I go silent for a moment, contemplating his words, not sure what to say next. I know that he loves me and wants what’s best for me, and he’s not making the suggestions to be an asshole. I also know that, while I have access to several avenues of help, I’ve been working too many hours to really take advantage of any of them. I probably haven’t been to group in… six months, maybe longer? If Nick is worried enough to say something, and he’d usually rather be quiet, then maybe I need to take this a little more seriously.
“Primo, I don’t think that I need to go to a facility, but thank you for letting me know that you wouldn’t think less of me if I had to go.”
God, the sadness in his eyes is ripping a hole in my chest. “Never. You deserve the very best help you can get.”
Deserve. Such a loaded fucking word for me right now, but… my cousin has never once in his entire life bullshitted me, never once softened his words to save my feelings, and he’d be damned to start doing so right now.
Quietly, a few of the broken pieces inside me fit back together on his simple validation.
“I have gotten a little lazy with my therapy,” I admit, not wanting to look him in the eye. “So, I’ll start with that first, but I’ll let you know if I really feel like it’s not working.”
“Oh, no worries there. I’ll be up your ass until I see improvement. It’ll go easier for you when you tell me that your first three appointments have been made.”
“Fine. What about my hours?” I ask, hoping for a little wiggle room.
“Sixty. Nonnegotiable.”
Pinche metiche.“You’re killing me, Smalls.”
That nets a rare grin from my cousin, which lashes together a few more of those fragmented pieces. “No, bro. I’m saving your life. It’s only fair.”
Ugh, I hate it.
God, I’m so fucking lucky.
Chapter Twenty
Heath
It’s been weeks since Roly and I last saw each other, and while there was a shindig at my house to celebrate becoming investment partners with Scout and Jean-Pierre, he didn’t show. That’s appropriate, I suppose.
It’s definitely what I asked for.
Just the other day, Jean-Pierre mentioned that Roly’s family staged an intervention of sorts, which immediately made me think ofHow I Met Your Mother. I quickly found out that it wasn’t a fun kind of intervention; they’d realized that he’d been working himself to death, and they’d put a hard stop to it. Jean-Pierre hadn’t been there, but said that the overwork and perpetual motion were the result of what happened to him in Iraq. I asked him a few questions about that, but he said that he didn’t feel comfortable telling the details that he’d learned from Jake.
Well, hell. That sounds ominous.
He also said that Roly was going back to therapy and group sessions a few times a week, and the relief I felt was disproportionate to the fact that I wasn’t supposed to care. To be honest, the reasons for that are a little fuzzy at the moment. Anyway, dude’s a war hero; he deserves the best help in the world.
As for the business, that part’s going well, and if we keep making smart, frugal decisions, we all stand to make some decent bank between Scout’s development, the pizza shop, and Wrecked. That said, and I find myself going to the gym on non-Bear Nights, but still haven’t seen him. Not that I’m going there for the specific purpose of seeing Roly, but… I wouldn’t mind it. At the very least, it’d be nice to put eyes on him so that I could see for myself that he’s okay.
Even though I haven’t seen him, it turns out that I kinda like this gym, and not just for the sweaty, chiseled scenery. The thing that makes this place special is that everyone helps everyone out. I’ve never personally been up close and personal with someone’s prosthetic, not even Nick’s, and it turns out that those damn things need to be adjusted all the time. I learned pretty quickly that for the most part you just let people take care of their own business, but it makes me proud that this is also the kind of place where people ask for help when they need it. I’ve helped Steven Benning adjust a crooked prosthetic on more than one occasion.
The one they tell you to avoid at all cost is Morris, because he’s a mouthy old crank who doesn’t care too much about people’s feelings. Larger people tend to stay away from guys like that because we know that the first words out of their mouths are always going to be shit.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t really avoid him today.
Just as I finish my time on the bag, I hear a weird grunt and turn around. Morris is stuck on one of the weight machines, having somehow botched his dismount. It’d be easy for me to simply pick up the old crotchety bastard and put him on the ground, but I know better. Instead of assuming and then getting my ass verbally handed to me, I ask what he wants.
“What doyouthink? Get me out of here.”
Cranky old bastard.
“Okay, do you want me to just pick you up, or do you want me to loosen your foot and let you get out on your own?”
His facial expression shaves a few years off my life before he retorts, “Sonny, can you see how old I am? I’d like to expedite the process before I age and die on this piece of equipment. If I’m going to die, I like to have a chance to go home and fuck my Maggie one more time.”
I clamp down on my lips to stop from laughing, or throwing up. I’m not sure which. I do know that the visual of a guy in his eighties bumping uglies was some unfortunate woman is not something I’d like to keep in my head for very long.
