Bottleneck Page 12

  I can’t hack it at home as well as at work.

  “I’m sorry, Mom.” I set the fresh whiskey on the floor and then step forward to pull her against me. “I’m sorry I blew up at you like that. I’m just … I don’t know.”

  She tucks her hands to my chest, burying her face against my shoulder while silent sobs shake her body.

  “I know you mean well, but I need this space to be myself, free of judgment.”

  “I get that,” she sniffles, pulling back. “But I can’t tolerate what you do when none of it helps to heal the damage you’ve done to yourself.”

  “Fuck’s sake.” I scoop the drink off the floor and then wrench the back door open. “No judgment. That’s all I ask for: no fucking judgment from you.”

  She has nothing to add, no last parting words as I head outside and march toward my studio. I don’t even bother to shut the door after me considering it would mean I have to turn back and chance another comeback from her.

  Why is it the people around me think that harping on about my failures and shortcomings is the best way to get me to change? How do they honestly think that continually pointing out how much of a fuck up I am is the motivator to cleaning up my act?

  Two steps from the top and the crisp white LED headlights sweeping across the walls inside my room have me considering jumping off the side so that I can get a peaceful night in the ER.

  Instead, I set the drink down on the railing and fish out a cigarette to wait the bitch out. Two-thirds of the way through the stick and she shows at the foot of the external staircase.

  “You left without me.”

  The headlights recede as her ride leaves. “And?”

  “You left without me,” she repeats an octave higher. “Have you got any idea how embarrassing that was needing to explain where you’d gone?”

  “I’m surprised you noticed.”

  Her anger quickly morphs into cruel satisfaction as she moves up the steps. “Is that jealousy I detect in your tone, Emery?”

  “Boredom.” I turn my head to exhale.

  “Bullshit.” Deanna reaches the landing; I haven’t decided if I’ll let her inside. “You’re jealous.”

  “I’m too tired to stand around like a spare dick while you work a room, Dee. That’s not jealousy—it’s frustration.”

  “I bet it made you mad seeing those men fawn over me, didn’t it?” She nudges a knee between my legs, in turn hitching the dress up her thigh.

  I keep my head turned so that the bitch had no reason to try and kiss me. “Not in the slightest.” I reach for my bottle.

  She knocks it clean out of my hand. Any hope I’d had of a quiet night before I turn in sails to the ground below, smashing into pieces on the paved path. And breathe … The last thing I need is a pending murder case.

  “That was close to a full bottle, Deanna.”

  “Oh, whoops.” Her brows peak, one hand held delicately before her mouth. “Why did you leave, Emery?”

  “I told you.” She backs up a step after I shunt her in the cunt with my hip, allowing me to turn for the door. “Bored.” I let myself in and promptly turn to body-block her.

  The slender bitch ducks under my arm. “No other reason?”

  I mutter a string of curses as I shut the door and turn to find her lurking around the space like a damn cat that’s managed to get inside for the night: smug, and arrogant.

  “What the fuck are you looking for?”

  She bursts into the bathroom and then slacks when she doesn’t find what she expected.

  “I picked you up something on the way over,” she says softly in a voice far too sweet for her appearance. “To say that I missed you.”

  A small bag drops from her hand to the coffee table, clear and with two bites of heaven inside. Oxy. She brought me Oxy.

  Fuck. The woman knows how to speak to my weaknesses. “Thanks, babe.”

  “You want to share?”

  I eye the bag, echoes of my mom’s words rattling somewhere in the recesses of my brain. Wherever the memories are, they aren’t loud enough to drown out temptation.

  One of those suckers and I could end this night pretending Deanna is whoever the fuck I want her to be while she rides me like she owns me.

  No prizes for guessing who.

  When I make no move for the bag, Deanna takes it upon herself to peel the edges apart. “Come here, baby.” She jerks her head toward the armchair while pinching a tab out of the bag with her long nails. “Let me take care of you.”

