Page 22 of Finding Home

Aubrey rubs a palm down her bare arm and clears her throat. “So, what’s your timing on going to bed? As your sobriety coach, I feel like I should know your schedule every day.”

“I’m pretty wiped. I was thinking I’d take a hot shower and get into bed pretty soon.”

“That works for me. I’m tired, too. Raine woke up with another nightmare last night, so I didn’t get a good night’s sleep again.”

My eyebrows cinch together. “Raine’s been having nightmares?”

“Every night since . . .” Aubrey doesn’t finish her sentence, but she doesn’t need to: her crestfallen expression and moist eyes have finished it for her.

I have no idea what to say in this moment. Whenever people have tried to say something comforting about my mother’s passing, their words have always fallen flat, like lead balloons, no matter how good the person’s intentions. So, in the end, I ignore the obvious emotion washing over Aubrey’s pretty face and stay on topic. “You never need to stay up on my account. If you’re wiped out for whatever reason, you can always go to bed first, whether I’m still awake or not.”

Aubrey looks at me like I’m crazy. “Every night at ten, I need to send in that form certifying you’ve been a good little boy all day, remember? And I can’t do that, if I’ve been sleeping on the job.”

I scoff. “I don’t think the job requires you to match my sleep schedule, Aubrey.” I motion toward the moonlit lakeand surrounding cluster of trees immediately outside the large windows across the room. “Not here, especially, when there’s nothing around for miles.”

Aubrey shakes her head. “I’m getting paid to do this job, so I’m going to do it to the best of my abilities.” She raises an index finger. “Speaking of which, I’d better do a quick sweep of the house before we head to bed for the night.”

“A sweep of the house?”

“For alcohol. In case someone who stayed here left something behind.”

I roll my eyes. “I can’t imagine that’s necessary.”

Aubrey, looking around, ignores my comment. “I’ll start in the kitchen, unless you’d prefer me to start in your bedroom, so you can get in there now.”

I release a loud exhale. “Kitchen is fine.”

“Awesome.” She turns on her heel and strides into the adjacent kitchen, leaving me gawking involuntarily at the swishing movement of her hot little ass for a moment, until, finally, I pull myself together enough to amble into the kitchen after her.

When I enter the room, Aubrey is already bent over and peeking into a low cabinet, so I lean my ass against the kitchen counter and watch the show.

“You didn’t happen to have an alcoholic beverage at the airport or on the plane today, did you?” she asks, her gaze trained on her next opened cupboard. “Because the email I got explaining my job duties said you’ll need to co-sign onto today’s certification only, under oath, due to the hours you spent alone and unattended during your travels.” She bends over again, giving me another lovely view of her ass.

“On my honor, I’ve had nothing but coffee and water all day long.”

Aubrey straightens up from the latest cabinet she’sbeen inspecting to shoot me a pointed look that says,Your honor means nothing to me, motherfucker.

I chuckle. “Do you want me to swear it on something sacred to me?” With a dramatic hand to my heart, I declare, “Aubrey Capshaw, I swear to you and the god of rehab I’ve stayed sober all day. I swear it on my love for my mother, sister, and bandmates, and on every dime in my bank account.”

Aubrey rolls her eyes. “Your money is ‘sacred’to you? Nice, C-Bomb.”

It’s the first time she’s addressed me that way, since she made the switch to Caleb at her house. But it seems fair in this context. Sassy and teasing, even. Is the ice thawing a bit? “The money part was a joke,” I say with a smirk. “Although it certainly doesn’t suck to have money.”

Aubrey pulls an adorable face. One that says,I wouldn’t know. But she doesn’t say a word before moving on to the next cabinet.

“I realize you’re going to have to take a small leap of faith today,” I say to her bent-over backside. “But after today, I promise you’ll quickly find out I’m sincerely determined to stick with the program. It’s in my best interest to do that, for a variety of reasons.”

Aubrey stops what she’s doing and flashes me an earnest look. “I’m proud of you for working to get sober. I know from watching Claudia it’s a difficult thing to do.”

“I didn’t do it of my own free will. I had an expensive meltdown at a hotel in New York the night my mother died, and a court ordered me to go to rehab to avoid jailtime. And then, the insurance company that insures our tours piggy-backed on the court’s decision, so now I have to stick with my program, if I want my band to be insurable for tours again.”

Aubrey shrugs, looking unfazed. “Whatever got you here, you’re still the one doing the work. As far as I’m concerned, the praise is still well deserved.”

“The crazy thing is I don’t even need a formal program to quit drinking. I’ve quit before, whenever I’ve wanted to. Just to prove I could.”

“But you always started drinking again?”

“Yeah, whenever I felt like I’d proven my point to myself.”

---