Terri wasn’t even as tall as my meager five-nine but didn’t need height to command attention. Years of raising three kids, the oldest being the same age as me, had honed her into a formidable force. Her short brown hair was streaked with gray now, but her eyes were bright, sharp, and filled with warmth and no-nonsense wisdom. I’d known her since I’d stumbled into my first meeting, stoned out of my mind and convinced I was beyond saving, and Terri had been my sponsor ever since.
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” I lied.
She snorted. “Bullshit.” Then her voice softened. “Come on. Five minutes. Let’s catch up.”
With a sigh, I followed her to the coffee shop. She poured me a cup that I knew would be bitter and too strong—there was a reason the coffee shop across the road did such brisk business around AA meetings. I took it anyway.
“So?” she asked, eyebrows raised. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I said, way too fast.
Her look could have melted stone.
“Fine,” I relented. “I needed a meeting, is all.” I pushed my hand into my pocket, curling my fingers around the smooth edge of my chip and pulling it out to hold. It felt warm from being carried there, always close, a reminder of every day I’d stayed sober since the first meeting where Terri and I had met. The cool relief of its presence helped me breathe.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” I lied. Again.
If being attracted to Tyler was okay, then I wasn’texactlylying. Right? From the moment he’d held my hand after the roof, when I was the only one he wanted, I was done for. And that wasn’t right. He’d imprinted like a baby duck, or had I imprinted? I never understood the analogy. But now I couldn’tunfeelit—the warmth of his fingers gripping mine, the relief that he was still alive. I carried that memory like another chip in my pocket, something to reach for when everything seemed too much.
Terri’s eyes narrowed above the rim of her cup as she watched me. “You keep staring at your hand as if it’s holding something more than your sobriety coin,” she observed. “Want to tell me what’sreallygoing on?”
I coughed, heat crawling up my neck. “I just… I don’t know.” I stared into my shitty coffee, swirling the dark liquid until tiny bubbles formed on one side. Terri had been there when I hit rock bottom, held me accountable when I swore I was fine, and reminded me—time and again—that I was still worth something. I could trust her the same way I would trust Alex. Only… Alex told me to be careful, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear that again.
Or maybe she’d tell me to go for it.
Wishful thinking.
“There’s this man,” I began, and she nodded. “But he’s one of our guests.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tyler. He’s…” Well, shit, where did I start? “I like him in a non-normal, just-a-friend kind of way. I’m attracted to him, and I want to know more than what we get to see. I know I’m crossing a line. Hell, I’ve taken that line and screwed it up and thrown it out of the fucking window.”
“I see.”
“Yeah,” I said miserably.
She paused, and I waited for her words of wisdom. “You’ve told me repeatedly that Guardian Hall treats all of our guests with respect,love, and patience.” She tapped her knee with each word. “You explained that you aim to see them as people first, not as their traumas or pasts and that none of them are projects to fix or puzzles to solve.”
“I know. Which is why?—”
“I’m talking,” she interrupted in her best mom voice, and I slipped lower in my seat. She was the mom I’d never had. Or rather, she was better than the mom I’d been stuck with. “Okay, so, you’re attracted to a guest at Guardian Hall, and you’re stressing that you’ve fallen into the trap of believing affection, attraction, or some misguided sense of responsibility is the same as connection.”
“Exactly! And how fucked up is that!”
She hummed—the low vibration that meant gears were shifting, that she was turning over my words in her head. I always waited whenever she used it because, fuck me, she was excellent at seeing through my bullshit. I needed that independent thinking before I did something stupid. It scared me how much I wanted to forget all the rules just to be close to him.
I couldn’t afford to screw this up. Not for him. Not for me.
She snorted. “I call bullshit.”
I blinked at her. “You do what now?”
“I said, I call bullshit,” she repeated, her gaze sharp and unwavering. “You think this is about you crossing a line? Are you somehow using your position to push something on this guy?”
“No, but?—”
