by SJ McCoy
“I’m sorry. And this is your last night here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I think when they come back, Marianne and I will make our excuses. Give the two of you the evening to yourselves. It strikes me you have some talking to do.”
“Thanks. She might prefer you to stay.”
Clay chuckled. “Even I know Chris well enough to know that if she does, she’ll say so.”
Seymour had to smile. That was part of what he loved about her. She was straightforward, spoke her mind. His smile faded. That was also why it surprised him that she hadn’t told him about her husband. Maybe it was simply that she didn’t trust him well enough yet. You didn’t share that kind of thing with casual acquaintances. He’d hoped she saw him as more than that.
When she and Marianne arrived back at the table, she was more composed. She even gave him an apologetic smile.
Clay patted her hand. “I was going to make up some BS excuse about getting a phone call and needing to leave, but I think we’re beyond that kind of thing. We’re all friends here. So, I’ll just ask. Do you two want us to leave you to it? I’d guess you have some talking to do and you don’t need us here for it.”
Chris chuckled. “I love that you’re as up front as I am.”
Clay smiled. “I’ve found it saves a whole lot of time and heartache.”
She turned to Seymour. “What do you think?”
He nodded. “I enjoy this guy’s company, and it’s been lovely to see you, Marianne, but I’m sure we’ll have other opportunities. This is my last night. I’d like you to myself, and now it seems we have things to talk about.”
“Okay.” Chris smiled at her sister. “I’ll call you tomorrow after he leaves, and you can take me out to console me.”
Marianne and Clay laughed at that. Seymour couldn’t hide a smile.
Chapter Eleven
Chris watched Marianne and Clay walk away. Even after they’d turned the corner, she continued to stare at the space where they’d been.
“Are you okay?”
She finally turned to look at Seymour and nodded. “I am. I’m sorry I reacted like that. I surprised myself.”
“You certainly surprised me.”
She chuckled. “I can imagine. There’s Clay lauding all the good work you do, and I must have looked horrified.”
“You did. Do you want to tell me why?”
She blew out a sigh and took a sip of her drink. “Want to? I’m not sure I do, no, but I should. I owe you that.”
“You don’t owe me anything. You tell me as much or as little as you want in your own time. If tonight isn’t the time, then we can forget it, move on.”
“Tonight is the time. It’s come up for a reason. I’d hate for you to leave tomorrow wondering what I got so het up about.” She shrugged. “It’s not even a big deal. Not anymore. It’s just that I know a lot about addiction.” She shot a quick glance at him. “Not first-hand experience. The boys’ father. He was an alcoholic.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged again. “So am I. He was a good man. At least, he wanted to be. But he had his demons, and the only place he knew to escape from them was at the bottom of a bottle. He tried to quit. Several times. Those recovery programs, they can help some people.”
Seymour squeezed her hand. “They can only help people who are ready for them.”
She held his gaze for a moment. There was a darkness in his eyes she hadn’t seen before.
“Sorry. Go on.”
“There’s not much to say. It’s the age-old story. We met. We fell in love. We got married and had two baby boys. He tried to stay sober. He’d manage it for a time, but he’d always go back. The boys—Jack especially—learned to hate him.”
“Hate is a strong word.”
She nodded. “I know it is, and it’s still the word I choose. Jack’s a good boy. He knew the way we were living was wrong. But it was all he knew. He wanted his dad to love him; he did in his own way. But he was bitter. He took it out on me, and on them. He was always sorry. Always promising he’d get sober and stay sober, and I was young and stupid, and I wanted to believe him. I did believe that one day he’d come out the other side. I wouldn’t have stuck with him if I didn’t believe that.”
“But he never did?”
She shook her head sadly. “His final fall off the wagon was fatal.”
“I’m sorry.”
She met his gaze. “It is what it is. I like to be bright and upbeat and look for the positives when I can, but I’m a realist at heart. It was for the best. If he hadn’t drunk himself into a stupor that night, he would have done it another night, or maybe he would have gone on for years or decades. Even if he had, he wasn’t living, he was existing—a tortured existence, at that. And …” she swallowed, hard. Wondering if she was going to share with Seymour something that she’d never shared with another living soul. She was. “And it was for the best for the boys and for me, too. There, I said it.”
Seymour edged closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, hugging her into his side. She swallowed again and tried to blink away the tears that filled her eyes.
His voice was so gentle when he spoke. “It’s okay. Cry if you need to.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I’m all cried out over him; that was almost twenty years ago. It’s you that’s making me cry now. You’re making me feel safe and cared for in a way I’ve never known.”
He dropped a kiss on her lips and hugged her closer to his side. “You are safe with me, Chris. And you are cared for. More than you know.”
She sniffed and pulled a hanky out of her purse and dabbed her eyes. She smiled at him. “I’m going to ruin the moment now and blow my nose.”
He chuckled and sat back. “You’re not ruining anything. You’re making it real. You told me I wasn’t used to allowing myself to be vulnerable. It strikes me that it’s not familiar territory for you either.”
