling over the toilet for what could have been hours before I dragged my feet across the floor of my bedroom and pulled myself into bed. I fumbled for my phone and flicked it on. Six a.m. Morning light was peeking through a crack in the curtain.
I worried my lip between my teeth as I fumbled over her name. Scrolling, scrolling. Mia.
I hit send and waited for the call to connect.
“Hello?” a groggy voice answered.
“Hey.” Relief flooded my system and, just like that, my world was righted.
“Hey, Ridge.”
“Why the fuck is he calling?” I heard a gravelly voice in the background and my heart sank. Brett. He was there with her. He'd come over when she left my place last night. They were still together.
Of course they were. Why wouldn’t they be? Why would I think that yesterday had changed anything for us? I wasn’t even sure that I wanted it to, but I did know I hadn’t felt so right and centered in so long. Well, since the last time we’d been together.
“Sorry. I’ll let you go.”
“No.” Her voice rose for a minute and I heard shuffling before a door clicked.” Are you okay?”
“Is Brett going to be mad?”
“I don’t care. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just woke up. Nightmare. Sick.”
“Sick?”
“Withdrawal. Guess I was in deeper than I thought.” I lifted my hand and it shook. I swallowed the bile that threatened to rise again.
“You want me to come over?” I heard banging in the background and a voice growling.
“No, it’s okay. I just . . . needed to hear your voice.”
“Ridge—”
“Nah, it’s okay, My. Sorry I called.” I hung up. And just like that, I sunk. Fell in again as I succumbed to sleep, a sense of despair clawing at my insides that he’d spent the night with my girl.
A loud knocking woke me from a fitful sleep. I didn’t know if it was someone at the door or the pounding in my head.
There it was again.
Fuck, yep, someone at the door.
I stumbled out of bed and padded down the hall in just a pair of boxers. I felt like shit, I looked like shit, my throat was dry and sore, my eyes burned, and it felt like blood was rushing through my veins at a fever pitch. Withdrawal was a bitch.
“What?” I growled as I opened the door to my apartment.
“Hey.” Her soft smile immediately eased my mood. And then I remembered she’d been with Brett last night.
I grunted, unable or unwilling to form more words. I turned and stalked into the kitchen for Advil and water. Lots of water. And a smoke. Fuck, I needed a smoke. My eyes darted around the clean counters and landed on the plastic stick sitting in the corner. Fucking e-cig. Goddamn joke. I picked it up, threw it between my lips, and took long puffs.
Long, desperate puffs.
Nicotine, nicotine, nicotine was all my brain was screaming for.
I ignored Mia as I shuffled for Advil before dropping it on the counter, my hands shaking so bad, pills flying everywhere.
“Fucking Christ.” I clenched my eyes and tried to focus, bring myself into the present. Deep breaths in and out. In and out. I poured water as Mia bent down and gathered the pills.
“Thanks,” I murmured as she passed me two and I swallowed them.
“You okay?”
“Does it look like it?” I snapped.
“You look like shit.”
“Then I guess you’ve got your answer.”
“You were okay when I left last night.”
“Rough night.” I swallowed and made my way to the balcony, opening the doors and stepping out, soaking in the warm rays of sunlight and the salty sea air. My body relaxed as the relief of the very trace amounts of nicotine entered my system.
“Maybe you could go to a meeting today?”
“You going to a therapist about the fact that you like to slice your skin open?”
I heard her suck in a quick breath.
“Shit, sorry.” I mashed my teeth together before taking another puff, sucking the life out of that little black, piss-poor excuse for a cigarette.
“Why are you here, My?” I leaned over the railing, elbows resting on the cement as I took in the cars and pedestrians walking fourteen floors below me.
“To check on you. I was worried after that call—”
“Sorry about that,” I muttered and wondered if she and Brett had gotten into a fight after I hung up.
I hoped so.
“It’s okay. I’m glad you called. I mean, I’d rather you do that than . . .”
“Yeah.” I worked my jaw back and forth as I thought about her. I wanted her h
ere with me, at all times, wanted to tie her to my bed, fuck her, sleep next to her, wake up with her, every day and night for the rest of my life, and in equal measure I wanted to kick her out, punish her, make her worry about me.
“You and Brett fuck last night?” I said the words before I could even think twice.
She winced. “Ridge.”’
“Tell me.” Anger burned in my chest.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Tell me.” I turned to her, grabbed her arm, and whipped her against my body, dug my morning wood into her soft pelvis, showed her how much I fucking wanted her, thought about her, how my body craved her, against my better judgment.
“We’re together.”
“So that’s a yes,” I husked in her ear.
“Let go.” She wrenched her arm out of my grip and shoved at my chest. My heart thundered as I watched her. I licked my lips, my eyes trailing down her body. She wore a flimsy sundress that dusted along her curves. I could rip it off her, tear the fabric, and push her against the balcony and fuck her senseless. My dick pounded in my shorts. I grinned at her full lips and then down to my dick, indicating that I wanted nothing more than to have her lips there, around me, on her knees, sucking me off, deep throating me, taking me, swallowing me, her pink lips pleasing me until I exploded in her mouth.
Her eyes glanced up and I threw her a cocky grin. She shoved at my chest again and then stomped back into the house, her sweet ass swaying as she went.
“I know you want to be together.”
“I’m with Brett,” she gritted as she wiped phantom dirt off my counter.
“And you want to be with me.” I stood in the small archway that led into the kitchen, one arm above my head, leaning against the wall, my dick rock hard and pointing due north, showing her how much I wanted her.
Her eyes flicked up and down my body, the cut lines of my abs, defined biceps and pecs, a chiseled pelvic muscle that disappeared below my boxers. Her bright greens lingered there, that part where she always hovered, traced with her lips and tongue before she went down on me.
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