So, I did. I surrendered to it all, and a moan belted out of me so loudly I was certain the neighbors upstairs would hear it.

I didn’t care. I was too intoxicated by the heady rush. The sensation wrapped around my middle, warmth spreading all the way to my toes. Jesus, I felt like I would never stop coming.

My knees gave out, and I collapsed in Nik’s lap. At least I had enough wherewithal to brace my arms on the couch or risk headbutting Nik in the nose.

“Jesus,” I said. “Jesus fuck.”

“I’ll say,” Nik said, his hand still on my twitching cock. “That was . . .”

Incredible. Incendiary. Breathtaking. I could easily drum up a litany of words from my junior English class, but none of them held a candle to the sensation that rattled through me.

I tilted my head back as my body worked to catch a full breath. My heart hammered against my ribs, and my thighs ached from holding myself up. But the noise in my head had ceased, replaced with a silence, like a crowd had been hushed. I closed my eyes and reveled in it, knowing that reality would catch up with me and that the worries of yesterday and tomorrow would find me again.

Nik muttered under his breath, and I grimaced at the sticky mess between us. Nik had caught the brunt of it, and it took a few seconds for my limbs to catch up and get moving. “Hang on, I’ll get something to clean this up.”

I pulled on my underwear and went to the bathroom to clean myself up. When I came back into the living room, I noticed Nik staring down at a couple of wet spots on his shirt. That was a problem for later.

I settled next to him, hand rubbing over his stomach to the top of his jeans. Nik’s breath hitched.

“I wanna blow you. Is that cool?”

“Yeah, okay,” Nik said, his voice tight. “Not gonna lie, can’t say I’ll last long.”

Nik’s admission carried a subtle undertone of embarrassment, but the electrifying sensation of knowing that I had aroused him to the point of no return sent a shiver down my spine.

As I ran my tongue over the trail of hair beneath his belly button, a smile spread across my face at the way Nik reacted with a shudder. “I won’t complain about that.”

I unbuttoned his pants and slid over his thighs, brushing my mouth over the pebbled skin. His eyes fell closed as I pulled his pants and underwear down to his knees, running my palms over his thighs.

His arousal was undeniable, and my mouth watered to get a taste of him. I leaned in and tilted my head to the side, running my mouth along the side of his cock, from base to tip. A raw groan punched out of Nik, his fist coming up to his mouth.

I pulled his hand away. He let it go without a fight, his eyes squeezed shut. “Open your eyes,” I murmured. After several short inhales, Nik’s eyes opened, desperation pouring out of him. “Don’t look away.”

“Okay,” Nik whispered, his voice shaky. Keeping my eyes on him, I gripped the base of his dick and took him into my mouth.

Nik sucked in a sharp gasp, twisting a hand in my hair. He didn’t use it to set the pace or give guidance. It was there, like it was a reminder that this was real. I never looked away.

When his cock touched the back of my throat, Nik yanked on my hair hard, pulling me away. My lip caught a bit of his release, and I ran the pad of my thumb over it before sucking it into my mouth.

The thread holding us together snapped. We scrambled toward each other. I met Nik halfway with a kiss that was more opened mouth than closed, our breaths mingling, tongues tangling as if we were trying to devour each other. All thoughts had fallen out of my head, my only focus the feeling of Nik’s mouth against mine, the way he moaned when he tasted himself on my tongue.

Nik pulled away first, and I swallowed the disappointment at the loss. He rubbed a hand over his face and straightened up in his seat, reaching for the used rag to clean up.

“Hey, want me to clean your shirt?” I asked while joining Nik in putting my pants on. “I could order something while it cleans?”

Nik shot up at lightning speed, tugging up his jeans, his focus steady on buttoning himself up. He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I have to get up early tomorrow for work.”

Damn. Not the first time I’ve had a hookup leave right after we got off, but Nik had me wanting him to hang around a little longer and go on the journey with him as he rambled about whatever was on his mind. I wanted to look at him a little longer, find out what other places made him squirm when I touched him.

