Page 95 of Burned & Bound

West disappeared when we got back to the house. I probably should’ve checked on exactly where he’d gone, but at least he was in the house. I knew he was safe, which was about the best I was going to get.

But that didn’t put my mind at ease. There was no way in hell I was going back to sleep. And so I stood in my kitchen doing the dishes I’d avoided doing earlier in the evening when I went to bed. I didn’t even use the goddamn dishwasher. I just let the hot water sting my hands and angrily scrubbed every single one.

I didn’t hear West join me, but I stilled as his arms wrapped around my waist from behind. I felt how he pressed his forehead to the back of my neck, his hot breath washing over my skin.How the hell did I respond?

Hug him back? Tell him to get off? Every instinct told me to turn around and hold him, but I wasn’t sure I could. Maybe he could hug me and it didn’t bother him, but maybe I couldn’t hug him back.

Fuck, this touch thing was stressful. I didn’t want to set him off, but I didn’t know how to comfort him either. I didn’t have a fucking clue what to do, so I just stood there with my hands resting on the sink.

“Please, don’t hate me,” West whispered, the words slurring together.

“I couldn’t hate you.”

“You should.”

“I never will.”That was a promise.Sure, I’d hated him before he came back, but I hadn’t known everything about why he’d left. Back then, I couldn’t see all the puzzle pieces that made up West’s life. Hell, I still didn’t. And every little piece he did share with me only gave me a clearer image of what his life had been like and how it affected him.Broken him.I could never hate him for that.

“It just hurts,” he admitted, his voice breaking. “Everything fucking… hurts…”

A sob ate up anything else he was going to say.

I turned slowly, maneuvering him until he was wrapped up in my arms with his head buried in the crook of my neck. He broke down completely, and I held on tighter than I’d ever held anyone in my life.

And he let me.I bore the brunt of his weight as he gave in. There wasn’t a damn thing I could say, but I wasn’t going anywhere. We could stand against the kitchen sink until the sun rose for all I fucking cared. I wasn’t letting go until he wanted me to.

CHAPTER 64

west

Ifelt like fuckingcrap. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the all-night breakdown until I passed out laying on Jackson. Either way, I just wanted to crawl into a fucking hole and never come back out.

My emotions were so all over the place.Guilt. Shame. Fear.I was drowning in memories I didn’t want and I realized I was actually afraid of the future—afraid of what would happen with Jackson. With my horses. With my fucking life.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do my damn job, but mostly that was because Jackson wouldn’t let me near the horses until I called Bobby and went to a meeting. I resented him for that shit.

Admitting I drank again to Bobby only made me feel even more like crap. Instead of being mad or disappointed, he was empathetic and understanding. The man fucking invited me to dinner.

I borderline hated his kindness. Anger I could handle. I knew what to do with that. I didn’t know what to do with the man eating soup across from me.

“You know, this program gave me my life back,” Bobby began, “but this program isn’t the end all. Everyone who goes to AA, we all drink for different reasons. For me, it was social. I started drinking when I was fifteen. My friends and I would sneak out to drink all night long. I was an addict before I even knew what the word meant.”

“That’s young,” I commented mostly because I knew I was supposed to say something but what was beyond me.

“It is,” he agreed. “My question for you is—and it might be a hard one—why do you drink, West?”

That wasn’t a hard question at all.

“I don’t know how to survive without it,” I admitted quietly. I’d relied on it for years to silence the demons in my head.

“Do you have other coping mechanisms?” he asked. My gaze flicked in his direction. “When I first got sober, I didn’t know how to be the guy who didn’t drink when we went out. It was my whole personality. At first, I just tried to fake it—pretend my drink was alcoholic and still act like an idiot. It wasn’t until I relapsed that I realized this wouldn’t work unless I was honest with myself and with others. Did I lose some friends along the way? Yes, but they weren’t friends to begin with. What I did gain was the confidence to stand up for myself and a support group outside of this program—friends who were more than happy to help stave off the temptation. We picked up golf. Do you know how much someone has to love you to take on a four-hour sport that requires that much walking?”

A faint smile turned the corner of my mouth but that was it.

“My point is, you can’t just work the program and think the rest of your life will change as a result. You have to change your life, West.”

“I don’t know how,” I replied.

“I don’t know what you’ve been through,” he told me. My breath hitched in my throat. I didn’t want to talk about that with him. “And you don’t have to tell me—I’m not asking you to—but if it’s the root of why you drink, you need to find a way to work through it.”

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