Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,262

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“You should be really proud. It isn’t easy overcoming addiction.” She says this as if she has some deeper knowledge on the subject, and suddenly, I want to ask her how she knows.

My voice is low as I blink up at her. “Who says I’ve overcome it?”

Ryan nods. “You’re right, that was the wrong word. Conquer? Tame?”

She isn’t joking, and I can tell by the set of her caramel eyes that she’s trying to congratulate me in a genuine way.

“Those are better. When you’re an addict, there is no … overcoming it. It’s always right there, sitting just under the surface of your flesh. Most days, I feel like it’s going to swallow me whole, and I only escape the pull by the skin of my teeth.”

Hell, that was way deeper than I wanted to get. And now Ryan is looking at me with a timid, almost fawn-like indecision in her eyes. Should she stay and see if I put one right between her eyes? Or should she bolt, running far away?

I didn’t think it was possible to scare a woman like her off. Apparently, I also had never voiced how difficult maintaining my sobriety was. And I’d just chosen the worst possible candidate to reveal the gritty, rough reality.

12

Ryan

I can’t fall in love with an addict.

Growing up in the clutches of one, I know how dangerous it is to trust them with your heart.

Shit, why the hell was love even on the tip of my tongue. I haven’t even been on a real date with Fletcher Nash, and that coffee we shared after his AA meeting surely doesn’t count.

Regardless, I’m on a fast from men. I told him as much. Not that it deterred his quiet, gentle, delicate soul from speaking directly to mine.

Fuck my foolish heart. It fell too easily and trusted too swiftly, despite its awful track record. My head wasn’t much better, for as intellectual as I could be, my brain never talked the foolish organ in my chest out of the stupid shit it did.

It’s been a week since my not-a-date date with Fletcher, and all I can think about are his words echoing in my head. That an addict never stops being an addict. His truth was so powerful, and … refreshing. It was the first time in my life that someone who’d abused drugs or alcohol had been so upfront about what it felt like to suffer from the disease. And trust me, with my mother and growing up in the foster care system, I’d known plenty.

Our shared coffee drinking had ended awkwardly, with him trying to make some kind of joke to save us from the pit of reality he’d dug us down deep in. I escaped with half of my heart still lying on the table, listening to how damaged he was.

Because I was damaged, too, though my party trick was hiding all the scars and old wounds underneath a cool, composed, sassy exterior.

My phone chimes as I head into Kip’s, the diner everyone in town seems to flock to for lunch. Presley asked me to meet her here, as we haven’t gotten much time together with her busy studio schedule.

The message is from my boss, Geralyn. When I decided to move into consultancy, I wasn’t going to pick just any company. I was going to pick the best, and one run by a complete badass woman in the STEM sphere. Geralyn Octon is such a woman and has no problem keeping up with the biggest of Internet bad boys. She works hard, is tough as nails, and runs one of the best hacker consultant agencies in the world. It’s why I’ve been as successful as I am, picking her to be my boss.

Selecting the voicemail, I press my phone to my ear.

“Ryan, I just had a project come in with a big-time company, flashy data breach. Has your name all over it. Call me back.”

A year ago, maybe even two, that message would have gotten my blood thrumming. I would have been like a dog biting to get off the leash to work on whatever project it was Geralyn described as flashy.

But at this moment? Nothing about her words excites me. I am so disinterested that I don’t even feel like myself anymore. Something about Yanis, about Greece, sucked all the life out of me.

No … I was lying to myself if I put all the onus on him. I’d been fading even before his betrayal. I am in