Dakota’s fingers stilled. “You sure about that?”

As traffic picked up speed, I shot Dakota a narrowed stare before refocusing on the road. “Yeah, I do. If there’s anyone who’s able to help, it’s someone who’s got experience in it. I’m running out of options here, Dakota, so please save your judgements for another time.”

“C’mon, dude, I literally saw Nik get offered drugs from some random chick, and he shot her down so hard it was impressive. Give me a little more credit,” Dakota said with a little bite in his tone. He adjusted so he was facing the road again and twisted his arms across his chest, lifting one hand to rub over his face. “You know I’m the last person to judge anyone about that.”

It was true. Dakota was there with me when we’d found out that Ada had failed out of her program for an entire semester. I’d naively thought that it was because she drowned herself in penance for being the only one who walked away alive the night of that car accident. What I didn’t know was that she’d started hanging with a new crowd and was already far into the abyss of addiction.

That was the moment I knew I’d lost her, and I was determined to get her back.

I rubbed a hand over my face, wishing I could just go home and crawl back into bed with Nik and sleep the day away. “Sorry. That was a dick move.”

“It was, but I forgive you because I love you,” Dakota said, nudging my arm with his elbow. “God, I can’t believe Ada broke into your apartment, though. She must be in a bad place to get that desperate.”

She was desperate, and that meant that I was losing more of her day by day. I pulled in the parking lot of the warehouse and parked. It took a moment for me to realize my hands were shaking. “It’s why I gotta find out more about what resources Nik was talking about. There has to be some kind of program or something that’ll work.”

The sounds of trucks that were already beeping in the background, the shake of metal on metal. It wasn’t until we were halfway toward the warehouse that Dakota spoke. “I wanna tell you something, and I want you to try to give it some consideration.”

“All right, I’m listening.”

“Whatever Nik knows or resources he has, you have to prepare yourself that Ada may want nothing to do with it. Micah, look at me, please,” Dakota said, shaking my arm. I slowed down to a stop and turned toward him. “The only person who can help Ada is herself. If she doesn’t want it, nothing we do will change that.”

There was something desperate in Dakota’s words, and I had to swallow down the nerves assaulting my stomach. Off in the distance, I saw the shift supervisor hanging around in the bay, keeping an eye on the trucks. “C’mon, we need get going before we’re late.”

I was a couple steps ahead of Dakota, and we were about halfway to the warehouse when he murmured, “You’re different around Nik than you’ve been with other hookups.”

Something about that shook me from the inside and left me rolling to a quick stop. “What?”

Dakota shrugged. “Just an observation. I like the guy, and I think he may be good for you. I just don’t want you to miss a good opportunity.”

He headed toward the bay, and it took me several seconds to get feeling back in my feet to get moving, my heart aching.

NIK

Apaper tower of new-hire potentials leaned scarily to the side, and my hand darted out just before it took a nosedive toward the floor. It took a couple of days, but I’d finally figured out a three-stack system of potentials, interviewed, and completed hire dates.

My brain hurt. There was a part of me that wanted to give every single one of these people a shot at working here, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Seeing their loose grip on sobriety shook me to my core, a reminder that falling off the wagon wasn’t too far away. After reading the same application three times, I pushed it aside. I needed a break.

I didn’t want to do this. This was too much responsibility, and who the hell was I to make the choice of who was “qualified” and who wasn’t? These people were desperate to move on, and I sure wasn’t a good judge of their potential for success.

In a perfect world, Chance could continue doing the new hires, but it was always meant to be temporary. His heart was in his carpentry studio working on his build-to-order business. But until I found the right way to tell Duncan that I didn’t think I was cut out for this, it would be up to me to carry on.

The office door opened, and Duncan walked inside, his phone tucked against his shoulder as he headed to his computer. I got up to make a pot of coffee, knowing by the look on his face he was going to need it.

“Yeah, he has a shift on Wednesday,” Duncan said, his mouth clicking furiously. He nodded along to whatever someone said to him on the other side and hummed. “All right, I’ll keep in touch with you. Thanks. Bye.”

