by Claire Adams
“Oh, wow, this is you working hard? It seems more like a teenager trying to show off for his high school crush.”
“Ouch. Are you always this mean to men? Or is this just for me?”
“I’m always this mean.” She laughed.
I got a quick glimpse of her tongue ring and it sent shivers through my body. I had to feel that damn thing on my shaft, and soon. Or at the very least, I wanted to slip my tongue into her mouth and feel the weight of the silver as it moved and touched me.
“When did you get the piercing?” I asked as I looked at her mouth.
“A couple of years ago. It was one of the worst nights of my life.”
“Then why did you keep it?”
“Because it reminds me of how far I’ve come.”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t imagine you drinking like a wild woman. You seem so nice and so sweet.”
“It’s an illusion,” she said and playfully pushed me away from her. “I’m not this sweet outside of here.”
For the briefest of moments, her hands had been right on my chest. I saw a flash of something cross her face as she pulled her hands back into her own personal space. Instead of staying away from her, I moved back toward her. She wanted me near her; I felt it. I felt the desire she had building for me. There was no denying she was flirting with me, too. Her flirting wasn’t nearly as overt as mine was, but Cassidy was looking at me like she wanted to drag me into her bed and play with me all night long.
She was playing coy and I understood that. We probably shouldn’t have even been talking. But the more I talked with her, the more I felt like she was someone who I’d like to get to know.
Of course, I wanted to get to know her naked in my bed. But that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to talk to her. Cassidy was interesting and fun, and I really needed that kind of conversation at the moment.
“I don’t think it’s an illusion. I think you really are a nice girl and maybe the wild girl wasn’t you, but I still wish I would have known the wild version of Cassidy.” I laughed.
“No, you wouldn’t have wanted to know me back then. I was horrible. I was mean and bitchy and didn’t have a moral compass at all.”
“So, like I am right now?”
We both laughed and leaned against the side of the pool as we continued to talk. Cassidy looked over at Melanie, so I moved a little farther away, just to make things seem a little more professional between us.
“Yeah, you were a giant ass when you got here.”
“I didn’t want to be here at all.”
“Then why did you come?”
“Well, I want to have a career and I want to invest in this movie studio. So, I guess technically, I wanted to be here because I wanted those things. But it was my best friend Spencer who really wanted me here. I had almost drowned in my swimming pool and he rescued me. Thought I had a bit of a problem and didn’t want me to die, so I came here.”
“Do you have a problem?”
It seemed like a trick question that one of the therapists might ask me. But my answer to the question changed on a daily basis. I could see how Cassidy had viewed me when I said I didn’t have a problem before, and I was starting to see her point. I did have a problem; I just wasn’t fully ready to admit it yet.
“I didn’t think I had a problem. I thought I could control it. But I’m starting to see that maybe I couldn’t control it. So, yeah, I did have a problem, but I’m in control now.”
“Oh, that’s funny,” she scoffed.
“What?”
“A little over a week here and you’re totally in control? Sounds like a pile of shit to me.”
“Hey, I’m not out of control like Brianna. I’m honest about my use and I know I had a problem. But it’s all better now.”
“You really are dense if you think ten days at a treatment facility is going to fix all your emotional issues.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t have emotional issues. I was just talking about my drug and alcohol use.”
Cassidy was annoyed with me. She had moved toward the middle of the pool and she stood straight up while she talked to me. It was clear we were no longer flirting with each other.
“So, you drank yourself into a pool and drowned, but you did it for the fun of it? You don’t have any emotional issues that you need to work through? You’re ridiculous.”
She didn’t give me a chance to answer her questions and instead stormed off to a lounge chair on the other side of the pool by Melanie. It was clear that our little flirting session was officially over.
No, I didn’t have mental issues. How dare she try and put that crap on me. I wasn’t crazy. I just liked to party and it got out of hand sometimes. Maybe she wasn’t use to people getting better as quickly as I was, but I didn’t have all that shit to deal with like other people did. I didn’t need the emotional lovey-dovey stuff that others needed. I had been alone for years and I liked it that way.
Actually, I had even been thinking about reaching out to my brother and my father to try to find some sort of peace with them, just because of what Stan had said in group. I didn’t like the tension in my family and wanted to just make one last effort to heal things between us. If my efforts didn’t work, that was fine, but at least I could say that I tried to mend our relationship.
So, how could Cassidy say I had emotional issues? She didn’t know me at all. She didn’t know I was humble and could reach out to my family. And she obviously didn’t know my family hadn’t even bothered to worry about me when I had been pulled out of a pool almost dead. She needed to keep her opinions to herself if she didn’t know what she was talking about.
I climbed out of the pool and wrapped the towel around me as I made my way back inside. One of the technicians from the locked unit helped me back onto my unit and I went straight to the telephones. Cassidy didn’t have a clue who I was. I would prove it by calling my brother right at that moment.
“Hello,” a man’s voice answered when I called Heath.
“Heath?”
“No, it’s Robert.”
