“I swear to fucking God, does he never shut up?”
Max’s eyes slid across to the owner of the whispered complaint, Dom Hayes, another fellow cokehead with a history of dealing, misdemeanors, time inside for stupid shit, etc. He was twenty-six and, his criminal history notwithstanding, a fairly stand-up guy. He’d shared his smokes with Max on one of the first days at the joint when Max was about ready to bust out of the place and beat a hasty retreat back across the state of Pennsylvania, home. They’d been tight ever since. Interestingly enough, Dom reminded Max a lot of Carter, which was as unbearable as it was comforting.
Christ, Max missed his best friend.
Even if Carter was an asshole. An asshole who had been there for Max for nearly twenty years. An asshole who had done time in Arthur Kill prison for Max when shit went tits up. An asshole Max had pulled a gun on when he’d finally hit rock bottom. An asshole who, at the end of his patience, had picked an unconscious Max up off the bathroom floor and begged and yelled at him to get a grip, to go to rehab and get clean. An asshole who drove him for nearly four hours to the rehab facility, paid for everything without question, and hugged him hard before he left with tears in his eyes, telling Max that everything would be all right.
Max sighed and closed his eyes briefly, zoning out Stan and the other seventeen men in the room. Max knew that, without Carter, he’d be dead. He knew that, without Carter’s finances and Riley’s business know-how, his father’s auto shop would have been lost along with the reputation his dad had worked so damned hard to build. Without Carter, Max would never have survived losing Lizzie.
As always happened when he thought about her, severe pain sliced through Max’s stomach, up to his chest, clutching his heart and lungs, causing him to sit forward in his seat. He gasped through the unrelenting agony, thankful that everyone’s attention was still on Stan.
Everyone’s except Dom’s. “You okay, man?” he muttered at his side.
Max nodded, cleared his throat, and tried to breathe just the way Elliot had shown him. Slow and steady. Deep and gradual. In. Out. In. Out.
Once such a simple motion and now, without her, and without any white lines, an enduring struggle.
“So tell me about your episode in group.”
Max was starting to realize that Dr. Elliot was fucking omniscient or some shit. Nothing got past him. Bastard must have cameras in every part of the damned center. He knew everything! Either that or his small “episode” in group wasn’t as subtle as Max had hoped.
He shrugged. “It was nothing.”
Why he continued to lie, God alone knew. It certainly didn’t make him feel any better and it certainly wasn’t going to get his ass home any sooner. And wasn’t that the endgame, to get better and then get home?
Scribble. Scribble. “Max, it will help to talk about it.” Elliot sipped from his always-present Phillies mug. Max wondered if it was coffee or something stronger, like cognac. Or whiskey. Dammit, a shot of Jack would have been a real fucking treat right about then.
“It was the same as before,” Max murmured with a slow exhale.
Elliot’s eyes softened. “Lizzie.”
Max’s chest gave an ungrateful squeeze at the sound of the two syllables.
“Tell me,” Elliot said quietly. “Whatever you can. Tell me.”
Whether it was the soft coaxing of Elliot’s voice, or the need to show everyone he could recover, or whether it was the urgent need Max had to not let Carter down, the cracks in his emotional dam slowly started to give way. He began by telling Elliot about the party, the first time he’d seen her and not spoken to her because he’d been too chickenshit. The lighthearted abuse he’d received from Riley and Carter because he wouldn’t pick up the phone and call her for weeks after, despite his desperate need to see her again. Jesus, the need. The need that still crippled him. Fuck, and then there was the sound of her soft, eager voice when he’d finally plucked up the courage to dial the digits written on the battered piece of paper he’d had in his pocket since Riley’s shindig. Their first date at a bowling alley where she whipped his ass by nearly fifty points and then let him kiss her. The kiss, her lips . . .