Speakeasy (True North #5)(72)

It’s a little chilly in here. That must be why I snuggle in beside him and let him put his arm around me. “I’m not sure. I’ve never watched this show before, so I don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“I see.” His lips graze my ear, and he tucks me closer to his chest, taking care not to touch my bruised face.

“What’s up with you?” I whisper.

“Nothing good. But, shh. The policeman is going to interview someone.”

I turn back to the screen where a soap opera cop is interrogating the boyfriend of the missing baby’s mother. “I didn’t do it,” the boyfriend says.

Of course he says that.

We watch until the end, and I sneak glances at Alec. He looks tired. But he seems to relax beside me, one of his hands idly smoothing the length of my hair. After a criminal investigation, a sobbing confession, and two love scenes, the credits roll. I raise the clicker and mute the TV. “That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

“I didn’t mind it,” Alec says. “What comes on next?”

“Reruns of Myth Busters.”

“Awesome. Oh—I brought you these.” He hands me two fresh magazines, and a little box from Lake Champlain Chocolates.

“Oh, wow. Fancy. Thank you.”

He massages my good hand.

“Alec?” He turns to look at me. “Why did you come?” I blurt out. “I wasn’t very nice at the hospital.” I don’t know why he’s still here when I’ve been so difficult.

“You’re the person I most want to talk to, that’s all,” he says. “I needed to tell someone about my shitty day, and I pick you. Sorry.” Then he stretches out on the sofa, his head in my lap.

I look down at him, using my good hand to gently trail my fingers through his hair, and he sighs. Then I massage his scalp, and he closes his eyes.

Little by little I’m realizing that Alec sometimes feels needy, too. Just because a person projects confidence doesn’t mean his life is all sunshine and rainbows.

Maybe I haven’t cornered the market on neediness. And if Alec needs me, it’s just possible that I don’t have to be a perfect human being to make him feel better.

I may have been thinking about this all wrong.

“Tell me the shittiest thing about your day,” I say quietly. “No—tell me all the shitty things. I want to hear every gory detail.” It’s true, too. Even if I’m still a hot mess, I can listen with the best of them.

His brown eyes flicker open. He sees me looking down at him, and then he closes them again. “I fired Smitty just before I came over here,” he says. “Had to.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“It turns out he sold some growlers of Goldenpour out the back door and helped himself to the illegal cash. When I confronted him, he admitted it right away.”

“Oh no.” My heart aches for Alec. And for Smitty, too.

“Oh yes. Giltmaker cut me off. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s a pretty big problem for me.”

Wow. “At least he told you the truth when you asked. Now you don’t have to second guess yourself wondering if you fired the wrong guy.”

Alec is quiet for a second. “He admitted it, but he wasn’t very remorseful. I said, ‘You stole from me.’ And you know his reply? He said, ‘I never took money from the till.’ Like there’s a big difference there.”

Ouch. “That was his hard limit.”

“What?”

“Most addicts have one—a line he won’t cross. And if he never does that one awful, scary thing, then he can convince himself he doesn’t really have a problem.”

Alec turns his head and fixes those dark eyes on me. “Did you have a hard line?”

This is the moment when I usually clam up about my alcoholism. And I still have a choice. I can keep the ugly details to myself. But it’s dawning on me that I have nothing to lose. If I duck Alec, he’ll give up on me. If I frighten him off, the result is the same. “My hard line was drinking in the morning before school. Because only a drunk would do that.”

His brown eyes regard me curiously. “And did you ever do that?”

“Yeah,” I say, nearly choking on the word.

He doesn’t break eye contact at all. He just looks back at me with eyes that are deep pools of affection. Then he takes the palm of my good hand and kisses it lovingly. “You don’t scare me, May Shipley.”

Naturally my eyes get hot, because it’s such a nice thing to say. But I don’t want to cry. So I lean over very carefully and kiss him on the lips.

He lifts his chin to kiss me back, like he’s been waiting all this time for me to do that.

The angle is terrible, but it doesn’t matter a bit. We sink into the kiss like we’re born to it. And maybe we are. I’m still scared of loving Alec and then having it blow up in my face.

It’s just that I’m more scared of never loving Alec.

And because nothing is ever simple, my brother Griffin picks that moment to walk into the room. “May, is this meeting the one that starts at five thirty—” He makes a growly sound when he realizes who I’m kissing on the sofa.

I straighten up. “Five thirty in South Royalton.” I’m not supposed to drive for another week until they look at my hand again, so family members are driving me to AA meetings.