“And you would have done the same for him,” I echoed Casey’s words.
“I guess if I had sedatives in my medicine cabinet, I might have considered it.” She sighed. I moved around the counter and grabbed her waist, pulling her close. There were still a few people loitering in the store, but I didn’t care. I kissed her cheek, her nose, and finally her mouth.
“I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Andi nodded, her eyes looking at me with such intense appreciation and need that I couldn’t help but lean forward and kiss her again. My hand fell from her waist and I gave her ass a small squeeze before pulling away. If I stayed, I would end up kicking everyone out of the store and drag her back upstairs. Reluctantly, I climbed into my car and pulled away from the curb. Regardless of my unwillingness to leave her, I was smiling. I was fucking ecstatic. I was going straight home to email The Bishop. When my cell phone rang, I grabbed it without as much as a glance at the screen.
“Deck, it’s Ryder. Karl has done it again.” My good mood collapsed into a pile of steaming dog shit. Karl was a friend, Karl was a mess, and Karl had evidently OD’d, again. “He’s in Bellevue and your mom’s here.” My mom had been the last person to pull him from his coke habit and get him into rehab the last time. She would be pissed.
“I’m on my way.” I sighed. I had tried to convince Karl to quit skin flicks, the easy access to drugs and the over-glorified lifestyle was too tempting for him. When he refused, Ryder had pulled him in to work for Kink Harder, knowing his own strict drug checks would keep him in line. I guess he’d gone looking for work elsewhere and had once again found his vice, cocaine.
Chapter 18
ANDI
When Decker turned up on my doorstep the night of Casey’s birthday bash, he looked tired. The usual sparkle in his eyes was dull, the smudges under his eyes didn’t rub off, and his hair seemed even more unkempt than usual.
“I’m okay,” he murmured as I rubbed beneath his tired eyes and brushed his hair away. He’d called me two nights ago from the hospital, and I had almost flipped the fuck out. When he told me about his friend’s overdose and consequent slow rise back into consciousness, my heart had broken for him. They hadn’t thought Karl would recover this time, and when he opened his eyes and asked where the fuck he was, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone except Sarah, Decker’s mom. Decker had passed his phone to me in an attempt to calm Sarah down. Apparently Decker thought I had a calming influence, which was news to me. But after an hour of chatting about her boys, a trip to Egypt her and Joe were planning, and the possibility of doing dinner again in a couple of weeks, she thanked me and admitted I was, in fact, a good listener. She had viewed Karl’s overdose as her own failure, but as I explained, nobody could help Karl if he didn’t want to help himself. Sarah had an ingrained need to fix things, fix people, it was the nurse in her. Decker kissed my palm before lowering my hand from his face. “Let’s go have pre-drinks with Miley and the disciple. I need a night of inebriation.”
*