Page 39 of A Cure for Recovery

He picks up his glass. “Talk shit about my husband and see if I don’t throw this in your face.”

“Christ,” Noah mutters, spreading his hands. “I’m not. Holy shit, can you not chill? Isn’t marriage supposed to mellow a guy out?” Tommy glares at him, but sips at his whiskey and enjoys the warmth of it. Deep down, he knows that Noah knows better than to trash Lawson. He was the one, after all, who stood between him and Frank from the very start.

“Eat something.” Noah nudges the fries closer. “Don’t get sloppy at noon, man.”

Tommy tsks, but takes a handful of fries.

Tone careful, Noah says, “Whyareyou drinking? Are you that nervous about his meeting?”

“Yeah. And I may or may not have been a huge jackass about it a couple weeks ago.” Without really planning to, he spills the whole story about what happened at Flanagan’s.

Noah’s frowning by the time he’s finished, and shakes his head. “Okay, first off, if this Leo guy is that much of a pussy–”

“He’snice. Unlike you and me.”

“I’m nice,” Noah says, unconvincingly. “You’re a shithead–”

“Fuck you.”

“Thanks for proving my point. But, like, come on. You were looking out for your guy. And you maybe had too much to drink on an empty stomach.” He reaches across the table and Tommy pulls his drink out of reach. “Was Leo even upset? Or was it Dana?” he asks, a knowing glint in his eye.

“Mostly Dana,” he concedes. “And Lawson.”

Noah’s brows flick, surprised.

“He thinks – he thought,” he corrects, because he doesn’t believe Lawson truly thinks this, and after last night, he doesn’t see how Lawson could doubt his commitment. But his stomach still twists when he thinks about Lawson’s face in the mirror that night, the way he doubted him. “That I was pushing this author thing because I wanted us to have more money. Because I was tired of the way we live.”

“Are you?”

“What?No. I’m not–”

“I mean. I can see why you would be. It’s–”

Tommy slices a hand through the air. “Stop. That’s not what I meant. That’s not why I’m nervous.”

Noah looks at him expectantly.

Tommy considers his drink, and then sets it aside. He doesn’t need it. It’s a stupid crutch, and he wants to be clear-headed and well-spoken when he says what he’s about to, because even if Noah has been sympathetic and supportive in most ways, Tommy doesn’t know if hegets it.

“When I was living and working here, I tried not to wonder too hard what Lawson was doing back in Eastman. Honestly, I assumed he wasn’t there anymore. I thought I’d have to track him down on Facebook, or go ask his parents where he was and what he was doing. I really didn’t expect…”

“For him to be–”

“Careful,” Tommy warns, and Noah puts up his hand.

“Miserable. I was gonna say miserable.” At Tommy’s narrow look, he says, “Hey, I saw him at Coffee Town, too. That was not a happy and fulfilled man I, uh, may or may not have threatened at his place of employment.”

“What the fuck?”

“I was playing mob guy,” he says, with an eyeroll of dismissal. “I wasn’t gonna actually do it. My point is: yeah. He wasn’t happy.”

Tommy shakes his head. “None of my worst-case mental scenarios involved him beingthatunhappy. I kept imagining that he was in a relationship, or that he’d forgotten all about me. That he’d run off and become a millionaire, recluse novelist in a cabin mansion somewhere. Or that he hated me, or he’d hit me, or–”

“Dude. Take a breath.”

He does, and massages at the tightness in his chest, the way his patched-together insides clench uneasily against one another.

“I want to make him happy,” he says, in a small voice. “I want him to have everything he wants, and I can’tdo anythingabout this writing thing except sit back and hope for the best.”

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