“Who was that about?” I asked, heading back to my desk and pulling another new hire application out.

“Walt,” Duncan said with a tired sigh. “I was on the phone with his sponsor because he’s called out three times in the last week, and I’m worried this week he’ll just abandon his shift entirely.”

Sunrise Market’s call-in policy was very forgiving for employees who had court dates, therapy appointments, or check-ins with their parole officers. Duncan also had a working relationship with those contacts to verify that they were real and not some made-up excuse. But Walt was a straight shooter and usually loud about when he had to go to show up somewhere because he “hated getting up early in the morning if there wasn’t any monetary benefit,” and all of those meetings were pretty fucking early.

“He got any appointments today?” I asked Duncan, my heart shooting up to my throat as I watched Duncan shake his head out of the corner of my eye.

“Checked in with everyone. He did a no-call for a therapy appointment on Monday, and he hasn’t called his sponsor back.”

Pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I tried to push away the sudden burst of nausea twisting in my stomach. The last time I’d worked with Walt, he was acting like his usual grumpy-ass self, grouching about how humid the weather had gotten.

I grabbed my phone on the desk and wrote out a quick text to Walt.

Hey, you doing okay?

Who knew if Walt would text back, but it was worth a shot. When a mug of black coffee appeared on an empty spot near the stack of papers of potential new hires, the overwhelming bold scent made me scrunch my nose. I looked at the thick black liquid and pushed it away.

“Bro, no offense, but the last thing I want right now is that,” I said.

Duncan turned in his rolling chair to rest his elbow on his desk and cross his legs. “I know, and I had a feeling you’d say that, but now I have your attention.”

“All right, you got my attention,” I said, slumping into my chair. “What do you want to say?”

“It never gets easier. I know that every single person I hire to work here has a greater chance of using again than not. Some of them do everything by the book and still fall off the wagon, leave, and never come back.” Duncan exhaled a shaky breath. “It’s always heartbreaking. Let’s just say that if anyone chooses to do this only for the successes, they’re a damn fool.”

I knew that there were people who came here that probably weren’t going to last long. I knew what the stats were about going back to using. Hell, I was one of them. But to face failure as much Duncan did, and to do it on purpose?

“So, then, why do you still do this?” I asked.

Duncan pursed his lips and tapped his thumb against his lip ring and shifted his away. He looked at me, his hazel eyes shiny, and whispered, “I do it for the scant few that do it and get clean and sober. That’s worth everything.”

There was a thickness in Duncan’s voice that made my eyes burn and my throat ache. What Duncan said poked at the entire belief I’d spent years living that the only thing stopping me from using was keeping my life predictable.

I turned to the tons of applications on the desk. So many people looking for a change, people who needed the opportunity to try. Walt wanted to be clean.

“Okay, so he’s not picking up his phone. How many hits does he get before he’s out?”

“We’re not going to terminate him because he’s not answering his phone, I promise.” Duncan patted my arm, and I looked up at him. “But I also can’t keep him on the payroll if he’s not reliable.”

“I know. Just let me know if you find anything out?”

“I will,” Duncan said with heavy promise in his voice as he pointed to the door. “Hey, I know you haven’t been doing the onboarding stuff long, but it can get a bit intense at times. Wanna take a long lunch break together?”

“For real for real?” I asked, my eyebrows flying up. Duncan laughed as he nodded, and I shot up from my chair. “Bro, say less. My eyes were crossing from reading and thinking too much.”

“You’re doing great,” Duncan said with a sincerity that made me feel appreciated. “How do you feel about sandwiches?”

We ended up at a place Duncan loved, a local joint that served locally sourced bread and ingredients. It wasn’t until I was about three bites into my sandwich that he asked, “What did you get into while Chance and I were gone? Aside from hanging out with Tristan and Kurt.”

I froze with my sandwich halfway to my mouth. Oil began to drip down the side of my hand, and I sat it down, grabbing several napkins from the dispenser and wiping up the mess.