  With a frown, I make my way over and drop into the seat. There are a thousand reasons why I shouldn’t do this, but none are as good as the single reason why I will.

  “You look tired,” Deanna coos, straddling my wide legs. “So many months away without a real break.” Peering out from beneath her ridiculously long lashes, she pinches my chin in her hand. “Open up, baby.”

  My jaw drops on command, gaze fixated on the tiny package that’ll give me the break away from reality I both deserve and crave. Her fingertip moves closer, a wicked smile curling her enhanced lips—lips I paid for.

  I close my eyes and focus on the weight of the tab when she sets it on my tongue, the nudge of her finger as she coaxes me to close, and the familiar taste of powder and pain while I let the substance melt into my system.

  “Feeling better?” Her weight disappears from my legs as I nod. “Nobody knows how to take care of you like I do, Emery. Remember that next time you think of her.” Deanna’s voice grows distant, and I can’t pick if it’s because she moves farther away or if it’s because I do. “Here.” Cold glass touches my hand. “For when you get thirsty.”

  My fingers find a home on the familiar cylinder, body lax as I slide further into the seat.

  The click of the door echoes loud inside my head, but the meaning behind the noise doesn’t register as I reach for the weightless reprieve waiting past the crawl of my nerves.

  “Nobody knows how to take care of you like I do …”

  Nobody else would dare.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Alice

  “One Week” – Barenaked Ladies

  I could avoid this visit no more than I could avoid my mother’s calls: ignorance would be fleeting. My last session was scheduled for a month ago, but the second we got the call up to support the Lords of London, I canceled everything. Including the one thing that makes me feel less like a twenty-six-year-old trapped in an eighty-year-old’s body.

  “Eish.” I wince, sucking air in between my teeth as the needle slides in.

  “Like I say, honey,” Greg, my acupuncturist remarks. “The more you need it, the more it stings when they go in.” His gentle hands massage around the intruder sticking out of my back. “Better now?”

  “Yeah. It’s easing.” I go back to scrolling my social feeds underneath the table, my face shoved in the padded hole.

  “You should take the time to unplug,” he tuts, moving around the table to start on my other side. “Put that thing down and relax.”

  “Says the man putting twenty needles in my back.”

  “Exactly.” He taps a spot before slipping in the fine sliver of metal. “I have a front-row seat to how tense you are.” He pricks another two points before adding, “Anything you want to share?”

  I’m not exactly a private person in that my choice of career leaves me somewhat open, but I’m also not the kind to go spilling my guts to just anyone. Which is why, on my first visit four years ago, I was shocked at how easily Greg made me open up.

  The result of a lifetime in his profession, I suppose.

  “I spoke to my mother.”

  His hands stall before he resumes placing the final acupuncture needles. “And?”

  “She said I have to attend Christmas.”

  Greg snorts, shifting to bin the tiny plastic sleeves. “Christmas isn’t a show you buy tickets for, Alice. You don’t attend it. You participate.”

  “I participate.” I let my arms go lax when the phone slips to blac
k. “I buy gifts, and I donate to charities.”

  “Gifts for your family?” His legs stall on the outskirts of my vision.

  “For the people who matter.”

  His sudden intake of breath feigns shock. “I’m going to overlook the fact I didn’t get one last year.”

  I chuckle, noting how much the tension in my spine has eased already. “You said yourself that you’re not a material person.”

  “Unless it’s a gift from the heart,” he jests. “Honestly, though. Don’t you think this might be good?”

  “I can’t decide.”

  “You’ve pined for closure the whole time I’ve known you,” he says from the door. “And now that it’s offered, you’re shying away. Why?”

  Perhaps because closure is what I thought I’d get when I turned up on Emery’s doorstep? And look how that turned out.

  My fist flexes on the smart device. “I don’t know.”

  “Well.” He flicks the light off. “Take the next twenty minutes to try and work it out, huh? Holler if you need me.”

