Who was I to judge? My track record wasn’t much better. But in the back of my sex muddled mind I had always been a hopeless romantic. Even in the most lowly and sexualized days of my life I loved a good love story.
And I wanted a happy ending too someday dammit.
If anyone deserved a happy ending it was the girl with a shitty once upon a time.
Happily ever after wasn’t in the cards for me just yet. I could feel it deep in my scarred heart. That was okay with me though. I wasn’t going to rush into anything that was empty or a mistake just because I was desperate for love and companionship.
It was never worth it in the end to force something that just wasn’t right.
I had to remind myself of that plenty of times when I found myself staring at Chris’s handsome face, wondering what it would feel like to wake up next to him every morning under different circumstances.
Permanent circumstances.
To have him look at me the way I always found myself looking at him. With longing and hope for something more, no matter how much I tried to remember why that wasn’t a good idea in any way, shape or form.
Cuddling in bed every night with Chris was becoming immensely enjoyable. It was muddying my thoughts and feelings.
I wasn’t sure what exactly it meant. I mean, I knew what it meant to me. But not sure if it meant anything at all to him.
Was he just trying to ease the guilt he felt for the role he played in our past? Was he trying to atone for his wrongs by giving me affection?
Or was there really something brewing between us? This feeling I had couldn’t possibly be one sided. I had a crush on him for years and managed to keep it under wraps, tucked away in the recesses of my mind.
If there was any way he felt even an ounce of what I felt I would throw away my apprehension and jump in headfirst. But I had to know he would be there to catch me when I fell because if he wasn’t I might not make it out alive.
☠ Chapter Eleven ☠
Chris
Natalie is snoring softly by the time I climb in her bed and gently drape an arm over her midsection. I don’t want to wake her up but the need to touch her can’t be ignored.
It crossed my mind to bypass her door and go to my own room to sleep tonight. Some space wouldn’t kill us. Maybe we even needed it to make sure lines don’t get blurred. But last minute I decided against it, ignoring my better judgment and going to the spot I really wanted to be. Next to her.
I was out later than I expected with Max getting fitted for our suits. On the way back we passed a bar and something just settled heavily onto my chest, pressing down on me and making it harder to breathe.
Temptation.
I had been in bars since my sobriety and it never bothered me. Those old cravings were rare these days. Lacey worked at a karaoke bar and I visited her several times, watching her perform cover songs at least once a month. I’m not sure what it was about this particular bar on this particular night but a deep craving sunk its claws in me and I couldn’t shake it as easily as usual.
It wasn’t even the drugs that threatened to lure me back down into the darkness. It was fucking booze. That shocked me because alcohol had never been my real problem. And maybe that in itself was the problem. I had done much worse shit than get drunk. Having a drink today didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
Alcohol never overpowered me. I never craved it the way I did heroin when I went without it for too long. I gave it up when I went to rehab because they told me it was better to start on a clean slate, no pun intended.
Would one drink hurt? I didn’t know. I had to remind myself to decline alcohol, knowing it was a slippery slope and it would be hypocritical for me to preach to others that they can’t have just one drink anymore because to an addict there was no such thing. One led to two which led to three.
I never considered myself an alcoholic. But heroin and alcohol followed closely behind one another where I was concerned. One almost always led to the other back when I was a complete fiend and I was scared to find out if that would happen again. It wasn’t worth the risk.
Was it really heroin I was craving and my inner addict knew a couple drinks would loosen my resistance and lead me to my true desire?
The entire walk home I was lost in my own dark thoughts. When we got back to the apartment building and my brother disappeared from my view I thought about going back to the bar and ordering a drink.
Just one.
What could that hurt? No one even knew me there. No one in my life would have to know about my moment of weakness. It could be a test of my willpower. I could prove to myself that everything would be fine and I could stop at just one.
But I knew what it could hurt. It had already destroyed every piece of my soul and I had worked damn hard to build myself back up from nothing because of it.
I could lose my brother over just one drink.
I could lose Natalie.
For at least an hour I walked around town, hoping the fresh air would clear my mind and dislodge the dangerous thoughts I was having. The foolish ideas that tried their best to worm their way into my moral compass and lead me back where I started.
I found myself passing by the damn bar, looking inside the glass at the people inside. The normal people that could have one damn drink and not ruin their entire lives after. Not spiral into a binder.
Then my eyes drift to a middle aged man sitting at the bar, slumped over. He looked depressed as fuck and drunk off his ass. Just sitting there alone, drinking something dark and strong from a clear glass.
And I reminded myself that if I went inside those doors, I would very likely end up just like him. Needing the liquor, or something much worse, every day in order to function. But I wouldn’t really be functioning. Instead I would just exist, going through the old motions I had broken the chains from.
And I refused to be like that ever again.
Feeling renewed, I walked home to my apartment and now here I was, in bed with Natalie. Exactly where I wanted, and needed, to be. Her presence settled me and eased the tension coursing through my body.
