He froze.
Not offended. Not surprised. Just caught.
I kept my voice gentle. “You know you’re not hiding anything from anyone, right?”
He huffed a laugh that sounded like it hurt. “Shit. That obvious, huh?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “I’m not judging you. I care. And you look?—”
“Like hell?” he offered.
“Worse.”
That earned a real laugh, short and quiet. He leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.
“It’s not all the time,” he said. “I can handle it.”
“You couldn’t hug me because you weren’t sure if you’d fall over,” I replied softly. “So, no, Cori. You can’t.”
His jaw worked. He looked somewhere past the Christmas tree, eyes distant.
“When are you getting help?” I repeated, firmer this time.
He swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Natasha…” His voice cracked in a way he clearly didn’t want it to. “I’ve got a lot going on. Look, I’m not ignoring it. I know I need to get clean again. I just—” He exhaled, shaky and ashamed. “I’m not ready.”
My chest tightened painfully. “Nobody’s ever ready. You just have to want better.”
Cori blinked hard, as if the words struck deeper than he expected.
“You sound like my mother,” he muttered, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand.
“Maybe she was right.”
He snorted. “She usually is.”
We sat in quiet for a moment, the lights on the tree flickering softly between us.
“I’m not asking you to go to rehab today,” I said gently. “I’m asking you todecidewhen you will.”
Cori lowered his hands and finally met my eyes.
And for the first time since he walked in, he looked sober—not chemically, but emotionally.
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I wanted,” I said, offering a small smile.
He gave me a crooked one back. “You’re too good for Dmitri, you know that?”
I shrugged. “Probably.”
Cori laughed again—and for a moment, he looked like my best friend before the drugs. The guy I used to know. The one he used to be. But his eyes flicked toward Dmitri’s office, sobering instantly.
“You should know,” he muttered, voice low, “you’re good for him, and I hate to say that he’s good for you, too.”
