Page 68 of Rock Bottom

Boone hesitated as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do. When his brain eventually caught up, he took Dante’s hand and shook it. “Sorry. It feels like we just talked, but I guess we haven’t met yet. You can call me Boone. Mr. Calhoun’s a little formal for me.”

“Got it. I’m not big on formalities either.”

“I can see that.” Boone nodded to me. “We can get you another chair if you’d rather.”

“Nope, I’m good.” Dante beamed like he was a completely innocent little angel, but he wasn’t. This man was the devil, and he was bringing the devil out in me, too.

“Right, well, I suppose we should get down to brass tacks then.” Boone slid around to the other side of the table, taking up the only other available seat.

Wattson finally folded up his newspaper and set it aside. “Xion’s not coming?”

Boone shook his head. “He’s doing a little car therapy today. Better he cuss at that Impala he’s been workin’ on than our guest.” He tapped Leo on the shoulder.

Leo fumbled to take his headphones off. “Sorry.”

“I know you met most of the team,” Boone started, “but I’m a man of habit. I like to do introductions first so that everybody’s clear on who does what. Starting on your right, that’s Doc Wattson, our medic. He did two tours in Afghanistan patching people up before he went to work for Doctors Without Borders. When he got bored with that, he came to work for me. I think I got the best part of that deal. Anyway, next to him is Ragnar, our dog handler and repair specialist. He was in a K9 unit up in Chicago for eight years before I got him. Then over here, we’ve got Leo, former Army data analyst, and Bowie, former Army Ranger. And of course you know Church, who’s former SAS.”

Dante shifted in my lap, glancing around the table. To someone who didn’t know him well, his smile might seem confident, but over the last two weeks, I’d learned some of his nervous tells. He had that same fear in his eyes when I told him to call his mom. But he waved at everyone as if nothing was wrong. “I’m Dante. Former alcoholic screw up. Oh yeah, and I sing good sometimes, too.”

I think he was expecting chuckles from his self-depreciating humor, but he wasn’t used to people like the Dogs, who all saw right through him. When nobody laughed, he squirmed until I put a hand on his thigh and squeezed.

“Right,” Boone said, folding his hands on top of the table, “Now onto business. I just got off the phone with your manager, Dante, and all the big heads at the label. They want to pull you out. Send you to another rehab program behind locked doors.”

Dante stopped breathing. I closed my hand around his and squeezed. He squeezed back.

“They’re pissed,” Boone continued. “And rightly so. We dropped the ball when it came to Oscar, and I want to apologize for that. I told them as much about forty times. I ain’t apologized that much since Gran found out why I was stealing her favorite lotion. But the good news is I managed to convince them it was a one-time oversight. Nobody was hurt. I told them that you were safer with us than behind any locked door. You can pick a locked door, but a state-of-the-art secure military bunker… Now that’s another story entirely.”

Oh no.

“Military bunker?” Dante shook his head, hair swishing. “I’m sorry. What?”

“The cabin was a security nightmare,” Boone said, tapping his finger on the table. Acres of woodland, staff coming in and out. The staff, by the way, was your people’s idea. Not mine. My boys can clean up after themselves. Anyway, all the hills mean getting a signal out of those woods is harder than catching a rabid racoon. Even with a dozen cameras, unless I put Leo there twenty-four seven to monitor the feeds, and get people patrolling the grounds, I can’t seal off every possible entry point there. But the bunker has one way in, one way out. And we control the door and the space above it.”

“You want to stash me in a bunker?”

“Yep.” Boone stomped one foot. “She’s right beneath us and built to withstand a nuclear blast. You’ll be safer than the president down there, guarded by all of us around the clock.”

“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” I said. “Oscar’s not some terrorist with a rocket launcher. He’s a skinny kid with a used sedan and roofies.”

“And Dante’s an addict.” Boone said firmly. “Addicts in recovery care more about scoring their next hit than being safe. They will lie, cheat, and manipulate anyone to get it, including you.”

Dante lowered his head.

“Unless you want to change,” Boone added.

“I do.” Dante said firmly.

Boone nodded. “Today, you do. Today, it’s easy. Today, you don’t have any other option. But when you’re out there, and one of your friends passes you the bottle, or somebody sends you a nice whiskey as a present, or you have a fight with the man you love because the stubborn fucker won’t go to one lousy doctor’s appointment…” He paused suddenly, looking around the room before dropping his head with a sigh. “Look, kid. I doubt anyone’s told you this, but I’ve been where you are. Maybe nobody else has the guts to tell you this, so I will. That temptation? It never goes away. I’m eighteen months sober and every damn day is a new fight. I have to make the same choice I never would’ve made if I hadn’t been staring death in the face the first time I made it. It’s not enough to want it. You have to need something more than you need to be drunk or high. That’s the only way out.”

The room was quiet after Boone’s speech. I hadn’t heard him talk at length about his battle with alcoholism. It was one of those things that he only brought up on occasion because that wasn’t who he was anymore. It had to be hard for him to be there, just feet away from someone who was so much like him. But Boone was right. The only way Dante was going to get better was if he had something more in his life.

“Hiding him away in a bunker isn’t going to give him something more,” I said.

Boone exhaled loudly. “I know. I also know it doesn’t matter where he spends the next two to three weeks. Where you are, kid, won’t matter so much as what you do with the time. You need time and space to focus on yourself. I think everyone agrees on that. I also think everyone agrees you can’t have that if we’re all worrying what direction the next threat is coming from. So, we lock you down tighter than Fort Knox and that’s a starting point, at least. Most of the rest…You’ve got to do it yourself, kid. But if you’re here, at least you know you’ve got some crotchety old men who’ve been through what you went through.” He gestured over to Wattson, who shifted in his seat.

“Of course,” Wattson said. “We’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Will Church still be with me?” Dante asked, his voice small.

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