When I walked through the door mere minutes ago I was charged and tense. It was a miracle how much she could change that in the matter of seconds, without even speaking a word. Hell, she wasn’t even awake.
She was just there and that was enough.
Incredibly, the temptation and craving had eased back to almost nonexistence since I got my hands on her. She was like a magic elixir, curing me of any mental ailment that might be plaguing me. My thoughts just clear up when she’s this close, like dark storm clouds breaking in the sky for the sun to peak out.
I squeeze Nat tighter and she sighs in contentment, rolling over to face me. We’re face to face now and I freeze, unsure what to do. Her warm breath fans over my lips and my eyes flutter shut in intoxication from the minty smell of her freshly brushed teeth.
She’s so close.
Just a fraction of an inch and our lips would be brushing. Does she taste like toothpaste too? It takes every ounce of restraint to not close the distance between us and see what would happen. To get an answer to my questions the only way possible.
“Chris?”
“Yeah.”
“Where have you been?”
My mind flashes with images of where I was and I briefly think about lying. Lying isn’t really my style these days though, especially not to her. She knows damn near everything there is to know about me and she still lets me hold a place in her daily life. A place in her bed, cuddling with her.
Lying would jeopardize that. Letting her down would devastate me. There’s no way she won’t be disappointed to know that I considered getting drunk tonight and unraveling all my progress.
All I can do is brace myself for her response and utter the truth.
“A bar.”
She shifts and props her head up on her hand. It doesn’t escape my attention that she sniffs in my direction to check for the scent of alcohol.
“A bar?”
“I didn’t drink though.” I quickly assure her. “I thought about it. Fuck, I really thought about it. But I didn’t go inside. I just walked around and then came back here to you. That’s why I was out so late.”
Seconds pass and she doesn’t say anything. Time seems to drag as I quietly wait for her reaction, her judgment of the situation. She settles back into her pillow and scoots closer to me, pressing her face against my chest and rubbing the worn fabric of my shirt on her cheek.
“I’m so proud of you.”
“You are?”
“I am. So proud.” She yawns and presses her face into my shirt.
“That’s not what I expected you to say.”
“What do you mean? What did you think I would say?”
“I don’t know. Call me an idiot? Yell at me? Tell me to stay the hell away from bars?”
She sighs and rubs my chest because she can’t reach my arm with it wrapped around her back. “You’re not an idiot, I’m too tired to yell and you can’t possibly stay away from bars. They’re fucking everywhere.” She mumbles sleepily. “You’re strong. You didn’t drink. And I’m so proud of you for that, Chris. I know it isn’t easy but you never take the easy way out.”
Proud. She was proud of me.
And it made me want to be proud of myself which was something new entirely. It made me feel strong and unstoppable. On top of the world.
Softly kissing the top of her head, I let her fall back to sleep.
☠ ☠ ☠ ☠ ☠
After dropping Natalie off in front of our apartment I circled back around to the main road. I still needed to swing by the bank before they closed to make a deposit and I was running out of time. We got out of work a little later than usual and that left me rushing tonight.
Tomorrow was payday for the treatment center staff and I needed to make sure there was enough in the account for their checks to clear. All four of them if you included Natalie.
We had grown since opening the center but most months we barely scraped by financially. This was one of those months. There was enough to pay the employees, purchase necessary office supplies, plenty of groceries for the residents and to pay the utilities and tax on the building.
Not much more was leftover after that.
Perhaps I had accepted too many non-insured residents this month but I liked to help those that really needed it. No insurance and no cash tugged at my sympathies. They couldn’t afford to pay outright for their treatment so I worked with them on what they were able to pay.
This month I had done it with four guys, the most I had ever done at once. I would have to be careful about it in the future. This was still a business, after all, and if I kept making decisions with my heart and not my head we would go out of business altogether.
I had purchased the facility outright with the restitution money I was awarded through the court after my father’s prison sentence.
It had been enough to buy us a nice, secluded five thousand square foot facility and fix it up just the way we wanted to make it more suited as a residential treatment center. It had a full kitchen, living room and eight bedrooms on one side the building and offices and a conference room on the other side that was used for meetings and group counseling sessions.
Before I pull out to the main street I think of Natalie’s constant nagging about seatbelts and pull mine securely across my chest, clicking it in place. I laugh at myself at how she’s managed to nag me into domestication.
We’re basically an old married couple, minus the sex. A couple years ago I would have said that was ass backwards. I wanted the hot sex, not the building a home together shit. But today I had absolutely no complaints on the life we shared. Funny how much things could change in such a short period of time.
It’s a good thing Nat popped into my mind when she did, urging me to wear my seatbelt and be safe. Because the next thing I knew tires were screeching and my windshield was shattering into my lap, flying into my face.
