“A professional, I mean,” Nix said easily, like he was suggesting something completely normal, instead of suggesting that I needed to get my head shrunk. That I was crazy or had some kind of problem. “It might help, you know, to untangle some of the—”
“I don’t need professional help,” I said sharply. “It’s just a preference. Not some sort of disorder.”
“Sorry,” Nix said immediately, his eyes widening a little. “I’m just trying to help. I see a therapist regularly, and it has nothing to do with disorders. It’s just like tuning up the car.”
“You can do whatever you want,” I said. “I don’t need a shrink.”
“Right,” Nix said with a defeated little sigh.
I almost felt bad. But—I didn’t want him to butt into my business like that. I just wanted to talk to him, openly. To him. Not to a shrink. And the fact that he thought I needed one smarted a little. Even if he claimed to see one, too.
“Sorry for prying. You can pry into my life now, in return.” Nix gave me a tentative smile, like he was extending an olive branch, trying to smooth over the sudden awkwardness between us. Then he sat up and reached for his shirt where I’d tossed it carelessly on the blanket. As he reached over, the name tattooed on his back caught my attention again. Sienna.
I reached over and trailed my fingers gently across the ink. “You finally going to let me pry into this?”
Nix sighed a little. “If you want.”
“Who is she?” I asked. It had to be someone special for Nix to get her name tattooed on him like that.
“She is—was—an ex,” he said.
Was. So something had happened to her? From the look on his face, Nix clearly didn’t want to go into too much detail. “You must’ve loved her a lot,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah, I did.” He looked like he was half-expecting me to ask more questions, but his expression was closed-off, almost hurt, and despite my curiosity I didn’t want to poke too hard at an old wound. But this did spark new curiosity in me, too.
“So,” I asked tentatively. “You’re bi?”
Nix just shrugged. “Something like that.”
That was kind of a confusing answer. I tilted my head a little to the side and was about to press for more detail when Nix’s phone, abandoned in the grass, began to buzz and ring. The ringtone, though quiet, was enough to shock me out of the stillness and the bubble of privacy I felt with him.
To my dismay, Nix rolled over and grabbed the phone. “Ah, sorry,” he said to me, as he clambered to his feet and then answered the call.
I dropped flat onto my back and gazed up at the sky. A few yards away, Nix was pacing back and forth while he talked on the phone in a low, careful voice.
I didn’t know anything about this beloved ex. I didn’t know anything about the call that had interrupted our make-out session a couple weeks ago. And now, I didn’t know anything about whoever was on the other end of this line, either.
I had hardly any secrets—hell, I’d even mentioned my mom to him, which I never did, to anyone. But it seemed like every time I thought I was getting closer to Nix, something else came up that made me feel even more in the dark or unimportant in his life, even though I knew I didn’t have much right to feel that way. Not yet.
I folded my arms under my head as I stared up at the sky, trying not to get too lost in my cyclical thoughts as Nix finished up the phone call. After a few minutes, he dropped down on the blanket next to me again, looking a little sheepish. “Sorry about that,” he said.
“Don’t need to leave this time?” I asked. “Not gonna run off to meet another guy?”
“What?” Nix reared back, his brow furrowed. “Why would you think that?”
I sat up. “What am I supposed to think?”
Nix shook his head, half in disbelief and half in frustration. “I literally just told you I don’t do hookups,” he said. “And that I like you. Why would I be going to hook up with someone else?”
That was a good point. But I still felt that twinge of confusion and jealousy. I shrugged. “You tell me!”
“It was my sponsee calling,” Nix said.
“Sponsee?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“I’m a sponsor in the AA group I work with,” Nix explained. He stood up and finished pulling on his clothes. “So when members join and need support in their sobriety, I’m there to help them. Part of that means that when my sponsee calls, I answer, if at all possible. He could be on the brink of a relapse—like he was when I left a few weeks ago—or just need a friendly voice to talk through a problem.”
Well. That wasn’t what I was expecting. I got dressed in a hurry, too. “Oh.”
“Yeah. I try not to talk about it too much, because I want to protect their privacy, too. It’s not easy, those early days.”
We rolled up the blanket together, packing it down to the small size. I paused and chewed at the edge of my thumbnail while Nix stuffed the blanket into the saddlebag. He was really involved in this whole AA thing—not just attending himself, but helping others get clean, too. Did he talk to them the same way he talked to me? Encouraging them to get help and shit like that?
Did he see me not as an equal, but as a charity case?
There was that twist of anxiety again.
“I’m not—” I cut myself off, biting my lip.
Nix glanced over his shoulder at me, brow furrowed curiously. “Not what?”
“I’m not a project,” I said.
Nix turned around. “What do you mean?”
“If that’s what you’re thinking,” I said. “That you can get close to me and then try to fix me, like one of your sponsees—I don’t need that.”
His expression darkened. “You really think that’s what I’m doing here?”
“I don’t know!” I admitted, and my voice sounded too loud and desperate even to my own ears. “I don’t know what your angle is. You’re confusing as fuck.”
Then Nix’s expression softened. “I’m not trying to fix anyone,” he said, but there was no heat in his words. “I like you. And I’m trying to figure this out as we go. I’m not trying to mislead you.”
I sighed and carded my hands through my hair, the anxiety washing away under his soft gaze and replaced with guilt and a little bit of shame. I turned my back to him and gazed out over the lake. What was it about these interactions that made me so defensive and reactive? It was like he kept accidentally hitting these soft spots I didn’t even know were there. But every time I lashed out, he just met me with gentleness and understanding. And I didn’t know how to handle it.
“Hey,” Nix said.
I turned around.
He held out the helmet. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
I stepped closer and took the offered helmet. “Uh,” I said, a little thrown by the sudden change of topic.
I hadn’t thought much about Thanksgiving, but Nix was right—it was right around the corner. Just a few days away. I’d assumed Brennan and I would be spending it together, like we had in the past, but then Brennan had dropped that he was spending the holiday with Joker and the club.