“Are you out of your goddamned mind?!Did you drink any of this? Where did you get this?”
Knowing I’m about two seconds away from her beaming me in the head with it, I hold up my hands, palms out, in supplication.
“I didn’t drink any. I swear.”
Her brown eyes narrow. “Did youthinkabout drinking it?”
“Hell, no,” I promise her, looking her in the eye so she can see the truth there.
Her stare-down is glacial, but eventually, her posture eases as does the anger. She drops into the cushioned chair in front of me on the other side of the desk, placing the bottle on the floor and out of sight.
Leaning forward, she rests her elbows on the desktop and steeples her pink-polished fingertips.
“Do we need to go to AA tonight?”
I touch my bronze chip through the fabric of my cotton T-shirt. When I was given it to commemorate twelve months of sobriety, I drilled a hole through the coin and placed it on a long, gold chain necklace. Just one more reminder of my fall into the darkness, and the determination it took to survive it. I haven’t worn it in a while. I don’t know what made me put it on today.
Daniella reaches across the top of the desk for my hands, her touch grounding and full of comfort. She’s been with me during many of my worst moments when something would trigger me and the need to drink would be overwhelming—the anniversary of Mom’s death, finding out who my real father was and that I had a gaggle of new siblings I never knew about, spending Christmas alone in this big, empty house. I hope I’ve been able to be the same anchor in her storm when memories of her fiancé crash into her, and the only way to drown them out is through a haze of hard liquor. God, the fucked-up pair we make. Two recovering alcoholics who are both a hair-trigger away from screwing everything up with just one small sip. I only have to look at her to be reminded that my reasons for drinking were a pitiful excuse when compared to what she went through. I may have lost Mom and Jack to natural causes, and Amelia to Chase, but she lost the love of her life in the most horrific way. I also had time to say goodbye to Mom. Time to prepare and come to terms with the cancer that was consuming her body. Daniella didn’t have that luxury. She and her fiancé’s parents had to bury an empty casket because the IED left nothing of him to send home.
“Jordan, talk to me. Let me help. The fact that you had this—” she looks down at the floor to where she set the bottle “—scares me.”
“I swear I wasn’t going to open it. I’ve kept it as a reminder of how bad life was when I letitcontrol me.”
Her kind, knowing eyes meet mine when I chance to glance up at her. She doesn’t insist I talk to her and tell her what’s bothering me. Instead, she waits patiently with an unwavering gaze, knowing I will. Jack’s chair creaks when my back pushes into the cushioned, oiled leather.
“Chase has popped back up.”
“I hate that man.”
“You don’t even know him and have never met him,” I remind her.
“I hate him on principle for what he did to you. Besides, I know what he looks like. I’ve seen him around. Be lucky I didn’t slash his tires last week when I saw him go into the hardware store.”
Daniella is like Harper, in that they both absolutely hate Amelia and Chase.
“He’s been sniffing around someone.” I plow a hand through my hair. “There’s a girl. A woman. A complicated, incredible woman,” I begin.
Her pallor turns slightly waxy and pale. “You met someone?”
“Technically, no, since I already knew her.”
Daniella’s grip on my hands tightens uncomfortably. “Is this another orange circus peanut? Those things are nasty.”
“What?”
It takes me a second to get what the hell that means. Circus peanuts, as in the candy. She’s right. Those things are absolutely nasty. I’ll have to tell Harper Danni’s orange analogy. Much funnier than Harper’s burned carrot analogy.
“Who is she? Do I know her?” Danni asks, suddenly going from concerned and wary to animated and chipper.
“Her name is Douglass. You’ve never met her, but you know of her sister.”
She squints one eye in thought. “Douglass is a very unusual name for a girl.”
Feeling like I need to defend Douglass, I reply, “It’s Scottish for black waters and was a popular name for girls in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England.”
I may have looked it up because I was curious.
“You must really like her if you’re Googling the meaning of her name. Wow. Who would’ve thought? Jordan Hammond has finally been shot through the heart with Cupid’s arrow. How does it feel? Does it burn? I bet it burns. Like having a hot poker jabbed directly into your chest.”
