A Flighty Fake Boyfriend (Men of St. Nachos #2) - Z.A. Maxfield Page 0,6
relaxing, remember?”
“It’s hard.” If there was a whine in my voice, he didn’t call me on it. “I can’t kid myself that everything won’t be waiting for me when I get back.”
“I understand.”
“It piles up.”
“I know.” Daniel’s eyes were kind, his voice gentle. “But take it from a fellow workaholic. It will still be there. You can’t do your job if you burn out.”
I knew that. I was just a piece on the board, and while I was gone, other people—capable, dynamic, intelligent people—were doing their best. Only I found it impossible to let go when lives might hang in the balance.
“It’s hard to ease off the throttle.” I fussed with my silverware.
“Oh, don’t I know it.” Dan trapped my hand against the table. “But you can’t help anyone if you don’t take care of yourself.”
Throat tight, I nodded.
I’d hidden the truth from myself for so long that I’d begun to believe my lies. The reality—my reality—was that I was an emotional and physical mess. I’d been barely hanging on for so long that letting go seemed insurmountable.
If you let go now, the lie whispered, you’ll never get a grip again.
Keep going. Keep going. Don’t stop until you can’t go any more.
At some point, soup appeared before me, along with homemade corn and flour tortillas. I tasted nothing. I ventured a beer, and then over the course of dinner, I had two more.
“Last one.” I felt pleasantly buzzed but not drunk.
“That’s good.” Daniel eyed me sympathetically.
I tried not to take it personally. “I don’t usually drink like this. But this fucking wedding…”
“Come on. You’ve been over Luis for years.”
“I know.”
“You can’t be that nervous.”
“I’m not nervous, precisely. I’m ordinarily paralyzed somewhere between outrage and fear. If you add in Luis’s fantasy five-star wedding? I feel catatonic. Might as well drink and enjoy the oblivion.”
“Hold on.” Daniel sat back in his chair, his brown eyes filled with anxiety and pain. “I’m really starting to worry about you. Will you promise me something?”
“I’m fine, Daniel.”
He ignored that. “Promise me you’ll talk to a therapist the minute you get home.”
“Oh, I plan to, even though I already know what they’ll say. Quit drinking. Quit smoking. Eat healthy. Reduce the work hours. Meditate. Try yoga.”
“So why don’t you do those things?”
“I will.” The promise didn’t feel like a lie. I was pretty sure it was, though. “Plus, I’ll go to the doctor as soon as this goddamn fiasco is over. Will that make you happy?”
Dan cuffed my arm. “I’m already happy. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“And?”
He reached across the table to cover my hand. “It’s a start.”
Chapter Three
While Daniel caught up with some friends in the bar, I went outside for a smoke. The look of protest he shot me would have stopped a better man. I promised to change after the wedding, and I would. I just couldn’t bring myself to think about quitting then.
My buzz gave me a pleasantly swimmy head and a full belly.
I lit up a smoke.
I knew my lifestyle wouldn’t help me with my problems, but lately I’d lost my way. When that happened, I never turned around to go back the way I’d come, or asked for directions, or did anything rational like look at a map. I always kept going forward at full speed, certain I’d find where I was going sooner or later. Nobody but me had to know how lost I felt.
Of course I compounded my misery by checking my phone for messages.
I had close to a hundred emails from different people and news organizations. Our negotiations with regard to getting vital shipping manifests were breaking down in one region of the world while it looked like local authorities weren’t making any headway in securing the release of nine trafficked schoolgirls in another. On top of that, drone footage of a particularly troubling series of encampments that could only be forced labor camps had suddenly stopped transmitting.
I was only a conduit, really. I received and collated data from people who risked their lives to document the work of traffickers and the suffering of their victims. Yet I felt the responsibility keenly. It made me sick to envision failure.
I held my cigarette with shaking fingers and shoved the pack into the pocket of my jacket.
“I thought I saw you out here.” Epic, my mysterious server, climbed onto the wall separating the boardwalk from the sand and slid beside me. “Are you going to light your hair on fire again?”