Page 54 of The Darkness Within

“I’ll make you a deal. Six months. Stay clean for six months, work on your steps, build relationships with the people around you, and continue with your support group and your meetings. Get a plant.”

“A plant? That’s random,” he laughs.

“It’s what my sponsor suggested to me before I reached my first year of recovery. He told me to get a plant and keep it alive, and that if I didn’t kill it, I just might be ready to be a nurturing, selfless, caring soul for another human being.”

“The plant was your relationship indicator?”

“Basically.” I laugh. “I know it sounds inane, but it makes sense. It takes discipline and sacrifice and selflessness to keep something alive, to take care of it every day. To cultivate it. If you can take care of a plant, just maybe, you can take care of yourself and possibly someone else.”

He searches my face, silent for long minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this soul-deep connection with another person in my life. This all-consuming sudden importance of someone else’s existence, like it’s the most meaningful thing in my life.

It’s absurd and yet makes total sense. He makes total sense.

There’s a small corner of my dark heart that now belongs to Nashville Sommers, and I don’t ever want it back.

“Okay, deal. Six months,” he whispers in agreement.

His pinky finger hooks around mine again, and then he’s squirming and laughing like he has ants in his pants. A small black lump crawls out from beneath his T-shirt, mewling and licking his face.

“Bedtime for you, little man,” he insists, depositing Valor on the pillow between us. “Scoot over, Brewer. Don’t squish my cat.”

His chewing is louder than the grinding of my teeth. The crunching sound of the cookies he shoved in his mouth are making my jaw tick.

Cookies that Dan gave him.

Nash washes them down with a sip of his coffee.

Coffee that Dan made him.

I used to think Dan was a decent guy, now, not so much.

They laugh again, which they’ve done for most of the meeting, heads bent close together, making me feel like a third wheel. Like an outsider. Shooting Dan my best hall monitor glare over Nash’s shoulder, I try to push them from my mind and focus on the woman sharing. Dan chuckles again, and I’m done. Absolutely finished. At the end of my fucking rope. Crushing my empty coffee cup in my grip, the coffee I made for myself, I set my jaw and laser-focus on the woman’s story. She’s talking about her anger issues. Yeah, you and me both, sister. Right now, I’d like to change the three letters of Dan’s name to M.U.D.

I’m not usually an angry guy, or an irrationally jealous one, but Dan should know better! Nash isn’t his. Dan has been clean for over five years. He knows Nash is a newcomer. Nash isn’t available to him or anyone. And when he finally is? You can bet it won’t be fucking Dan who’s first in his line!

Fuck this meeting. Fuck Dan. Fuck Nash.

Smoothly but quickly, I make my way to the door and head outside for a breath of calming air. The night is still, quiet. No traffic or voices can be heard from the church parking lot. Breathing in deep, I feel my lungs expand, my heart rate slowing, my jaw relaxing, before blowing it out.

“Brewer?” Nash approaches. Thank fuck he’s alone. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just needed a breath of fresh air.”

His wary look says he isn’t buying my bullshit.

“Are you okay? Dan said—”

Like a rubber band stretched too tight, my patience snaps. “He’s thirteen-stepping you!”

“Thirteen? I thought you said there were only twelve.”

Christ, he’s so fucking brand new, so naïve. He’s clueless. “The thirteenth step is a saying, a concept. It’s when someone with considerable clean time hits on a newcomer and tries to take advantage of them.”

Nash grins like I said something funny. “You worried about my virtue, Brewer?”

With a roll of my eyes, I insist, “He should know better. He’s trying to prey on you. It’s cringy.”

Nash steps closer, dropping his voice to a whisper. “What are you so worried about? My dick is broken, remember? You said you could maybe fix it, so I’m holding out for you to make good on your promise. Only you.”

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