Andy pulled his hoodie tighter, his gaze darting anywhere but at Eliza. “What are you doing?”
“You reached out last night around the fire, but circumstances prevented us from finishing that conversation, and it’s an important one. We are ready to listen, and if we can help you, we will.”
Andy exhaled hard as he stared at the stars.
“I’ve helped a number of friends when they’ve had issues with drugs. I can help you too.” Eliza leaned back on her swag, pleased she’d delivered her message as she planned.
Bree reached out to Andy. “It’s okay.”
The trickle of a giggle leaked from inside Andy’s cowl, before his bulk quivered with a hearty, bitter laugh.
Bree’s brows knotted in confusion and Lincoln shrugged.
Andy threw a narrow-eyed glare at Eliza. “I’ve already told you I haven’t touched drugs since college.”
Eliza started an unexpected backpedal, and Lincoln raised a finger as he stepped in. “You’ve been evasive since we met in LA. You’ve avoided all conversations about your life, and you’re apparently snippy at me because I somehow did something in college. What the heck is going on?”
Andy’s laugh stopped dead as he now aimed his glare at Lincoln. “Thanks, Mr. Successful, dripping in money, giving advice to all and sundry. Well, your advice isn’t always the greatest.”
A large branch leaning across the fire collapsed into the flames, puffing up a gray cloud of ash that wafted away in the growing breeze. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkening turquoise of the sky.
Lincoln broke a stick in two before he threw it onto the fire. “What are you talking about? I told you an hour ago you need to take responsibility for your life—”
Eliza inched toward Andy. “So if it’s not drugs, what is it?”
Andy pulled the cowl farther forward. Hunks of steaming, rhythmic breath escaped his cowl.
This was working. He had to acknowledge he needed help. The first step was always the hardest—acknowledging you couldn’t do this on your own.
Bree’s smile seemed forced. “It might be better if you talk about your life.”
The puffs of steam grew more insistent as Andy’s shoulders heaved. “You want to know why I don’t feel like talking about my life? It’s because I want to run away from it, that’s why.”
Eliza sighed with a subdued smile. A breakthrough, albeit a sad one. While she was able to ignore Lincoln’s insecure competition about success, Andy wasn’t. It was hurting him, and he needed to know it wasn’t a game worth playing. “It’s not about keeping up with others or even how much you earn, it’s—”
Andy’s caustic laugh forced her to jump. “You can never earn enough when you’ve got a massive gambling problem.”
“Gambling? I thought it was far worse than that.”
Andy buried his head in his hands. “It is far worse.”
The coals sizzled again as another drift of raindrops found the fire. Eliza mouthed to Lincoln, Say something. Lincoln simply shrugged. Eliza inched closer to Andy. “What can we do?”
Andy’s head shot up. “How about you go back in time and tell my college self to ignore Captain Moneybags here.” He jerked his head at Lincoln before rounding on him. “You know what was so bad about that tip you gave me back in college? It wasn’t that I lost money; it was that I won, and I won big. I lived it up and went back to that well when that money ran out and then I lost it all, but it sparked something that’s controlled me ever since.”
Andy’s bulk heaved, his breath short and sharp as he looked across the fire to Eddie. “You talked about journeys? At this point in my”—his fingers provided the sarcastic air quotes—“journey, if I could start again with a clean slate and no debts, I would be fine. I would never gamble again.”
Lincoln frowned. “But you always had money in college. You threw the biggest graduation party—”
“Yeah, I did—all from that one tip from you on the massive underdog in Flagstaff College going up against the might of number-one seed Clarendon University—and I wanted to share the love. I even lent money for Bree to go to that audition in New York, and I never saw that again.”
Bree’s mouth dropped open. Eliza threw an arm around her shoulders—even in the orange light she was pale. “Don’t bring her into your problems.”
The gusting wind flicked at the ropes of their swags and a distant rumble rolled over the lip of the crater and washed over them.
Eliza squeezed Bree’s shoulder. This hadn’t gone at all like she’d planned, but at least there was one upside to Andy’s rant—maybe this was the chance for Bree to deal with her baggage once and for all. “It’s okay to let it out. So you auditioned and it didn’t work out. You need to come to terms with your disappointment and move on. At least you were brave enough to try.”
Bree dissolved in a flood of sobbing and mumbling into Eliza’s chest. Three small words Eliza didn’t quite catch. “What was that?”
Bree’s voice drifted up to Eliza among snatches of wind and spitting coals. “I wasn’t brave.”
Eliza held silent, allowing the space for her friend’s story to finally come out into the open where it could be addressed. “You were brave, Breezy. You took your chance in the big city, stood proudly in the spotlight, and gave it your best. You put yourself out there when you walked onto that stage.”
Bree trembled under her arm. Another three small words, but this time Eliza caught them. They didn’t make any sense. “What did you say?”
Bree sat up, her cheeks glistening with tears, her cracking voice thin. Wavering. “I never went.”
“What do you mean you never went?”
“I got as far as the foyer, but I turned around and walked out.”
Lincoln’s mouth dropped open. Eliza could feel the heat pulsing not from the fire but from her left. Andy.
Eliza blinked hard. She had carried her friend through the bitter disappointment of a failed audition. “You lied to me?”
Bree’s sobs wracked her with tremors, punctuating any words that found their way out in sputtering fits and starts. “Wouldn’t get it . . . couldn’t do it . . . letting everyone down . . . I’m so sorry.”
Eliza forced her thoughts into order. “When I asked you why they turned you down, you told me they were looking for someone with more soul. That was a lie?”
“So . . . sorry . . . Lize.” Bree buried her head deeper into Eliza’s chest.
Andy kicked at the stones around the fire. “You’re joking? I gave you money to fulfill your dream—money I needed to deal with my own demons—and you blew it on a free trip to New York?”
Lincoln rose to his full height, hands on hips, and moved to stand next to Bree. “You can’t throw that back on her. You dug your own hole.”
Andy’s eyes narrowed as he stood. “You’re one to talk—you told me I couldn’t lose but you were wrong. When I lost, I lost big.”
“Yeah? How big?”
The heart of the fire released another shower of sparks to the gusting wind. Sloaney rushed to brush the embers from the swags, now dotted in glowing ashes.