Expelled

by Claire Adams

  “Cassidy,” I heard Mr. March say as I walked into the kitchen.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Erik. He’s going to be staying in room eight; he’s a vegan,” Mr. March said as he looked at Erik to confirm. “It’s vegan, right? Not vegetarian.”

  “Yeah,” Erik said as he totally ignored me and looked out the window at the snow-capped mountains.

  His eyes seemed glazed over, and I suspected he was coming down off of a pretty major drug or alcohol binge. Whatever landed him in our facility had probably only happened a few hours before, or he had used before arriving.

  It was very common for people to try and curb their withdrawal by thinking that one last sip or hit would make them feel better. I felt bad for the guy; he was about to have a pretty horrible couple of days as his body got rid of the drugs he had taken and the withdrawals began.

  “I’ll try to remember, but you might have to remind me sometimes,” I said as I reached my hand out to shake his.

  I smiled and tenderly looked at him to offer my support. I always made sure new patients knew they could count on me to make their stay as comfortable as possible. It was my job, but I also really enjoyed helping people.

  “Just remember. Let’s not make excuses for why you can’t do your job,” he said curtly and walked away from the two of us.

  I opened my eyes large and looked at Mr. March; he knew that look and just shrugged his shoulders in response.

  This new patient seemed to have a pretty big chip on his shoulder. I had to wonder what he was there for. My guess was drugs – he seemed pretty strung out. He looked like a spoiled rich kid whose father probably sent him to our facility to straighten up before he was handed the reins of some multi-billion-dollar company. Those guys were the hardest to take care of because they expected so much and put in so little.

  Rich, spoiled kids were used to getting exactly what they wanted without having to be polite or work at all. Even when they became addicted to drugs, they expected that just coming to a rehab facility would cure them. Actually doing the work and learning about their addiction wasn’t really what they wanted. Those kids wanted a quick fix and someone to blame when it didn’t work out.

  “I suppose he’s going to by my patient?”

  “Cassidy, you’re so good with the tough cases. We are lucky to have you. You know, I just submitted your name for employee of the month.”

  Nothing Mr. March could say would make it easier to work with a difficult patient. But normally, I could just put their words aside and see that they were sick and needed some loving attention. I already suspected that was going to be more difficult with this man.

  My job was to be nice to the patients. I didn’t do therapy sessions. I didn’t give them their medications. My whole purpose for being with the patients was to make their life better while they were in our care. Sometimes that meant walking with them. Other times, it might mean getting them a different meal. It didn’t matter to me, as long as what I was doing would help them.

  “Mr. March, we don’t even have an employee of the month program. It’s just you typing up a certificate for me,” I said with a wry smile.

  It was a little joke that Mr. March had with all the staff when he needed something done that no one wanted to do. We were a small facility and it wasn’t reasonable to even do an employee of the month program; everyone worked hard and everyone got recognized for their work on a pretty consistent basis. But our recognition usually came in letting us leave early, or Mr. March might buy pizza for the staff; it was a nice gesture at least.

  “But I would give you employee of the month if we had a program,” he said as he patted me on the back.

  “Thanks, I think.” I laughed. “Now, I need to go get Alexander’s recipe for this chicken so I can convince Brad to eat it.”

  “See, that’s the kind of thing that just goes so far above what others do. And everyone else does a pretty fantastic job, too.”

  “I know, I know, I’m employee of the month.”

  I started to walk away, hoping Mr. March was done with me. But there was one thing that I knew he was going to comment on. I cringed as I heard him start to talk to me and hoped he wouldn’t write me up for my blatant refusal to follow this one rule.

  “Let’s take it out before anyone else sees it, please, Cassidy.”

  “Mr. March, it’s so much work to take in and out. I really don’t understand why I can’t keep it in. Just because the patients need their piercings out doesn’t mean I should have to take mine out.”

  “No unusual piercings are allowed; you know the rules. If the patients have to take theirs out, so do you.”

  “What unusual piercings do you have?” the new patient, Erik, asked as he rejoined the conversation and suddenly seemed very interested in me.

  For the first time, Erik looked me dead in the eyes. I felt my body warm at his attention. Not because I wanted him to like me or anything like that. But his deep, brown eyes penetrated me. They looked so far into my soul that I felt the need to take a step backwards as I reeled and tried to figure out if I should respond to his question.

  I looked at Erik and then at Mr. March and didn’t open my mouth to respond. My tongue piercing had been a fun little excursion when I went to Vegas for my twenty-first birthday. I had been so drunk that I almost married a complete stranger, and only by vomiting on the man had I been saved from that horrible mistake. The next morning, I woke up with my tongue pierced. I could have taken it out and my hole would have healed, but I liked keeping it as a reminder of my past and all the changes I had made.

  “Let’s go look at the pool area,” Mr. March said in an effort to distract the new patient. “We have a spectacular pool, hot tub, and sauna. All visits need to be with staff for your safety,” he continued as he guided the man out of the kitchen.

  “Clit, nipples, tongue; which is it?” Erik boldly asked just before turning the corner and grinning at me while he waited for my response.

  “What?” I said in total shock.

