37. Cole

Chapter 37

Cole

One Year Later

T he sun had just barely begun its descent over the tops of the Rocky Mountains as I shut my planner and my laptop, deciding that I'd done more than enough work for one day.

The date wasn't as jarring to me as I thought it would be. One year completely sober was one thing—a thing I was thoroughly and desperately proud of—but it was also Drew's second birthday.

One year ago today, I'd woken up with one of the worst hangovers of my life after drinking myself stupid in my hotel room, the fear of missing his first birthday driving me to the bottle. But the moment it hit midnight, I'd regretted every sip. I'd vomited across the floor of the bathroom. I'd called Gray and told him I'd fucked up. I'd picked myself up and started again, telling myself it was one slip-up, and I couldn't be so hard on myself. I told myself I'd handle it if and when another came.

But it never did.

I'd been close the night I left Dana's. I'd bought a bottle, I'd sat on my bed and stared at it for upwards of an hour, but in the end, I didn't even call my sponsor. I dumped it down the drain.

The temptation to swing by her house on my way and try my luck again was overwhelming, but I had plans tonight, and I needed to not dwell on her.

She'll come to you if she changes her mind, my therapist had said.

And if she doesn't? I'd asked.

Then you can't let the hold she has on you decide your future.

I'd done my best to take it to heart. I was staying sober mostly for myself now. I'd never felt better, sans the brief periods of relief with Dana. I'd tried not to let her mailed checks for the hospital bill get under my skin, no matter how many times we played the back-and-forth game of me returning it to its sender only for it to show up again. I told myself every day that she'd likely moved on, and although it hurt every time, it helped keep the temptation at bay.

A knock sounded on my door as I stuffed my laptop into my bag. The secretary I'd hired just weeks ago stuck her head in, her braided blonde hair falling over one shoulder. "Uh, there's a kid downstairs asking to see you."

My heart leaped out of my fucking chest for a split second before remembering Drew was only two and if he was downstairs asking for me, he'd be both a prodigy and a liability.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Did he say who he is?" I asked.

"He said his name was Hayden."

Well, fuck.

"Let him up."

I collapsed into my seat, partially dumbfounded and partially impressed. Hayden and Harley. I'd done a bit of digging when I first sobered up, looked into the life my parents were leading and who those teenagers they'd had with them were. Twins, but fraternal. He'd be, what, fifteen now? Sixteen, maybe.

Why the hell had he come all the way from Bali to Boulder?

And why the hell did he want to see me?

My thoughts spiraled as I watched the clock tick by. I had AA in an hour. I'd need to make this fast if I had any chance of making it on time, and considering I hadn't been late in exactly one year, I didn't want to ruin my streak.

The door creaked open and in stepped a younger, spitting image of me as a teenager.

But maybe a little edgier.

His black hoodie was zipped almost all the way up, the hood of it covering his mess of dark blonde hair. His eyebrow and lip piercings told me that Mom had calmed down on her life goal for her children to look as respectable as possible. His baggy grey jeans were covered in patches from brands I didn't recognize, but the Converse on his feet were classic.

"Hi," he said as if it were the least weird thing in the world that he was there in my office.

"Uh, hey." I watched him carefully as he collapsed into the leather wingback opposite my desk.

Well, my therapist did say I needed to start bridging the gap between me and my family.

Just wasn't expecting it to happen today.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "You're, what, sixteen now? Are you alone?"

He shrugged as he picked at something on the base of his shoe. "Almost sixteen. Mom and Dad are in Denver so I got an Uber."

I blinked, watching as he stared at me and spoke with such lighthearted indifference. As if it didn't matter if they panicked wondering where the hell he'd gone.

I snorted. "You just left?"

His sneaky little grin grew as he sunk down further into the chair. "Yeah. They've been blowing up my phone."

A weird sense of pride overwhelmed me—my kin, my brother, was doing to them exactly what my parents had done to me.

"I should probably head back soon before they put out an amber alert," he laughed.

"Do they not track your phone?"

He shrugged. "They try, but I think they're too old to realize I can just turn off my location settings. So they freak out when it goes off but they never blame me for it." His fingernail dug into a patch of dirt in his shoe before dropping it on the ground. "Dad once called our network and screamed at them for like, two hours about having unreliable tracking."

I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to keep in the absolute hilarity of it. I'd assumed my siblings would be the perfect mold of my parents. I couldn't have been more wrong. "You're lucky your sister doesn't rat you out."

"Harley wouldn't dare," he smirked. "She knows damn well I have too much dirt on her."

"Why did you come here?" I asked again, relaxing into my chair. This wasn't at all the shitstorm I imagined it to be when Laura had told me Hayden was downstairs.

He shrugged as he bounced his leg. "I don't know. Just felt like it, I guess. Wanted to see what you were all about when you didn't have Dad in a chokehold."

Heat crept into my cheeks. "I'm sorry about that. You shouldn't have had to see it."

He tongued at his lip piercing, forcing it to poke out at the front. "I know it's probably weird for you that we, like, exist and all that. But if it makes you feel any better, Mom and Dad felt bad about dropping that bomb on you. And us. We had no idea you existed, either."

It was like being burned and soothed at the same time with this kid.

Of course, I was glad to know that my parents felt like shit. And I was glad that he understood the complexities of how weird it was for me. But they hadn't even mentioned me to them.

Hayden's phone dinged and he glanced at it, his eyes bugging out of his skull. "Shit. Harley says Mom's calling the cops."

He scrambled up out of the chair and stuffed his phone in his pocket. "I'll have my driver take you back out to Denver," I offered, and he beamed at me over his shoulder.

"Thanks."

I didn't know what to do, whether I should hug him, just wave, or walk him out. But he beat me to it as I came around the side of my desk.

His arms wrapped around me quickly, his stature tall for his age but not quite hitting mine. "I know you hate Mom and Dad and all, but like, can we keep in touch? You're not half-bad. Harley wants to get to know you too."

Fuck. Why did that make my chest tight?

"Yeah, man. We can keep in touch."

Hurriedly, we exchanged numbers as I shot a text to my driver. I was buzzing every second of the way while I walked him to the exit, the reality of some kind of familial extension within my grasp washing over me. It was a lot, even though we'd only spent probably five minutes together. But it felt like a lifetime, and more importantly, a life line .

Family.

"I'm right across the street," he said down the phone. He turned toward me as he walked to the car, spinning one finger beside his head as if to indicate that our mother, on the other end of the phone, was insane. I laughed. "Mom, I'm waving at you. How do you not see me?"

He slid into the back of the car and the driver shut the door behind him, leaving me alone and unconnected once again.

But it didn't have to be like that anymore.

I'd made it a year. I'd made a connection. I was healing, I was getting better, and I was fucking capable now.

Maybe she had moved on. Maybe she was done with me. But she'd given me a lifeline, too, the last time I saw her.

I need you to be sober. Fully.

I was fully sober now.

I was stable.