“Yes.” I shudder and gooseflesh ripples up my arms as his lips graze my earlobe and then capture it, his teeth biting down ever so gently and tugging before he lets go and presses a firm kiss to the column of my throat. My eyes flutter closed, and I sigh. He’s got on his paramedic uniform, which is starched and stiff under my fingertips as I slide my hands across his chest and around his neck.
Our lips connect, and he pulls me to my feet, wrapping his arms around my waist, one hand falling down to cup my ass. But then he pauses and pulls back, which makes my eyes flutter open. He smirks. “Hart.”
“What?”
“Logan Hart Hawkins. It’s my mother’s maiden name,” he says and smiles. “And I’m a big fan of the color green. Like the forest, the grass, a hearty Christmas tree, a four-leaf clover, whatever. It’s a good color. Although thanks to your eyes, gray is gaining momentum.”
He kisses me again, his tongue claiming my mouth, and then he nips my lower lip. “Can we go upstairs?”
“The sooner the better,” I say, his lips still against mine.
20
Logan
When I pullinto the parking lot of the coffee shop in Old Orchard, I see Cookie standing by the door with two to-go cups in her hands. She’s dressed in typical Cookie style—rhinestone covered sunglasses, a pair of bright red jeans, and an oversized white t-shirt with the words Make Empathy Great Again on the front in big purple letters peeking out from under her open puffy winter coat.
If you’d told me when I entered rehab that the person who’d guide me through this sober life, who would end up meaning as much to me as my family itself, would be a fifty-five-year-old African American lesbian ex-lawyer turned dog groomer, I would have asked if you should be joining me in rehab. But Cookie, literally, is as important to my existence as air and a heartbeat. I jump out of the Pathfinder and walk over to her. She has her arms extended wide for a hug but a frown on her lips, currently coated in orange lipstick. “Where is my Chewie Baby?”
“Sorry Cookie. He’s with Terra,” I explain. “I had a late shift and then went somewhere after work so she kept him.”
Cookie sighs. “Give him my love. How’s he doing at the new place? How are you doing? And where were you last night? Out with those boys of yours? Was there a Bruins game or something?”
I smile and take the coffee she hands me as she starts to walk toward the ocean at the end of the street and motions for me to follow. “Chewie loves the new place. I love it. No, there wasn’t a Bruins game on, and I wasn’t with the guys. I was at my…girlfriend’s house.”
Cookie comes to a complete stop on the sidewalk, and I almost bump into her. Her chocolate eyes are wide and her mouth is open, but she quickly closes it and the corners pull up into a grin. “Oh Logan! You never told me you were dating let alone had a girlfriend.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly going on dates or looking for anything,” I reply, and we start walking again. “This kind of just crept up on me. But it’s great. She’s great.”
I tell Cookie the details—everything about how Chloe is my landlord, how she fell and asked me to take care of her, and how everything evolved from there. Cookie’s face remains serene and calm. She’s still smiling but when I’m done she doesn’t say anything for a moment. She sips from her cup, which I know is filled with Earl Grey tea, no milk and a ton of sugar because as she once told me, she likes it ‘sweet and dark, like me’.
“Have you been keeping up with meetings?” she says, which wasn’t what I was expecting.
“Yes. I saw you at one just last week, remember?”
She nods and pauses as we get to the end of the boardwalk, and she steps onto the sand. There’s a bench just to the left, next to the dunes, and she parks herself on it and pats the empty spot beside her. “Yes. I remember, but I still need to ask. I didn’t know you were jumping back into the dating waters, so I haven’t given you the speech yet. Now it’s overdue.”
“What speech?” I ask and sip my coffee, closing my eyes for a moment to inhale the salty smell of the ocean breeze.
“The one about how hard it is to be authentic in a relationship for anyone but how necessary it is for us, the drunkies.” Cookie says. “And the lows of a relationship, or more particularly the ending of one, can literally drive you to drink again if you let it.”
“I know it.”
She looks skeptical. Very. Here’s the thing about Cookie I think I like the most – she has absolutely no poker face. She’s also generally as blunt as a baseball bat. That part can be harder to take. “You know the thing about my twenty-year marriage that was the hardest part, the part that drove me to drink, was the lies. The lies I had to tell every damn day.”
“You were hiding the fact that you were a lesbian,” I remind her. “That’s a big lie.”
“Yeah, yeah but the little lies were a back-breaker too, Logan,” Cookie says as the wind whips her long, curly white hair around her. “The husband and I were a bad match because of more than just my hidden sexuality. He wanted a quiet wife who kept her opinions to herself. He wanted to be the alpha and expected me to be a submissive, delicate flower. Look at me. Do I look like a delicate flower?”
I laugh. She nods emphatically.
“Sweetheart, it’s real easy to not be true to yourself when you think you love someone and you think you need them,” Cookie explains. “That’s bad news for us, drunkies. And I know you aren’t even completely honest with me yet, so how can you have an honest romantic relationship?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, stunned. She’s never accused me of keeping anything from her before, and she’s been my sponsor for almost five years. “I tell you everything.”
“Oh sweetheart, I know in my heart that’s not true,” Cookie replies and pats my knee. “I can read people like a book, and whenever we talk about your path or you share with the group in meetings, I can see you biting something back. There’s more to what happened to you to make you sober than you let on. And there’re secrets you’re still keeping. At least from me. Are you keeping them from this Chloe too?”
I shake my head, but I can feel the tension in my neck when I do it. “She knows I’m an alcoholic.”
