I was touched that he tried to get my mind off of Ada, and I summoned a smile to reassure him. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.”

Dakota bumped shoulders with me. “I figured. Let’s hang tomorrow, then. Evie asked if she could go skating with her friends, and I could use someone to play teacher for them.”

It wasn’t a request, and it’d be an act of futility to argue. We got through the end of the fundraiser and cleanup, but the thought of going home alone still nagged at me. Tomorrow I’d have to reconcile with Ada because this was the time of month where I needed to ensure her prepaid phone wasn’t fucking ruined.

I watched the cars disappearing from the parking lot, and an itch to see Nik again tickled my skin. Nik did have a way of making me forget about the pain. Thinking about his hands alone made me feral. The dude was extraordinary, that was for sure.

I grabbed my phone and scrolled for Nik’s number, grateful that I’d already made plans with him. I’d worry about Ada tomorrow, but right now I had nothing else to lose.

NIK

Tristan and I kept our eyes on the kids while they ran laps around the infield. The team had a lot of newcomers this year, most of whom were eager to show off their skills.

“All right, y’all, let’s line up for some exercises. There are balls over near the bleachers, and I want everyone to find a partner and begin doing throws for a bit,” Tristan said with a loud clap, pointing at home plate.

I shuffled my feet, unable to stay still. The entire practice I’d been thinking about Micah and trying to figure why the hell I’d agreed to seeing him later. It’d be easy to shrug it off and say it was about getting my dick wet, but I knew it wasn’t.

Hooking up with Micah was the freest I’d felt in years. But there were risks, and I didn’t take risks. Working at Sunrise showed me how all it took was one crappy week and I could be off the wagon.

God, was I making a mistake?

It was a gamble to bring it up to Tristan because he may not even have an answer, but what the fuck else did I have to lose?

“Do you think it’s bad if you play it safe with life?”

Tristan didn’t answer for a while. I stole a quick look and saw his mouth twisted to the side, eyes squinting in the distance. He looked like he was about to answer, but the kids were going into the restless part of practice. I jogged over and told them to get in their positions and gave a ball to the first pitch.

Our attention stayed focused on the game, pumping out praise to one of the kids who caught a high kick and gained an out. The game continued, and Tristan and I slipped into our roles, which was basically to make sure none of these five-year-olds hurt themselves and ended up in the hospital.

We hooted at a home run, handing out high-fives. After the kids settled down, Tristan returned to his stance, eyes on the field. “Everyone feels like that at times,” he finally answered.

I had a real hard time believing that Tristan felt like that. He had a guy that made him look goofy as fuck in love, and if it wasn’t that, Maddie sure as hell kept these dudes on their toes.

“Sure, but I’m not that normal dude who’s got something to offer. I got no education. Hell, I barely got a GED. The only things I do in my life that isn’t dealing with recovery is a weekly pottery class and coaching for this team. That’s it.”

It felt like lying that I left my relationship, or whatever it was, with Micah out of the conversation, but I had this urge to protect it. As much as I’d been trying to convince myself that it was because of the mind-blowing sex, it wasn’t. It was how he hit me up at random and pulled me out of the safety of my routine, how he made all those boring bits seem less annoying.

Tristan faced me. He had his serious eyebrows going on, which meant he was deciding what to say. I called it his professor stare because I imagined it was a look he gave his students at the university.

I watched the kids play, their joyous faces like warm sunshine. Their laughter was the purest sound I’d ever heard. They had so much love inside of them and all this potential. Yet I knew that some of them wouldn’t make it very far, just like I hadn’t, because they’d seen some shit.

It made me want to protect them even more, but I knew the world was way bigger than me, and it would eventually sink its dirty claws into them. It always did.

“How would you describe me to these kids?” I asked, knowing I’d thrown Tristan off by my random shift in conversation. It may not have made sense to him, but I really felt like I was on to something, and I was able to say what was bugging me out loud. “You wouldn’t just tell a five-year-old I’m an ex-junkie?”