She smiled. “You’re right. It’s not. I’m more into putting a brave face on things and getting on with it.”
“I know. I’ve already learned that about you. That’s why this means so much.” He brushed a strand of hair off her face. “Thank you for trusting me, for telling me.”
“I would have told you at some point. It was just hearing that you were involved in that kind of work, it … I don’t know. It caught me off guard. It struck me how different you are—that I married an addict, and here, all these years later, I’m …” She stopped herself short. What had she been about to say? Falling in love with, that’s what she’d been about to say! She must be caught up in the moment. She smiled. “Now, I’m growing fond of a man who does so much good work to help end addiction.”
There was that look in his eyes again. That darkness. She’d grown to love his eyes. She still couldn’t decide whether to call them green or hazel—sometimes they were deep green, other times almost brown with green and gold flecks. Of all the colors she’d seen in them, she hadn’t seen any darkness until tonight.
“Are you keeping secrets? You said your involvement runs deeper than just fundraising.”
He shook his head. “No secrets. Well, maybe.”
She let out a short laugh. “Well, it seems like tonight’s the night to spill them. Want to tell me?”
He nodded slowly. “I do. Part of me would rather not. I’d rather leave the person I’ve been in the past in the past. But he’s a part of me, so you should know about him.”
Chris’s chest tightened as she wondered what he was about to confess. She’d vowed to herself that she would never get involved with another alcoholic. And as far as she was concerned, even after twenty years sober, an alcoholic was still an alcoholic. “So, tell me.”
“It’s not the booze for me. It’s work.”
She cocked her head to one side. “What’s work?”
“My addiction. I’m a recovering workaholic.”
“Oh!” A huge wave of relief rushed through her, and she let o
ut a little laugh.
He didn’t laugh with her. “See, that’s why it’s so easy for me to let it slide, to say it’s not really a secret. It’s much more acceptable to be a workaholic, isn’t it?”
Chris nodded. “I was afraid you were going to tell me something much worse. I don’t know what. I mean, I hardly see you as a drug addict type.”
He shook his head slowly. “There is no better or worse. Drug addiction, alcoholism, workaholism, they’re just different faces of the same underlying issue. Addiction. I do so much for recovery programs because there’s a stigma that seems unfair to me.” He blew out a sigh. “Life can be tough no matter what your background or your path in life. It’s a part of human nature that we seek to escape our pain and our fears.
“I think most people seek temporary solace until they’re able to move forward. For some of us, we get stuck. We can’t find a way to move past the pain or the fear, so we continue to avoid it—by escaping. It’s my belief that we self-medicate by whatever means are familiar or available to us. Some people use drugs, some people throw themselves into their work, some people drink, some people read or play video games. The vehicle we use isn’t always labeled as a drug—and therefore doesn’t carry the same stigma, but to my mind, very few people could cast the first stone.”
Chris stared at him for a long moment. “I never thought of it that way before.”
He smiled. “I don’t think many people ever do. But I wish more people would. It’s easy to jump to judgment and condemnation. But it’s not helpful.”
“I know. Believe me, I know.”
He tucked his fingers under her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “I told you I hurt Hope; I turned away from her and escaped into a world I could cope with. Just because for me that world is work, doesn’t make me any better than someone who turns elsewhere.”
“Did you ever beat her?”
He shook his head rapidly. “No.”
“Well, then. I take your point that addiction can have many faces, but as a survivor of the damage it can do …”
“Your table is ready.”
They both looked up at the host from the restaurant who’d come to get them
Chris smiled at Seymour as they got up. “I’m glad I told you. I’m glad you told me. I think we know what we need to. We can move on.”
He took her hand as they followed the host. “I’d like that.”
~ ~ ~
“Do you want to come in?” asked Chris when he brought the car to a halt outside her house.
It’d been a good evening. Sharing about each of their past experiences had brought them closer. They’d laughed over dinner and left the past where it belonged—behind them. He didn’t want the night to end.
He turned to look at her. “Do you want me to?”
She waggled her eyebrows. “I was thinking of a nightcap since you didn’t have a drink.”
He smiled. “Ah, a nightcap.”
She nodded.
“In that case, yes.”
He followed her up the path to the front door. Once they were inside, she turned to look at him. “Bourbon?”
“That’d be great.”
He took a seat at the kitchen counter and watched her pour their drinks. He’d done well to keep a lid on his physical attraction for her so far. Even tonight, he’d had it in mind that they should say goodbye when he dropped her off.
Now that he was here, though, he didn’t want to leave before morning. He knew that once they kissed, his desire for her would be hard to argue with.
She set his drink on the counter in front of him with a smile. “Do you want to sit outside?”
He followed her out onto the little patio and took the seat she offered him.
“Can you really see yourself staying here with me?” she asked.
He chuckled. “I absolutely can—but you’re asking about the future, and I’m thinking about tonight.”
Her laugh sounded nervous. “I was. I was thinking about my not-so-large, not-so-fancy house.”
