Page 34 of Bad & Bossy

Her lips pursed into a thin line. “Be careful with that,” she said, her voice dropping in volume. “Experiencing the highs of a new relationship—or whatever it is—when you’re new to sobriety is generally not ideal. It’s exciting, of course, to want to pursue something with your newfound freedom and outlook on life, but it can keep you searching for the next good high, if you know what I mean. The honeymoon period can only keep you distracted from temptation for so long.”

“Don’t worry about that, miss,” Bobby piped up, his eyes still zoomed in on his phone. “I’m keeping him on the straight and narrow.”

Emily gave me a sympathetic smile as she reached for my arm, pulling me off to the side far enough so that she could speak without Bobby hearing. “How did you two meet? At the facility?”

I nodded. “We came in at the same time. He’s kept me in check and I’ve done the same for him,” I explained, glancing at him briefly. “He’s a bit of a character, I know. But he’s a good guy. Kept me sane while I was in there and we have a lot of similarities in our stories, but that’s not for me to share.”

She nodded, her gaze continuing to snag on him. “Just… keep yourself in check. And keep an eye on him. I know it’s his first meeting here, too, but he seems a little less focused on staying sober than you do. I don’t want to seem pessimistic, but if you’re serious, you need to watch your temptations.”

————

Towel drying my hair as I stepped down the stairs, the music playing from the kitchen was a song I’d never heard before. It was pop, a female singer, and for once it didn’t bother me. I was feeling on top of the fucking world after the AA meeting; it had been far too long since I’d had a group setting like that. I was used to having two a week back in rehab, so going a month without felt like a missing limb.

“I think I burned the eggs,” Bobby grunted as I came around the corner. Smoke and the scent of charcoal filled the massive space.

“You think?” I coughed. I whipped the towel around, actively trying to keep the smoke away from the alarm. The pan on the stove was practically black. If there were ever eggs in it to begin with, it was impossible to tell. Instead it looked like he’d tried to cook some kind of sticky, black goop. The plastic spatula was stuck to the center of the pan, half melted.

“I don’t get how that happened,” he said, his gaze cemented to the black goop. He wrapped his fingers around the handle of the pan and lifted it, the flame underneath at the highest level, and turned it upside down. Nothing moved, not even the spatula. “Shit.”

I turned the knob of the stove off to extinguish the flame and took the cooking utensils from him, throwing them directly into the sink and turning on the cold water to cool them down. I had every intention of tossing them into the trash once they were cool enough. “Did no one ever teach you how to cook?”

Bobby’s head shook, his shoulder-length hair flying. “Nah. Never needed to. Angie did all the cooking.” Angie. He’d mentioned her before. If I remember correctly, she was one of his family’s maids.

“I’m shocked you managed to get the flame going,” I said, giving him a side-eye as I pulled a fresh pan from the cabinet.

“I googled it.”

“Ah.” Fetching the box of eggs and a container of sausages from the fridge, I got started on breakfast for us both. His copious amounts of ready-made meals in the fridge made a lot more sense now, and although I wasn’t a cook by any means, I could handle the basics. My aunt had always said I made a mean spaghetti. “For future reference, you don’t need the flame all the way up to cook eggs. And you definitely don’t leave them unattended once they start cooking.”

Bobby grunted some kind of thanks before hopping up onto the counter beside me. “We should just hire someone to do this shit. At least they cooked for us back in rehab.”

I shrugged. “You can if you want, but honestly, I feel like it’s part of the recovery. Taking the time to learn things you wouldn’t have before because you were too drunk to handle it or your family never taught you.” I caught the little wince he made as I mentioned family. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Bobby’s triggers were shockingly similar to mine, and our stories aligned so closely that it was like looking in a mirror. Except he’d never had an aunt he was shipped off to that actually seemed to give a shit. He just had an absent family altogether who simply ensured he was fed, dressed, and taught right from wrong. Outside of his teachers, all he had was Angie.

He was a trust fund baby with excessively rich parents who were never around. At eighteen, they loaded up a bank account and sent him out into the world. Three years later, they died in a plane crash over the Himalayas, and Bobby inherited every cent they ever made. I was almost positive he had more money than me and considering my own trust fund and the wild success of Pearson Beers, that was really saying something.

My phone dinged on the counter behind me and I grabbed for it, hoping it was Dana, but was met instead with something almost as good. A text from Lottie.

Lunch at the ranch this weekend?

“Dana?” Bobby questioned, one brow shooting up as he kicked toward me playfully.

“No,” I chuckled. I shot a message back to her.

Sounds like a plan.

————

Shareholder meetings, as important as they were, made me want to bash my head into a wall every time they were held. Usually, I’d sip at a coffee during them and spike it while no one was looking. But I couldn’t do that this time. I just had to sit and suffer while drinking boring, non-alcoholic coffee.

The temptation was there. The wall behind the projector was lined with bookshelves filled with old, sealed prototypes, bottles of liquor, and our current range of offerings. It would be so easy to just take one.

My fingers twitched.

I shoved them into my pocket, wrapping them around the new, shiny, seven-month-coin. I could make it through the boredom of the meeting; I should care about the content anyway. Apparently, a new law was coming into effect in Colorado. One that would mean we’d need to change the recipe on our new, unreleased lineup of infused beers.

---