I shrug. “Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes that’s what you learn from things like this—that there are situations you can’t put yourself in. Or not, at least, until you have the tools to handle them.”
“I can’t avoid parties forever.”
I raise a brow. “Actually, from personal experience, you can absolutely become a hermit and avoid all forms of social interaction indefinitely.”
She makes a face at me, but she’s grinning all the same. “Oh, please. Like you weren’t a little social butterfly at that gore-fest gallery show. All wit and suave seltzer-serving.”
“With you,” I say. “You in particular.”
I can’t take the words back once I’ve said them, so I have to sit here and watch her arch one brow, her lipsticked mouth curving into a smile.
Change the subject change the subject change the subject—
“I have a book I’d like to show you,” I find myself saying. “What are you doing next week? I can bring it to you.”
Ely whips her head around to look at me so damn fast it’d be comical if I didn’t feel like I was already on tenterhooks, leaning in toward her, hoping.
“Yes,” she says almost immediately. “Definitely. I mean…yes. I’ll be around. We could get coffee after lunch on Monday?”
“Sure. It’s a date.” Oops. Shit. Fuck. “I mean—”
Ely’s already grinning so broadly I can’t take it back now. She’s got to know what I really mean, anyway.
What the hell do you think you’re on right now, Cole?
Ely seems to be thinking the same thing, because she nudges her shoulder against mine. A second point of contact, her body heat warming my side. She could shift only slightly, and her thigh would rub against mine. She could reach down and lace our fingers together, perhaps guide my hand to her knee.
I’ve gotta pull back on this. I need to have some kind of control over myself.
But looking at her, my breath catches in my chest. From this distance I can see the tiny imperfections—the start of fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the pores, the couple of eyebrow hairs she forgot to pluck. It feels intimate. I feel lucky, in a way, to be allowed to see her so plainly. From farther away, I would have said she looked perfect.
This close, she is even more so.
I drag my gaze away, refocusing on the painting across from us in a fierce determination to pull myself the fuck together.
My goal in bringing her here was to get her to think differently about her art, and I accomplished that much.
But if I hoped today would be different—that I’d be able to look at Ely Cohen and see a student, a protégé, and nothing more—well. Judging from the low electric thrum that shimmers beneath my skin when she smiles, when she touches my arm in gratitude…
I’ve failed miserably.
* * *
■
On Sunday, I go to a meeting.
It’s the same crew, same faces, I’ve been seeing every year for the past decade. I’ve got every one of their stories written on my heart. Even with the people I don’t like, it feels like love. Sure, maybe the whole twelve-step thing doesn’t really feel like it’s for me, but the friendships do.
“Hey, man,” Marcus says after the close of meeting, as we’re all crowding around the refreshments table trying to steal the last dregs of coffee. “Want to go grab some pancakes or something? I missed dinner.”
“Breakfast at nine p.m.? You know me, I’m always down for that.”
Our favorite spot is four blocks away, which is a long walk when you’re starving but too short when you’re walking with a friend. The place is one of those dive diners that has been around forever. The pancakes are kind of shitty, and the coffee is burnt, but for Marcus and me, it’s a bit of a tradition.
The best booth is taken, so we settle in toward the back, Marcus all stretched out with his long legs angled toward one side so they don’t bump against mine under the table.
“So, tell me,” he says. “How have things been? Like…for real. Because I know you always hold back in meetings.”
From anyone else, that would come across as a scold. From Marcus, it’s just a statement of fact.
“It’s been an adjustment,” I admit. “Busy.”
“I bet. I mean, it’s been a while since you’ve had a job with an inflexible work schedule, right? Sounds like that’d be a rough change.”
“Easier than you’d think, really. Or maybe I just like the structure. I had worried I’d be less productive if I had to teach classes and grade projects, but if anything, I’m getting more work done. It’s like I take my free time more seriously now.”
Marcus shrugs. “We expand to fill the time that we have,” he says. “Or that’s what Ji told me, anyway. Feels like it might be a thing.”
I just hope I can keep it up for the rest of the semester and the following school year. I’m also well aware that I tend to distrust good things that happen to me; I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. If things go too well, at some point my brain will sabotage me. So…we’ll see how long this burst of productivity actually lasts.
“What about the girl?” he asks. I should have known Marcus wouldn’t avoid that subject for long. I bet he’s been sitting on it all week, only just keeping himself from texting me about it. Probably because he doesn’t want to feel like a gossip.
And suddenly, of course, I can’t look Marcus in the eye anymore. Downside to being friends with someone for nine years: You start to actually care what they think about you. And I don’t want Marcus to hear what I’m about to say and hate me for it. I knew he’d ask eventually, so I’ve run through this conversation so many times in my head. Half the time he’s sympathetic but firm, reminding me of my responsibilities, the precariousness of my sobriety—even after this long. The other half the time he’s so disgusted he can’t even look at me.
Even imaginary Marcus’s disappointment stings.
But I have to suck it up, because what’s the point of friends—or recovery, even—if you aren’t being honest? So I tell him about Ely. About this joke the universe is playing on us, like something out of one of those YouTube prank videos where any second a guy in a backward baseball cap is gonna jump out from behind the bushes and yell, Gotcha!
“Seems like you’ve only spoken to this girl a few times,” Marcus says once I’m finally done. “How do you know she’s even worth the risk?”
It’s a fair question, and it’s not like I haven’t asked myself the same thing more than once—usually while I’m lying in bed awake at night running through the laundry list of my personal failures and reliving the most embarrassing moments of my life.