  “Where’s your piercing?”

  I burst into laughter at his bold question. Erik was a handsome man with a bit of an attitude, but everyone had an attitude when they arrived at our facility. His smile would certainly stick in my mind for the rest of that evening, though. His half wink and brilliant white teeth mesmerized me and gave me a shot of adrenaline. For a man with such an attitude, he sure did seem to be flirting with me.

  “Let’s go,” Mr. March said without giving me time to answer.

  Mr. March put his hand on Erik’s elbow and guided him out of the room and toward the pool area. Luckily for me, I didn’t have to answer his question. The tour of our facility was quite impressive and Mr. March was a pro at it. He showed guests the workout room, the pool, the spa; he walked new patients around the grounds and looked up at the mountains. Our treatment center was more like a resort than a hospital and that was exactly why we got the rich and famous to send their loved ones to us.

  “That one looks like trouble,” Alexander said from behind me.

  “Yeah, I bet he won’t last a week. Probably one of those rich, spoiled kids.”

  “I think he’s that guy from Slap 142, that rock band?”

  “I don’t know. But he’s not very friendly, and he’s a vegetarian. Or wait, was it vegan? Crap, I don’t remember.”

  “I’ll give him a bacon omelet tomorrow and we can find out.” Alexander laughed. “Is it horrible that I enjoy a bacon freak out so much?”

  “No, don’t do that,” I begged. “At least I’m not working tomorrow; I won’t have to deal with that disaster. Speaking of disasters, Brad would like to know what the chicken’s stuffed with. He’s not going to eat it unless he knows.”

  “Tell him it’s stuffed with my soul,” Alexander joked. “Or mozzarella, whichever sounds more appropriate.”

  Poor Alexander had been stuck working at Paradise Peak for the last six months. He was an internationally-acclaimed chef who had run his ow
n restaurant in Paris for two years before he got caught with drug paraphernalia on a trip to Miami. Luckily, his lawyer had brokered a plea agreement and found him a position at Paradise Peak for his year of probation.

  I knew he hated it with us, but he was the best chef we had ever had, and despite Brad’s pickiness, Alexander delivered top-tier food. Probably better than any other rehab facility in the country.

  “I’ll tell him it’s mozzarella,” I replied.

  After serving Brad his mozzarella-filled chicken, I finished getting everyone started on their meals before leaning against the nurses’ counter to talk with Kaitlin. It was our normal afternoon routine and a short bit of semi-solitude while the patients enjoyed their meals.

  “That new guy seems like a giant asshole,” I said.

  “A hot one.”

  “Well, I don’t think looks have a bearing on someone’s asshole rating. Mr. March told me to take my tongue piercing out again; what is the probability I can get him to forget about that damn rule?”

  “Cassidy, just take it out. It’s not like you’re giving blowjobs here and need to impress your boyfriend with it. Oh, wait, you haven’t had a boyfriend in two years.” She dramatically laughed.

  It was the truth, and I hated when Kaitlin brought it up. I had purposely been avoiding men since getting sober myself. I could have dated any number of guys if I wanted to, but I didn’t. I was single and very happy. But she just drove me nuts when she teased me about it.

  Most guys my age drank, and it was impossible to find a guy who didn’t want to go out to the clubs or drink at a restaurant, and I just didn’t think I could handle that kind of pressure. I hadn’t even gone out with my friends lately because I wasn’t confident enough in my own ability to stay sober yet.

  “You’re just jealous because I could have any man I wanted, down on his knees begging to have me,” I said to try and get her riled up and then I turned toward the room to go back to work.

  Sure as hell, when I turned around, there was Mr. March and that damn new patient Erik standing right there. They had both heard everything I had just said. Mr. March stood there with a disastrous grimace on his face.

  “Do I have to get on my knees?” Erik said and winked at me.

  My eyes got big, my face turned one hundred shades of red, and I looked to Kaitlin to rescue me, but she just turned around as she started to laugh. There was no way of avoiding the fact that both Mr. March and this new patient had just heard me and I stood frozen as I tried to figure out what the heck to do.

  Erik had a smirk on his face and looked like he was devouring my body with his eyes. He was obviously one of those confident guys who could get any woman he wanted, no matter how crude he was. But that wasn’t going to work around here. He was at Paradise Peak for treatment, not to get laid.

  But as I looked at him, I felt my body warming. His tongue darted out and gently licked his lips as his eyes moved up every inch of my body. He was taking in my curves and mentally saving the pictures so he could think about me later: I just knew it. The pure embarrassment of the moment was too much for me, and I finally gathered myself enough to mumble something and then storm away from the two men.

  Damn him and that sexy-ass smile and winking! Damn that guy!

  Chapter Two

  Erik

  Maybe coming to a rehab center wasn’t going to be as bad as I had originally thought it would be. This girl was hot as hell. It was a shame she had herself hidden away in the middle-of-nowhere Colorado. I could see making the most out of my stay if I could get the hot redhead naked and in my bed. Otherwise, the entire trip to Colorado was shaping up to be a real downer.