My stomach churned as my Dad answered the phone. I wanted to talk to Heath; I wasn’t sure I was ready to actually talk to my father. Heath was always the one I talked to when I called back home. But I remembered that Heath got a new house and the number I had was for my Dad’s house.
“Hey, Dad, it’s Erik.”
“How you doin’?” he asked.
“I’m good. I’m at a treatment center in Aspen for a few weeks. I’ll be here through Christmas time.”
“That’s good.”
“Are you and Heath doing anything for Christmas?”
“Same as last year.”
Guilt flashed through me as I remembered how I had canceled coming home to visit them last year. Instead, I threw a party at my house and drank myself into passing out in my bed with two young ladies whose names I didn’t even know. It certainly hadn’t been the best Christmas ever.
“Okay, well, I just wanted to check in. Tell Heath I called,” I said in an effort to get off of the phone. The uncomfortable feeling I had was overwhelming and I felt like it was getting harder and harder to breath.
“What is the name of the place you are at again?”
“Paradise Peak. It’s in Aspen, Colorado. You guys could come visit if you wanted,” I added before I could stop myself.
“Well, how would we afford something like that? Are you just trying to rub it in that you have money and we don’t?” he asked angrily.
I could feel his blood pressure rising through the phone and I knew I needed to get off the call. Out of all the conversations my father and I had had over the last few years, this one was one of the best. I felt it driving off course, though, so I ended it.
“It’s okay, I’ll see you when I get out. I’ll talk to you later, Dad. Tell Heath I called,” I said and then quickly hung up.
My chest hurt horribly and I went back to my room and tried to take a few deep breaths. My vision b
lurred as I steadied myself against the wall and tried to calm myself down. It shouldn’t have to be so damn hard to talk to your own family. I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t say “I love you” when I talked to my own father.
“Are you all right?” Cassidy asked as she stood in the doorway with a towel wrapped around her. “I’m sorry if I was rude to you. That was more about me than it was you.”
My adrenaline was up. I felt my blood throbbing through my system and as I looked at Cassidy’s erect nipples, I had to touch them. I had to get some sort of relief from the tension that had built up in my body.
I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into my bathroom and around the corner so no one could see us. I felt energized as I held onto her. My mind focused on what I wanted and how I was going to get it.
“It wasn’t you. I’m an ass. I thought we had established this already,” I said as I leaned in close to her neck and smelled her delicious scent.
“I’m a recovering alcoholic; sometimes I get judgy of others. I shouldn’t have acted like that. I’m sorry,” she said as she licked her lips.
Fuck, her lips were so sweet and plump. My body was hard with desire, but I kept myself a few inches away from her. Instead, I gently let my lips fall to her neck as I kissed her softly from her clavicle up to her ear.
She liked it. I heard a soft moan and felt her body relax as she let me kiss her neck. I couldn’t stop myself. I needed a release. I needed something to take the edge off of the anxiety that rushed through my body after talking to my father. Cassidy was like a drug that I needed a hit of and she had just given me the tiniest of tastes. Enough that I already craved more.
My lips moved across to the other side of her neck and again I started at the clavicle and moved up toward her ear. She leaned back against the wall and pressed her chin up to allow me to navigate her delicate neck. I felt electrified as the release of tension in my body happened. She was exactly what I needed.
When I pulled away, I saw a dreamy look in her eyes and suddenly wished I had a damn room with a door on it. There wasn’t much we could do in this room, but at least I could feel her lips on mine.
My eyes focused on her lips and I moved toward them with the promise of a bigger release than her neck had given me. My aching need was building up and I had to find a release that would satisfy me. My hand moved to her nipple and I barely touched her before I was stopped.
“No,” Cassidy said as she pressed her hand against my chest and pushed me away from her. “I can’t.”
She quickly slid out of the bathroom and down the hall toward the nurses’ station. And just like, that she was gone and I was left in a state of absolute frustration. Not just sexual frustration, but a total body anxiety that I needed some way of releasing. There were no drugs around, no alcohol, nothing that I could reach for to give me the relief I desperately needed.
Chapter Eleven
Cassidy
I let him kiss me! How could I do such a thing? My mind and body had been total mush in his arms. Every bit of self-control that I thought I had was totally non-existent when his lips touched my neck. I was a horrible at self-control. I should have known better than to go into a room alone with him.
“I’d like to start training on the secure unit,” I said as I walked straight up to Mr. March.
“Is this because of what happened with Brianna? I just heard from the hospital that she’s in stable condition. Your skills and care really helped her, you know.”
“I’m so glad to hear that she’s going to be all right. But that’s not why I want to train over there. I’m thinking of going to school to be a nurse and I’d like to help out over there more often, not only when it’s an emergency and we don’t have staff.”
“That sounds like a good idea, Cassidy. I’ll get the paperwork started. I’m sure we could have Kaitlin work with you on a couple of overnights and walk through the training for you. But since you’re not licensed as a therapist or nurse, the same rules that apply to you right now will apply over there. You’ll have to be supervised by a nurse at all times.”
