I? An eighty-year-old woman?
“My dad used to make me tea when I was little and couldn’t sleep.” She picked up the box she’d dropped on the counter. “Chamomile, valerian root, and lavender. It’s always worked for me.” She tilted her head and looked off in the distance, a wistful smile transforming her face in a way that made my chest tighten. “Or maybe it was just knowing that he was there that relaxed me.” She shrugged, then tucked a piece of hair behind her ear nervously when she caught me watching her. “I guess it’s kind of my comfort food…except it’s comfort tea. Anyway, do you have anything like that? A comfort food? I can make it for you.”
There was something about seeing her all sleep-rumpled and soft that made me answer honestly.
“A few shots of vodka usually does the trick.” I rolled the glass of water between my hands.
“Oh.” Her eyes flared momentarily with surprise, then softened in understanding. “Okay, well, when you were a kid, what worked? Warm milk? A bedtime story?”
“As a kid, no one gave a shit if I was sleeping as long as I was quiet.” I snapped my jaw shut. Why the hell had I said that?
“Oh.”
I guessed that was her word of choice this evening…morning, whatever it was.
“Not everyone grows up with a picket fence and a dad who makes tea.” Shit, I really needed to shut up.
Her lips parted, but before she could respond, the kettle whistled. She took it off the burner, then filled two mugs with steaming water, followed by a tea bag each. Then she carefully carried them to the island.
“I like mine with honey,” she said. “Would you like to try it?” She looked at me without pity or judgment for the way I’d snapped at her. She seemed…patient.
“Sure. I mean, yes. Please. That would be great. It’s in—”
She was already opening the correct cabinet. Not that I should have been surprised. The woman knew more about my life than I did most of the time, but I knew almost nothing about her personal life.
“Tell me about it…what it’s like to grow up with a dad who makes tea.” If nothing else, maybe she’d bore me into a state of sleep.
“It was…normal, I guess. But everyone thinks their childhood is normal when they’re in it, right?” She took the tea bags out of the mugs.
“I guess.” I hadn’t. I’d known by the time I was seven that something was very fucked up in my corner of the world. “What are your parents like?”
She smiled as she stirred honey into both cups. “My parents are both teachers. Dad handles high school English and Mom tackles kindergarten. Everyone in our little town jokes that the kids start with Mom and end with Dad.” She pushed my cup toward me, and I took it, exchanging it for the tepid water. “My older brother is a hell-raiser.” She laughed softly, shaking her head.
“What?” The cup warmed my hands, and I gave it a second to cool off.
“I was just thinking that label’s relative. Jeremiah has nothing on you. I bet you’d blow my little town apart at the seams.” She grinned, then took a sip of her tea.
“And that would be a good thing?” I leaned forward.
“Since this is purely theoretical, it would be a fun thing to watch.” She shrugged. “Small towns are a whole different world. You grew up in Tacoma, right?”
I drank my tea, ignoring her question. It wasn’t half bad. “Tell me more about this whole different world.”
She relaxed with each story she told, and in the half hour it took to drink that tea, Zoe Shannon transformed from an uptight, scheduled pain-in-the-ass, to a funny, intriguing woman I might have genuinely liked in another life.
A life where I wasn’t a self-medicating asshole incapable of conquering my own selfishness. But I was said asshole, and guys like me didn’t go for girls like her because those girls knew we weren’t nearly good enough to bring home to dads who made tea.
And for a small sip of a second, I kind of wished I was the guy who was.
My legs screamed as Buckcherry pounded through my headphones.
I pushed my body past the point of exhaustion as my feet hammered out a steady rhythm on the treadmill.
One good thing rehab had given me—besides a shot at sobriety—was a chance to get back into running again. My mind emptied when I ran, as if my feet literally carried me away from