  I bring the screen back to life and scroll through Mom’s texts. Each one is curter than the last. I’ve ruminated over what it is that makes me hold back when healing for my fractured heart is on offer, and all I can come up with is that I’m not ready to risk the consequences if it doesn’t go well.

  Up until now, I was okay with whatever would come from discussions with my family because I had the girls. But now that Fria crashes with friends until she finds her next apartment, and Shanae is distant because of her worry over how we’ll afford a place on our own, I’m more vulnerable than ever.

  I can’t risk losing my real family when I barely hang on to the one that I chose.

  And all over a fucking guy. A goddamn jerk who lives his life of ignorance, unaware of what he does to mine every time he shows up in it.

  My angry thumbs hack out a message before I listen to the voice of reason screaming at me to put the phone down and do what Greg says.

  A: Thanks for fucking up my life.

  A: Again.

  I don’t want a response; I don’t expect one. There was simply a burning need inside me to make sure he can’t be too blind this time to realize what he’s done.

  I allow my eyes to slip closed and bring my arms up to the table to save them going numb. Greg’s magic works its wonders on my aching joints and ligaments, bringing me a level of comfort I haven’t experienced in close to three months now. If I could live floating weightless in a tub of warm water, I would. But until then, this is the next best thing.

  My thoughts mingle, strange stories coming to life behind my eyelids as I slip to that sweet spot between sleep and wake. I have the making of a fantastic lyric swirling in my mind when the vibration of my phone in hand sends the words scattering into the fog.

  Fuck it. I drop the device to the floor, frustrated that Mom would interrupt my quiet time. At the same second that the recollection of who I messaged last comes screaming back into the forefront of my mind, I see it: Emery’s reply.

  E: Tell me what you expect me to do to fix it.

  I reach for the phone, but the damn massage table is just high enough that my fingertips barely graze the screen. Shit. The more I read his response, the more I wonder if he said it with genuine care or sarcasm. Sarcasm. Think about whose message it is, Alice. Of course, he’s a smartass.

  For all I know, he’s fucking drunk again.

  The table rocks beneath me as I shuffle to the very edge. My heart leaps to my throat when the legs squeak on the linoleum; I was so fucking sure that was it, and Greg would find me in a heap on the floor. But somehow, I manage to pull off the impossible and get enough of a sticky grip with my fingertip that I can flick the phone into the reach of my hand better.

  I swoop it up, righting myself as Greg calls out through the curtain. “You okay?”

  “Fine. Had an itch,” I bullshit back.

  My thumbs are already two-thirds of the way through the reply.

  A: Nothing. You’d just end up making things worse.

  His retort has no delay.

  E: Did you message me for anything useful, or just to be a cunt?

  A: Nice one, Em. Call me names to make yourself feel better.

  E: Nothing makes me feel better. Ever.

  I freeze, reading and re-reading his reply. He spoke in the past tense, as though referring to past times where he tried to ease his guilt. Surely, he doesn’t mean he feels bad about how he spoke to me last? No. Regret isn’t a word our dear Emery is familiar with.

  What the hell does he mean, then?

  Every warning bell in my system fires to life, cautioning me away from what I do next. I shut them down and tap his number onto speaker anyway. I don’t do this for him; I do it for me. To appease my guilt should he be tomorrow’s headline.

  At least I can say I did as much as I possibly could.

  “Blunt messages weren’t enough?” he rasps down the line. “Thought you better call and abuse me properly?”

  “What’s wrong with your voice?”

  He sighs, the rush of air husky. “Seriously, Alice. If the next thing out of your fucking mouth isn’t halfway to nice, I’m hanging up.”

  My throat pushes against the padding as I swallow. “I was concerned.” Is he bitching about being nice after the way he spoke to me? Typical.

  “Concerned with what?” He laughs bitterly. “That I didn’t get the message? Got it loud and clear, sweetheart. I fuck up your life. No need to worry; I’ll keep out of your way. Thought we made that clear last week anyway.”