“Of course not. That’s—” Tristan rubbed his fingers along the side of his jaw and drew a harsh breath, his cheeks puffing. “You’re not obligated to give all the details of your life to people. Everyone has demons. Some are trying to make amends with them, and others push them away so they don’t have to look at them. Not many people can face them like you do.”

I rubbed my thumb along the scars on my veins, the ones I spent an extra ten minutes every day covering up. “I just don’t wanna be a cliché, man. But I have to be careful because all it could take is a bad week and I’m back where I started.”

Tristan gave me a kind smile and said, “You have way more wisdom than you give yourself credit for, so try to follow your gut every once in a while and see where it takes you. There’s nothing wrong with being a little impulsive now and then.”

Tristan’s advice sounded eerily close to Duncan’s. As much as I believed what they had to say, recovery didn’t stop. My throat grew tight, and I rubbed over the scars on my arm.

“Hey, Tris . . . could you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

I covered the scars with my palm, and with my pulse thudding against my neck, I asked, “Can you not talk to Duncan about this conversation?”

Tristan bumped his shoulder against mine and smiled. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

We got through another game before practice was over without any more tears, which Tristan and I always counted as a huge win. After the kids were all picked up, I always made Tristan go home, enjoying the time to pack up the equipment alone.

I was getting in my car when my ring tone went off, Micah’s name on my screen. A heady rush flooded my veins, leaving my skin tingling and head floaty as his deep tenor slipped through the line and said, “Hey, I sent you a text, but I realized you might’ve still been in practice. You busy?”

“Not anymore.”

“I’d still like to see you again,” Micah said, his tone dipping to a murmur so silky and sweet it rose the heat of my blood, awakening my cock without a wink of warning. “Can’t seem to get you off my mind.”

In the past, euphoria needed multiple steps. Steps that weren’t natural. It took brute force—literally punching into my veins—to achieve it, and I chased it until I couldn’t anymore. I nearly died because of it. I’d figured nothing would come close to touching that again.

Until now.

Normally, I’d go home, take a shower, and chill before going to bed and getting up before dawn. It would be another day ticked off, alive but not quite living—bored, but clean.

Now I had Micah’s voice humming in my ear with the option of a different evening before me, and there was no way I was gonna say no. He made me wanna take a chance, even if it freaked me out later.

Still, I needed to chill, or I’d be risking walking like I sat on a sharp rock all the way to my car. I wiped my hand over my mouth and, before I could lose courage, said, “I’m down.”

There was an awkward pause in the conversation before Micah cleared his throat. “Mind if I come to your place? Figured it’d even things out since you’ve already seen mine.”

“Sure, I’m already heading there,” I said, my heart rate kicking up as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward my neighborhood. “I’m a couple minutes away from my place. I’ll text you the address as soon as I park.”

“Good deal. See you soon, then,” Micah said, his smile radiating through the speakers of my car as the call ended.

By the time I parked in the driveway, I barely had a foot out the door as I shot the text off to Micah. Immediately, he texted back that he was ten minutes away. Well, better than nothing. I flicked up two fingers to the sky in gratitude and jogged into the house to get a quick shower in.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at my reflection. Water dripped from my hair to my arms, to my elbows. The path slithered and curled, catching in the bend between my biceps and forearm.

Paths of destruction still marred my skin. They’d looked far worse in the beginning, but through work, the evidence had mostly faded. Like the memories, though, the scars never fully disappeared.

The edge of my mouth curled as I jerked the drawer open that held my new arsenal of equipment. Two pumps of liquid and a few precise pats with a sponge, and my history vanished from the naked eye.

I’d just finished my other arm when several sharp knocks rattled on my front door. With a small curse under my breath, I rushed into my bedroom to put on a pair of joggers and headed to the front door.

Whatever internal struggle I’d been feeling about myself in the bathroom vanished when Micah’s gaze took one slow drag down my body and up again, his eyebrow taking a quick lift up to his hairline. My pulse skipped a beat.