“Sure, that sounds great. Whatever you need me to do.”
“I think Kaitlin is working tomorrow night. I’ll get someone to cover your shift over here and you can work the overnight on the secure unit.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Mr. March.”
I didn’t really care about working on the secure unit. I only cared about getting away from Erik and onto a different unit. I liked my job and I didn’t want to do anything that would get me fired. Normally getting fired wasn’t on my radar at all, but with Erik around, I felt like I was getting closer and closer to doing something that could cost me my job.
It was ridiculous that I couldn’t control my own behavior around Erik. He wasn’t a Greek god or anything like that. He was a normal guy. And, he was an addict. Erik Levy wasn’t at all the kind of guy I should be falling for. I knew better, but I couldn’t seem to tell my body that when he was around.
After waiting two years to consider a relationship with anyone, I knew I shouldn’t be having thoughts for an addict. Erik had to work on his own recovery and I was still working on mine. Getting involved in any way would only make both of our recoveries that much harder.
No, I had to just avoid him. Maybe when he was done with treatment I’d look him up sometime down the road. I would be nice to him when I had to work on his unit; I wasn’t going to be rude or anything like that. But I wouldn’t go into his room and I definitely wouldn’t be alone with him. If I just set those basic guidelines then I was sure I could tough out the next few weeks with him.
Plus, it was almost Christmas and he would get a pass to go home for a few days. I’d make sure and pick up all of the holiday hours so that when he got back to the rehab facility, I would have my days off. It was going to work out perfectly. Well, as long as nothing unexpected happened.
My plan worked out fairly well over the next week or so. I worked with Kaitlin on the secure unit and did some training over there. It was much easier to work the overnight hours, although it did make my life outside of work much harder. Sleeping while the sun was still out had been more difficult than I had originally expected.
“So, are we going to keep working this overnight thing?” Kaitlin asked a couple nights before Christmas.
“I’m not sure. I like the work, but I swear I haven’t slept more than four hours on any day. I just can’t seem to get my body to sleep during the daytime.”
“Yeah, I’m not a big fan of the overnights, either. I thought I’d love not having to work and basically just sitting around all night. But it’s boring as hell. I’d rather have the patients awake so I have something to do all day.”
“Maybe after the New Year we can switch back to days?”
“Why after the New Year?” Kaitlin asked. “Let’s switch back now. That way we can go out this weekend.”
She obviously didn’t know that I was purposely avoiding working on the regular unit, but I couldn’t exactly come out and admit that I had a thing with a patient. A thing? Was that what it was? I wasn’t even sure. All I knew was it couldn’t be an approved activity on the unit and I loved my job. I loved it so much that I wasn’t going to risk losing it.
I kept thinking about Erik, though. I would close my eyes and remember what it felt like to have him next to me. My body wanted to feel his hands on me. I fantasized about his lips moving down my body and tasting every inch of me. My thoughts were out of control. So, I certainly didn’t want to tell Kaitlin anything about what happened between Erik and me.
“It’s three days before Christmas. Do you seriously want to go out?” I asked.
“Yes, Cassidy, I want to go out. You have been putting it off for months. Let’s go out on Saturday and just dance and have some fun. I’ll drink club sodas with you, and the two of us can just enjoy blowing off some steam.”
It was a nice offer and Kaitlin was a great friend to offer not to drink alcohol while we were out. But I j
ust wasn’t sure if I was ready to actually go anywhere that had alcohol. It scared me. Even though I was scared, I wanted Kaitlin and I to start having more fun. Maybe the reason I was falling for a patient was because I never got out and socialized with other people.
“I guess we could give it a try.”
“Oh, you sound so excited.”
“Sorry, I am. I think it will be great. Swing by my house and get me Saturday night. I’ll even put a dress on and some makeup.” I laughed.
“Well, now you are talkin’!”
I considered telling her about what had happened between Erik and I. But I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to admit what I had let happen. Kaitlin wouldn’t have thought badly of me for letting Erik kiss my neck, but she would have teased me about it relentlessly, so I kept it to myself.
In order to go out on Saturday, both Kaitlin and I had to work the day shift on the regular unit. It would be the first time I had to see Erik since taking hours on the secure unit. I told myself that things didn’t need to be weird, though. I would just put on a happy face and talk about the upcoming Christmas vacation.
On Sunday, most of the patients would be taking three-day leaves with their family to enjoy the holiday. There were about a half of a dozen patients who would remain at the hospital typically. The people who remained were the ones whose families had given up on them, or they were too sick to be out for three whole days.
“Brianna,” I said as I saw her sitting in the day area.
She looked tired and frail, but so much better than the last time I had seen her. She was alive and that made me so happy.
“Hi,” she said softly.
“Brianna doesn’t remember any of us,” Erik said as he brought a tray of food to her and sat down with us.
I wanted to avoid Erik, but I wanted to catch up with Brianna so much more. I had cried all night the evening she had been taken to the hospital. I cried for her, for her husband, for her children. It had been the first time such a thing had happened while I was working and I would absolutely never forget it.