  “Em,” I plead. “I sent that message on impulse, okay? I’ve got a lot going on, and what you did with Fria has really messed things up.” Shit between us aside.

  “Hanging up in five, four, three—”

  “Talk to me,” I sing, heart in my throat.

  The reply he used to give me hangs unspoken between us, only Annie Lennox’s voice completing the chorus in my mind.

  “We aren’t lovers, Alice. Never were.”

  The back and forth started as a joke. I held out hope that when we continued our stupid echo to each other all those years ago that he felt the way I did—what a fool.

  “I know.” I bite my bottom lip. “But we were friends once. Why did you drunk text me last week? What’s going on, Em?”

  “Nothing.” His voice dips low. Raw and throaty. Emotional.

  “Has something happened?”

  “You could say that.” Emery sighs. “I have to go, Alice. Great chat.” There’s no denying the sarcasm in that response.

  “Yeah. Sure.” I disconnect before he can, wanting to maintain some semblance of the upper hand.

  Phone gripped in my palm; I lie unmoving until Greg returns to the room. The curtain rings scrape as he lets himself in, his moccasin-clad feet soft on the floor below.

  “Have any epiphanies while I was gone?”

  I smile into the table, eyes misty as I stare at the simple swirls on the floor. “One too many.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Emery

  “Infected” – Bad Religion

  “He’s going to need close attention,” the Vet presses as I stroked Mosaic’s back. “He’ll have trouble standing until that shoulder settles, and you’ll need to be there to make sure he doesn’t try anything silly like climbing or jumping. Too much pressure could pop the joint again, and then we’re looking at surgery and rods.”

  The deepest parts of his coat are so soft—my favorite. “I understand.”

  “I’ve detailed out how often he needs the medication for these first few days. After that, wean him off half a tablet every twenty-four hours and see how he goes.”

  I nod, not even looking at the guy as I meet my dog’s eyes.

  Stupid dick thought it would be a good idea to skip a few steps on the way down the staircase in his haste to get outside for a walk. It turns out dogs don’t do so well when one of their legs slips between the risers while the rest of their
body keeps moving forward.

  “If he shows signs of favoring the good leg when you come back in for the check-up in two weeks, we may have to discuss physiotherapy.”

  This dog has just increased his value ten-fold.

  The guy’s eyes soften a little as he sighs. “Leave him here with me while you settle the bill out front and make the next appointment.” He reaches to a high shelf on his side of the examination table and produces a treat for Mosaic. “It’ll be easier than trying to keep him calm around the other animals in the waiting room.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I ruffle my pal’s ears. “I’ll be back soon, buddy.”

  After checking the details on the invoice and draining the better part of my bank account, I collect my damn dog and head for the car. He weighs no less than forty-five pounds, his bulk making it fucking difficult to get the keys out of my pocket while I keep him balanced against my chest.

  This would have been so much easier if Deanna had come along to help as I asked. But no, she had more important things to do. Like, buy the latest activewear that’s more decorative than it is practical.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’s screwing that douche from the gym already.

  “Fuck.”

  Mosaic fidgets in my arms, edging to get down.

  “Nope.” I prop one foot against the rail of my truck and set his weight on my thigh while I retrieve the keys. Finally. “You can’t stand on it yet, buddy.”

  I praise the fact I chose to keep a ridiculously impractical vehicle as my runabout while I’m home and hoist the doors open on my Tacoma. Making Mosaic comfortable, I catch my breath and stare at the sorry looking son-of-a-bitch.

  “You won’t be doing that again in a hurry, will you?”

  He bows his head, eyes large as he peers up at me from under his doggy lashes. I check he’s settled in the seat correctly and then shut his door to open mine.

  My fucking ass vibrates before I can lift a damn leg.

  Whipping the phone out without checking the display, I bark my greeting. “What?”

  “I need you to transfer some money.” Deanna’s equally as blunt and to the point.