Didn’t need to waste my time on wishful thinking, so I distracted myself with putting on my tank top to hide my disappointment and followed Nik to the door.

I was cooking up a goodbye that didn’t sound like a cliché when Nik spoke first.

“I had a good time,” he said, an intensity in his blue-gray eyes that made my head swim.

“Same.” I opened the door for him and leaned against the side of it. Unable to shake off the disappointment of seeing him go, I said, “Figured maybe we could do it again sometime. If you’re down, that is.”

“Sure,” Nik said, with a nod. He had one foot out the door before he paused in hesitation and leaned in, giving me a quick kiss. “Night.”

By the time I found my voice, Nik had disappeared down the hall and into the parking lot.

Hours later I still felt his hands on my skin.

NIK

Every Sunday, I spent my afternoons talking to strangers while they got high.

I’d found out about the Never Alone hotline a year ago in my support group from a new member who’d told his story about his first and only overdose. He wasn’t found by a friend or someone in his family. A good Samaritan didn’t call 911 when they passed his lifeless body slumped in his beat-up Ford Focus. It was a stranger he’d called on the phone, who’d stayed with him as he hit his usual dose of crack. It was a stranger who’d called the paramedics when he hadn’t replied to them. And later, when the hospital told him that the drugs he bought were laced with fentanyl, he understood it was the person on the other end of the phone who had helped him live.

After I’d heard that story, I needed to be that person for someone. When I OD’d, I got lucky. Chance knew where to find my ass, and if he’d been even five minutes later, I’d be in the dirt right now.

For a while, it gave me purpose. It still did in some ways, but a month ago, I realized I’d given every single moment of my sober life to drugs and recovery anyways.

Except last night. Micah had nothing to do with drugs. He was dead sober, like me, and he’d invited me back to his place. It was the stupidest thing I’d done in years, but it beat staying at that party to prove a point.

I rolled out of bed, headed to the bathroom, and lifted my shirt. Micah had left marks scattered across my hip and one at the base of my throat. I pulled my sweatpants down to find another one on my thigh, and I pressed a finger to the tender skin. A shiver rippled up my spine.

What the hell was I thinking, going back to a stranger’s house for a random fuck? That impulsiveness belonged to a younger version of me who existed before I’d descended into the madness of drugs. That person was long gone, and I intended to keep it that way.

Last night didn’t feel like I was living that story again. I’d seen a possibility to not have to be stuck living with the same routine for the rest of my life.

I turned the cold water on as high as it would go and splashed my hot skin until it cooled off. The collar of my shirt was soaked, along with a good chunk of my hair, so I reached for a towel to scrub the dripping water out of my hair. With one last look in the mirror, I counted the bruises Micah had left behind.

Five. Five marks left by his teeth and tongue. Five bits of evidence of how Micah shook my core.

I shook my head hard. There wasn’t any time for me to stand in my bathroom staring like a fool and having a freak-out over something that would never happen again. Even though I didn’t have a lot of personal experience with this, I knew how it worked; the hookup’s number went into the phone number graveyard, long forgotten.

After getting dressed, I headed to the small dining room. This house was the first place I’d ever had by myself and was a bit sparse, but everything belonged to me. I sat down at the dining room table—one of the handmade gifts from Chance’s woodworking studio—and opened my computer.

Closing my eyes, I worked to rid my mind of my earlier thoughts about Micah. Last night’s adventure was no longer at the forefront of my mind as I dialed into the operator line.

Today, I took a couple more calls before an email hit my inbox. I finished a call before dialing a regular that I kept in touch with weekly.

Caleb and I had hit it off the first time he called the hotline. By the end of the call, he asked if he could email me his number and keep in touch. It’d been almost a year, and he hadn’t missed a single Sunday.

He talked about random events that happened in his life—about a trip to the grocery store when he could manage to get there, and his obsession with instant ramen. He talked about his job in middle management and talked about how the next quarter at work was going to be stressful. He told me how much he missed the beaches where he grew up.