  Women were my weakness, there was no use denying it or even trying to pretend like I could control myself around them. When a woman pressed up against me and told me she wanted me, that was all it took to have her naked in my bed. I hadn’t had to chase after a woman for years because they were happy to throw themselves at me whenever I needed some company for a few hours.

  I never let women spend the night unless my level of intoxication was so high that I fell asleep and totally forgot they were in my bed. Otherwise, I either went home or they did. There was no need to actually fall asleep with them if our fun was over, after all.

  Doing things that I didn’t want to do certainly wasn’t in my normal repertoire. So, I had to make this trip out to be something that I could make useful on some level. If that meant I was spending time with a hot, young redhead, then that might just be motivation enough for me.

  I didn’t really know why I let my business partner, Spencer, talk me into coming to a drug rehab center. I didn’t feel I had an issue with drugs. I liked to party. What red-blooded man with my kind of money didn’t like to throw some parties? I might have gotten a little out of hand at times, but certainly nothing that required a treatment facility.

  My only purpose for going to that Godforsaken place was to get away from the media for a few weeks and clean up my act so we could invest in a new movie studio. The financial backers had expressed concerns about my constant partying, and despite me adamantly refusing that I had a problem, they weren’t interested in letting us in on the deal unless I was more stable.

  So, after a little research, Spencer came up with Paradise Peak. It was far enough away from my world in San Francisco, but at the same time, it was a very well put together facility. The grounds were immaculate, even though it was the middle of winter. I loved that I would have access to everything I needed right at my fingertips.

  Sure, I wanted to get better. Or whatever it was my friends thought I needed. But I didn’t need some hole-in-the-wall treatment center that didn’t even have a pool. This place had a pool, fitness center, yoga, and tons of other exercises and activities.

  “It’s more like a resort than a rehab center, Erik. Trust me, it’s going to be so relaxing. You can sleep all day, swim in the afternoons, get massages, and just totally relax.”

  I could already tell that Spencer had just tried to fluff up the place and what I would have to do there. Group sessions, individual therapy sessions, interacting with my peers – it all sounded horrible and I already wanted to leave. I didn’t blame him, though; Spencer had always been a good friend to me and only interested in pushing me toward being a better person.

  I turned my attention to the beautiful redhead. After catching her in the midst of a risqué conversation with her friend, I felt like I had the upper hand in our little cat-and-mouse game. I still wanted to know where that piercing of hers was, although I suspected it was in her tongue or her boss wouldn’t have mentioned it. But hell, it was fun to think about all the other locations that she could have pierced.

  “No, don’t get on your knees,” she said as her face turned brilliant red with embarrassment. “I’m sorry; I need to go.”

  “Wait, what was your name again?” I asked.

  But it was too late; she had already taken off down the hallway and wasn’t looking back. For a wild child, this girl seemed to be pretty shy. It was fun, though. I liked how embarrassed she had gotten from my remark. Her cheeks had flushed red and her pretty, blue eyes had glazed over as she tried to think of something to say in the situation. I couldn’t wait until the next time I saw her and could bring up the moment, just to get her to blush.

  The women that typically hit on me were full of confidence and didn’t get embarrassed. They would show up at my parties with the sole purpose of getting into my bed. Certainly, they weren’t embarrassed then if I made a comment about their bodies, or even joked with them about sexual things. Those girls wanted to wow me with how open they were and how much they thought a night with them would make me addicted to them. Little did they know that every girl before them had pretty much done the same thing.

  It had been a very long time since I had been around a woman who had turned red faced and shy. I liked it. I liked feeling like there was something special and different about this girl – something that might keep me interested, at
least while I was at the treatment facility. Women bored me easily, at least the ones who I spent time around normally.

  “Her name is Cassidy,” the nurse behind the counter said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Mr. Levy, let me get you settled into your room,” Mr. March said as he tried to guide me away from the nurses’ station.

  It wasn’t worth arguing with the man, so I followed him toward my room. My one suitcase had already been dropped off there and it looked like someone had gone through my things. There was a clear bag sitting next to my suitcase and several items from my suitcase had been placed in there.

  “What’s this?” I asked as I tried to keep my temper in check. “You just go through people’s things like that?”

  It was then that I noticed there was a security guard standing in the corner; he seemed to have been waiting for us to arrive. He wasn’t all that big of a man, but he certainly didn’t look like the kind of guy you wanted to mess with.

  I had often hired men like him to work at my parties. They looked like normal guys, but had fierce skills in protecting the people they were hired to keep safe. I assumed he was probably an ex-police officer or something like that. He had that firm, unemotional look about him that intimidated me. But of course, I couldn’t let on that I cared who he was at all.

  “Mr. March, I found about two grams of cocaine, a small bag of marijuana, cigarettes, and ten shot-sized containers of alcohol. Also removed the shoelaces, belts, and hoodies strings from all the clothing.”

  “What the hell!” I yelled as I looked between the two men.

  I wasn’t getting my drugs back and I knew it. But my desperation took over in the moment. They were taking away my lifeline. I certainly hadn’t expected to use my drugs very much, just enough to keep focused and help make it through the first few days. But they were ruining all my plans.