Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,259

off to their next class.

She claps me on the back. “Good, we’ll see you next week then.”

“Wait … what?” I scramble, trying to find an excuse about why I can’t come back to teach.

“You’re sticking around for the foreseeable future, am I right? I don’t imagine you’ve found the answers to your internal dilemma just yet. So in the meantime, you can come here once a week and teach these kids. Because they enjoy it, and I think you do, too.”

Now I see why Presley always says she loves Hattie, but she’s pushy as hell. She is right, though … I don’t have much going on. And I still feel lost in my life, as if I’m searching for something. Teaching these kids once a week until I find what my next adventure might be, well, it could be fun.

“All right. I’ll see you next week. Or at home, in the middle of the night for a midnight drink.” I wink at her and see myself out, walking through the halls of the middle school.

This might not be my middle school, but it takes me back. The lockers, the smell of teenage angst and body odor in the air. Even in the summer, the bell system is still active, and the chime of it takes me back. I’m in a nostalgia-filled bubble by the time I reach the front of the school, pushing through the doors.

I peel the visitor sticker off my shirt, crumple it, and throw it in one of the garbage cans near the front pillar. Without a car, I can’t go anywhere far, so it’s a good thing Fawn Hill Middle School is only a stone’s throw from its measly Main Street. Plus, I’m a New Yorker … I’m used to hoofing it in heels for sixteen blocks.

An afternoon coffee, preferably iced with a pump of vanilla syrup, sounds like the perfect treat. The July sun is scorching, but I’m kind of getting used to the blinding heat of a small-town summer. In the city, the sun falls behind skyscrapers, and it’s all sweaty subway cars and rankled men in black business suits.

But here, out in the country, the air smells so sweet in the sunshine that I can practically inhale the rolling hills past Main Street. Everywhere you go, you’re met with harsh rays that lick up your skin, but the vitamin D leaves such a pleasant feeling that it’s easy to mind the humidity.

I’m almost at the coffee shop, my mouth watering for that cold brew, when my path is interrupted.

Up the sidewalk, a bunch of people suddenly emerge from the entrance of what looks like a church. I watch them, men and women, shuffle out, some of their faces neutral while others looked deep in thought.

Suddenly, the crowd parts and I see Fletcher, his hands stuffed in his pockets as he walks right toward me.

I contemplate ducking behind a garbage can in front of me, but then decide that is not at all something I would do. I am not a coward, even if the man makes my heartbeat jump into my throat every time I see him. Though as I near the church, and come so close to contact with Fletcher, I see the sign announcing why all of those people had been in there.

Alcoholics Anonymous.

The bottom of my stomach clenches, low and nauseous, and a barrage of emotions come over me. Fletcher was just in there, at an AA meeting. He’s an addict, just like …

My mother.

I remember now, Presley mentioning something about this before, but I’d honestly forgotten. And it all comes rushing back; how he didn’t drink at their wedding, or accompany us out to the Goat & Barrister, the local Fawn Hill bar, whenever I was in town.

“Uh, hi,” I say awkwardly, Fletcher approaching before I can carefully rearrange my expression to not look judgy or surprised.

He holds up his hand in a brisk wave, and then shoves it down in his pockets, looking like a man caught red-handed. “Hey. Uh …”

We both just kind of stand there, the uncomfortableness growing by the second.

“I was just in a meeting.” He points back toward the church, because this is so weird that we can’t not acknowledge it.

I shake my head, waving him off. “That’s supposed to be anonymous, right? You don’t need to explain.”

“Ryan, you just saw me walk out of there. I’m not ashamed of it, and it would be fucking strange if I tried to lie about it.”