He pulled up a grocery delivery page and began adding food to the cart. Flax milk. Forbidden rice. Spaghetti squash. Things he remembered eating in Montana.
He was hesitating on silken tofu versus firm when Darcy’s warm, sweet weight unexpectedly descended into his lap. He grunted and wrapped an arm around her waist to keep the chair from toppling over, steadying himself as she nonchalantly perched across his knees and looped her arm around the back of his neck for balance.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” he said, muting his surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“Buying groceries.”
“Oh. Your expression looked a lot more dire than that.” She squinted at his face, then at his screen. “Wait, who’s gonna cook all that tofu?”
“Um,” Teagan said intelligently, because he’d assumed she would. “You could tell me how, and I’ll do it, I guess?”
“I don’t know how to cook,” Darcy said after investigating his face again. When Teagan sighed, she squirmed a little, wedging a hip against some important bits of his anatomy and finally achieving what appeared to be a more comfortable seat against his chest. “You can just buy me a couple of those eighty ounce jars of peanut butter and some bananas. I’m easy.”
Teagan opened his mouth to argue that he’d buy and cook Darcy whatever she actually wanted, but she reached out and closed the laptop, seeming to consider the matter decided. The movement brushed her ponytail against the side of his neck, and he shivered.
Darcy settled in, her back against his chest, his heartbeat thudding against the solidity of her shoulder.
“So,” she said. “I gave the wine away to your neighbors. They were pretty happy about that.”
“I’ll bet,” Teagan said. There had been some really nice bottles in there, gifted to his mother over the years. They’d accumulated since she’d always said she wasn’t wasting the calories on anything less than fifty proof.
Darcy began to count on her fingers. “I got rid of all the liquor in the bar.”
“Thank you.”
“And the mouthwash in the bathrooms.”
“Um, thank you for that too.”
“Do you have any hand sanitizer?”
“Why?”
“It’s got alcohol in it, I heard.”
“But I like having clean hands,” he protested. “And a little nip of hand sanitizer right before I go to bed.”
Darcy lightly pinched his stomach, making him jolt and nearly dislodging her from his lap. He got a hold on one of her bare thighs, just above the knee, to keep her in place.
“It was in a video. Stuff alcoholics might try to drink,” she said defensively.
“Pretty sure I’d try driving to a liquor store before hand sanitizer,” Teagan said.
Darcy looked so concerned by that statement that he wrapped his arms more firmly around her. “I won’t,” he promised.
She exhaled and curled a hand around his wrist, rubbing her thumb against it. “I haven’t been able to find the manual on sober companioning yet,” she said. “Like a YouTube instructional video. Or a podcast. Everything’s directed at the actual drinkers. So I’m not sure if I’m doing it right. I’m making it up as I go along.”
“I think you’re doing a great job,” Teagan said honestly. If he’d actually been inclined to drink, clearing out all the booze and then sitting on him seemed like thorough preventative measures.
“Yeah?” Darcy asked, and it took Teagan a long moment to parse the cautious note in her voice as vulnerability.
He leaned forward enough to press his nose against her shoulder. “Yeah. I’m... really glad you’re here.”
“I guess it would have been pretty overwhelming to come back here alone,” Darcy suggested.