Everything moves in slow motion at that point as I watch my car begin to spin in the middle of the road. There’s another car, presumably the one I collided with, that screeches into the ditch.
My forehead bashes into the damn steering wheel when the airbag fails to discharge and pain explodes at the spot of impact.
My car was an ancient pile of rust that barely ran most days. It was the same car I had since I was sixteen and first got my license. I knew the damn airbag wasn’t good anymore based on my last inspection but I managed to pay my way through the nearly failed inspection and got myself a sticker saying my car was good to go.
Having some serious regrets on that decision.
Max had used his money from Dad’s jobs to buy his prized Charger, souped-up and customized. I blew my money on drugs and booze, not giving a flying fuck what my car looked like. Or if it was safe to drive. That was one area of my life I hadn’t taken the time to change and it may have just cost me my life.
My mind still floated off, wandering to random thoughts and epiphanies.
Max’s car and lifestyle just proved how much cash flew right out of my hands the second I had it in my possession. He made about the same as me and managed to have such nice things. I probably put the drug dealer’s kid through college for fuck sake.
And now my shitty financial choices were smacking me in the face, quite literally.
The metallic taste of blood pools in my mouth but my brain can’t process what exactly that meant through the fogginess of shock. The steering wheel against my forehead left me dazed and I struggled against nature to stay awake.
The last thing on my mind before I drifted into the darkness of unconsciousness was the smile on Natalie’s face after I dropped her off, my very last glimpse of her.
☠ Chapter Twelve ☠
Natalie
The sound of crunching metal and shattering glass stops me dead in my tracks. I was on the way upstairs, planning to order Chinese take-out so it would be delivered by the time Chris got back.
He had dropped me off mere moments before, heading to the bank to make a quick deposit. He was coming right back and I wanted our late lunch slash early dinner to be delivered as soon as possible. We were both starving. Missing lunch was definitely not something we did often and I was feeling a bit hangry.
When my eyes follow the horrifying sounds I see his car smashed to hell in the middle of the street. It’s obvious on first glance the car that hit him had to be speeding.
The speed limit on this street is forty-five miles per hour. There’s no fucking way this car was anywhere close to that. The air is stolen from my lungs and I struggle to take a breath.
“Chris!” I scream at the top of my lungs, racing down the steps and across the parking lot in a haze of sheer panic.
My heart is racing, squeezing painfully on each pump of blood. My legs threaten to give out before I make it to the street. The car is completely demolished, his door dented and smashed in, metal ripped and scattered on the pavement.
I scream his name again and tug on the driver’s side door but it doesn’t budge. He doesn’t respond when I cry out for him and I can’t even process what that might mean.
His head is resting limply on the steering wheel and he doesn’t so much as flinch.
I can’t see his face but he isn’t moving. There’s blood. I don’t know where the fuck it’s coming from but it’s staining the parts of his shirt I am able to see from this angle and I tug uselessly at the mangled car door, just wanting to get to him and make this nightmare disappear.
Hysteria overflows and I scream his name louder this time, reaching in through the broken glass of the windshield to try opening the door from the inside. My arm isn’t long enough to reach the handle, or him, from this twisted angle.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. Somehow that soothes me and I allow myself a fraction of a second to enjoy the physical pain as a distraction from the madness I feel in my heart
.
I take a shaky breath and frantically pull my phone from my back pocket, thankful I had it on me. It takes three times before I’m able to punch in 9-1-1 on the keypad with my trembling fingers.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“Please help me! My friend just got in an accident! He’s bleeding!”
“Ma’am, I need you to calm down.” The woman on the other line says, no urgency whatsoever in her time. “What’s the address?”
I rattle off the address of our apartment to her and force my breaths in and out of my lungs. In and out. Getting pissed at her for her lack of concern won’t do us any good so I hold that in. It’s not her fault, she’s trying to help.
But I want the world to feel just as horrified by what’s happening as I am. This is Chris for fuck sake, not some stranger on the news. I can’t lose him.
The operator stays on the phone with me saying things like is he still breathing and help is on the way. Her words blur together and I put the phone on speaker and drop it into the grass next to the car to free up my hands.
I have to do something.
I climb onto the crumpled hood and reach into the car again with trembling hands, ignoring the glass scratching my torso as I practically climb inside, grabbing Chris’s arm gently. I’m afraid of what I’m going to find, or that I may hurt him more than he already is, but I can’t stop myself.
I have to know he’s ok. Or at least alive. He’s obviously not fucking okay.
Laying my palm on his neck, I desperately feel around for a pulse. A beating pulse throbs under my hand but can’t tell if it’s his or mine. My blood is pumping so hard from the panic that it’s impossible to make out the difference.
Sirens wail in the distance and I try to remain calm as the operator instructs me to flag them down. The sirens grow louder and I wipe his blood from my hands onto my jeans and grab my phone from the grass, giving an update to the operator.
Flying High (Davis Brothers Book 2) Page 7