Page 19 of A Cure for Recovery

He backs the fuck off.

He twists away from between the two of them – “Let go,” he mutters at Lawson, batting his hand away – and heads for the restroom.

Halfway there, he realizes that his legs are shaking, not from weakness, but from adrenaline, and he left his cane back at the table. He presses on. If he falls, he falls. Like hell is he turning back, or calling to Lawson for help.

He makes it down the hall, through the swinging door, and fetches up hard against the sink, gripping its edge with white-knuckled fists. He stares down into the drain a moment – for a dive bar, the sink’s pretty clean – catching his breath, winded as though he sprinted here.

When he lifts his head, he recoils from his reflection. His brows slant sharply downward, and his eyes are tight, lined at the corners. His mouth is a harsh, flat line, lips pale where they’re pressed together, and his jaw is set, chin jutted like when he used to argue with Frank, or lay down an edict at the head of the Cattaneo table. His hair’s longer, and his clothes are different, but he’s not Tommy Granger right now, and he…he isn’t quite sure how to slide back into his skin. What he thinks of now as hisrealskin…but has perhaps been a costume for an angry, bitter man all along.

By the time he sees the door swing open through the mirror, his breathing has picked up another notch. He’s nearly wheezing. Lawson enters the bathroom with a deep frown on his face, unfairly handsome in his clinging v-neck tee and jeans. His expression is reminiscent of Before the Shooting, nothi, baby, butwhat the fuck now?A fitting match for Tommy’s mob face.

But then he freezes, and the door swings shut behind him, and he meets Tommy’s gaze in the mirror. His frown twitches, and the lines on his forehead smooth beneath the overlong flop of his golden hair, and he approaches the sink slowly, like he’s walking up behind a wild animal he doesn’t want to spook.

You okay?Tommy expects to hear, and clenches his teeth against it. He’s not dizzy, exactly, but all his edges are blurred, and he’s angry, and his head feels light, and he wishes he hadn’t been drinking on an empty stomach, but thinks the alcohol might take the edge off his temper – at least with Lawson. He won’t be mad that Lawson asks if he’s okay this time.

But instead, Lawson moves to stand just behind him, hands stuffed in his jeans pockets, and says, “Are you for real?”

Tommy glimpses his own face go slack with surprise before he looks back to Lawson. “What?”

Lawson huffs a sigh, turns away, and shakes his head. “I told you – I told you justlast night, and a dozen times before that – how publishing works. How querying works.” He turns back, and his frown sayscome on, mannow. “And then you’re gonna yell at Leo?Leo? In a bar? When it’s not even in his control what happens to my book. Seriously?”

Indignation flares. Tommy tightens his grip on the sink until his knuckles crack, until his ring makes a quietchinkagainst the porcelain. “Leo encouraged you to write that–”

Lawson’s brows fly up. “Write what? That book you don’t like? That snotty bullshit?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you don’t like it.” Lawson’s voice is tight with anger, but controlled in a way Tommy’s never associated with him. He looks disappointed. Maybe even disgusted. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and props them on his hips, angles his head so he’s looking down at Tommy via their reflections. “Right? You think it sucks.”

“Ineversaid that.” Tommy’s heart throbs quick like raindrops in his throat and fingertips. Somehow, he’s losing control of this encounter; feels like the floor is titling and like he has to hold on for dear life. “You know that I think that–”

“That everything should go your way all the time? Yeah, I noticed.”

“I don’t–”

“You spent how many years playing mob boss? Big mansions, penthouses, flashy cars.” He ticks things off on his fingers. “Expensive clothes. Anything you wanted, whenever you wanted it. Dudes would stand guard outside an office while you got fucked if you wanted.” Here his upper lip curls back, and Tommy doesn’t think he’s remembering their encounter, but imagining all of the others like it Tommy had in the past.

“Law–”

“And now,” Lawson barrels on, raising his voice to be heard above his protest, “you think you’re supposed to be magically perfect after you got shot and almostdied.”

“Would you stop fucking interrupting me?”

“No.” Lawson steps in closer, until his breath rushes harsh and hot against the back of Tommy’s neck, and his chest bumps into his shoulders. His voice vibrates with barely-leashed anger. “You can be a dick to me if you want, but that out there” – he jabs a finger toward the door – “with Leo? Way over the line, man.”

Man. It’s not that they don’t call each other that. They do, rather frequently. But in this context, it draws a decisive line between all the husbandly pet names Lawson doles out like Trick-or-Treat candy.

The sound of it tightens Tommy’s jaw another notch, like a winch cranking. He sees the leap of it in his cheek, the flicker along his temple. “Leo said he could get you a publishing deal.” He sounds petulant, but worse than that, he soundsnasty. Petty.

Lawson makes anare you kiddingsound in his throat. “Leo said he would pass my manuscript along to a friend. He didn’t promise me shit.”

“Seven months, Lawson!”

“So fucking what?!”

“Don’t you care? Don’t you want Leo to give Keith a nudge?” In the mirror, his brows are up, forehead creased with lines like a stack of pancakes. Jesus. When they used to argue like this, they were smooth and round-cheeked with puppy fat; and now they just look haggard.

“A nudge…Jesus.” Lawson shakes his head, rakes a hand through his hair, big-eyed and disbelieving with an angry-set mouth. “You don’tshake downa publisher, Tommy. This is the real world, not the goddamn mob.”

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