Page 68 of The Fix

Convinced she’s passed out, I rest my hands on her shins and drop my head back against the couch.

I stare at the ceiling, questions rolling around in my head.

I can’t catch any of them long enough to find an answer before my thoughts are wandering off to the next one that flitters away in the wind of my mind. All of them fly away except one.

Is this what it feels like to give a fuck?

God, I’d kill for a shot right now. If only to calm the racing thoughts for just a minute.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Toby

“Fuck!”

I slam the axe down against the log for the third time, the wood finally splitting down the center enough for me to wedge my fingers between and rip it off.

“Well, that was eventful.” Mac snickers into my ear, the earbuds echoing his voice around my head. “Did you hit your target or your hand?”

“The log,” I answer, my breath rushing out before me in the form of a fog.

I told myself I came out here because the stash was getting low and the sun was at the perfect peak to get the temp high enough that I would only slightly freeze to death.

What I wasn’t expecting was the draw to stay out here long after the lights came on in the cabin and to watch Anna disappear into the bedroom to work.

I’d snuck out from under her before she woke up, cleared the mess from dinner, and just … came outside.

The jonesing has been too much to consider anything else.

Being inside only made it worse.

“I thought splitting wood was my thing,” Mac chimes in, and I can’t help the chuckle that bubbles up before smacking the axe down on the next piece. It goes flying, splintered in three, and lands among the rubble.

“In the literal sense of the statement, I know damn well the only wood you know how to handle is dick.”

Mac laughs. “I got tons of experience.”

It’s as if I can see the man in front of me, suggestively waggling his brows and grinning.

It almost makes me smile. “I’m sure you do.”

I shouldn’t hate that he’s in a good mood.

Right?

“So,” Mac drawls, the tapping on his end of the line changing to a lower pitch, as if he’s moved to beating up the couch instead of the table. “What happened with you last night?”

I sigh, dropping the axe on the larger log and fish the pack of smokes out from my torn pocket. “Nothing.”

Mac sighs back. “Right. The dreaded nothingness.”

The way he says it has my lit lighter pausing midair, my cigarette poised between my lips and waiting. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I light the cigarette and drag the smoke deep into my lungs as he speaks. “Means what you want it to mean, fizzlefuck.”

“Wait,” I say as I blow the smoke out and pinch the cigarette between my fingers. “Fizzlefuck?”

Mac snorts on his end of the call, the rustle that follows indicating the shaking of his head.

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