He bit back a comment about his very hard … and stuck with her line of conversation instead. “I’ve already told you. I like your place. It has a good feel to it. It feels like you.”
“And you don’t mind that it’s different from what you’re used to?”
He patted his lap and held his arm out to her. “Come here, while I explain something to you?”
The moment she sat on his knee, he closed his eyes briefly and questioned the wisdom of his gesture. But he pulled himself together. What he had to say was important, and he wanted to feel close to her while he said it. “I told you that ever since I left Montana after Kate, I’ve lived wherever seemed appropriate. I have homes in the places where my people are—my people, being business associates. My family—my brother Johnny and his wife Jean, their home base is Montana. I couldn’t stay there. Hope moved to LA when she started modeling. Other than them, my people are people I work with. I’ve never chosen to be somewhere because I wanted to be there, only because it was convenient and logical to be there.
“This is different, Chris. I want to be here. I want to be with you. All the material wealth I’ve accumulated—it’s a side-effect for me, not a goal in itself. I wasn’t joking when I said I’m a workaholic. I’ve dedicated all my time to my addiction. I’m fortunate that it produces a positive—money, and lots of it. But don’t go believing that that’s why I do it.
“I think we’re all seeking happiness, and we get there by whatever means we can. I thought happiness was beyond my reach after Kate. I threw myself into what I knew—work. You were seeking happiness in the places you knew you could find it—in your family, and I’d guess from what I know of you, in your ability to help others.” He stopped.
“I’m not sure this is making any sense. What I’m trying to say is that what I’m looking for is to be happy. The houses, the money—they don’t make me happy. You do.”
She looked down into his eyes and dropped a kiss on his lips. “You make me happy, too. I’m going to miss you.”
His heart clenched in his chest as he realized how much he was going to miss her, too. For a crazy moment, he wanted to ask her to go with him. But he knew better. There was so much he had to catch up on when he got back. It wouldn’t be fair to ask her to come and then leave her by herself most of the time while he worked.
He cupped her cheek in his hand. “I’m going to miss you. But only until next weekend. Will you come on Friday?”
“As long as I can find a flight.”
He pursed his lips. “I’ll come get you.”
“You will?”
“Yep. That’s something you’re going to have to get used to. I told you. I have a pilot. I have a plane.”
“I know. Jack and his partner Pete have a plane, too. I admit I didn’t ever think I’d be someone who flew around in a private jet, but I have done.” She smiled. “And I’ll be more than happy to if it means we get more time together.”
“Good. Then can I come pick you up on Friday afternoon?”
“You can.” She slid her arms around his neck and dropped a kiss on his lips. “And can you wait until then?”
He frowned, not understanding the question.
She wriggled on his lap and the way his body reacted, he knew what she was talking about. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is. I thought that tonight would be the night, but it isn’t.”
“It’s not?” He tried his best not to sound disappointed.
“No. I can’t tell you why, because I don’t know. Right up to the moment I invited you in, I thought I was inviting you to … you know. But now that you’re here, after everything that we’ve talked about tonight, I just want to feel close to you.”
He nodded and tightened his arms around her waist. “I do feel close to you. Closer than I’ve felt to anyone, since Kate.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “Do you still miss her?”
“I do. It’s different now than
it was in the early years, but yes, I still miss her.” This felt strange. The women he’d dated in the past hadn’t asked about Kate, and he wouldn’t have wanted them to. With Chris, it was different. Kate was a part of who he was—and he wanted Chris to know all of him.
She had a faraway look in her eyes that he didn’t understand. “Are you okay?”
She smiled. “I am. I’m sad for you—for what you lost. I’m sad for me—for what could have been so great but never was. But I’m happy, too. Life is a funny old thing, isn’t it? It keeps moving forward and takes you places you would never have dreamed of going. It brings new people into your life.” She planted a kiss on his forehead. “People you would never have dreamed of meeting.”
He nodded. “I never dreamed I’d fall in love in again.”
Her eyes widened as she looked down at him.
He smiled. “That’s what’s happening here, Chris. I’m not going to hide that from you. I hope it doesn’t scare you away, but it’s the truth. I’m falling in love with you.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and for a moment, he wondered if he shouldn’t have told her. Was it too much, too soon—or just not something she wanted to hear?
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not. I was deliberately trying not to say it. I said life brings new people into your life—I meant people you would never have dreamed of falling in love with—I meant you. I didn’t say it because I’m a coward. I’m glad you’re not.”
“I almost was a coward. I don’t want to scare you away.”
She tightened her arms around his neck. “You didn’t. You reeled me right in.”
He chuckled. “I have to warn you. I’m not looking to catch and release.”
“I don’t want you to.”
She lowered her head, and he slid his fingers into her hair, pulling her down so he could kiss her. The now familiar wave of desire rushed through him, but he didn’t act on it. He wanted to reassure her that he was in this for the long haul. They’d talked about falling in love with each other. At this point in life, he saw love as a multifaceted treasure. Yes, the physical connection was a large part of it, but there was so much more that they could share sitting here talking and kissing under the stars.
