33. Cole
Chapter 33
Cole
E verything hurt. My body, my mind, my fucking soul, if I had one. The whiskey in my pocket barely kept it under control. I’d found a happy medium that allowed me to cover up enough of the pain that I could try to be a normal person without debilitating me into a full-blown wreck.
If I didn’t drink enough, I couldn’t stop thinking about her and Drew.
If I drank too much, I couldn’t stop thinking about her and Drew.
If I drank the perfect amount, I couldn’t stop thinking about her and Drew, but it wouldn’t leave me sobbing and clutching my chest in the middle of the bathroom floor.
It was the only option.
Even if it meant barely being able to function at work.
I didn’t bother taking the head of the table for the shareholder meeting. Instead, I let Ben run the show, keeping to the sidelines and out of the way. The likelihood of me just messing things up was too high to risk it, and considering how many times I’d nodded off already, I’d made the right choice, even though it hurt to not be able to run my own business.
I knew it wasn’t a good look, having my next in line take over while I was still around. I knew it made me look weak and incapable, knew it would likely raise questions.
But the meeting ended and they left without a word, without their questioning gazes or interrogations toward me. Either they already knew or they didn’t care. Or worse—they expected it.
I waited until the room was clear to take a swig from my flask. Drive down the feeling, reach that not-so-happy medium.
The burn at the back of my throat only raged on.
I blinked, and I was almost stumbling into the hall. I’d gotten used to the blips again. They were happening more frequently, stealing patches of time from me. But time didn’t mean anything anymore, not when it wasn’t spent with her.
“Cole.”
“Ben,” I sighed, turning on my heel. “Thank you for running the meeting. I appreciate?—”
“Is everything okay?” he asked, his arms crossing over the cheap suit he’d likely picked up from Goodwill. Stop it. He’s nice. Guess the shitty thoughts were back. “Are you…?”
“I’m fine.” My jaw ached from how hard I clenched it.
Ben glanced behind his shoulder, checking the hall was clear before his ponytail nearly smacked me in the face as he whipped back around. “You don’t seem fine. Having me run the show while you’re on site? And you’re clearly day-drinking, man. I can smell it on you. We all can.”
Well, that explains why the shareholders didn’t talk to me. “I’m not discussing this with you,” I replied, trying to keep an ounce of professionalism instead of letting my irritation cloud me. It was becoming harder than it used to be. “I said I was fine. Just leave me alone.”
“Look, I know we’re not close,” Ben said, taking a single step toward me. Instinctually, I backed up, trying to keep my breath from him. Pointless. “But it’s obvious you’re not okay. You know the rumors around here, you know how fast they spread. Maybe it’s best you take some time off again.”
I scoffed. “Is this your company now?” Well, there goes the professionalism.
“Well, no?—”
“Then don’t think you can tell me what to fucking do,” I snapped. “If I want to be here, I’ll be here. If I don’t, you’ll know. I can do whatever I want here, whether that means crashing and burning it into the goddamn ground or building it up to new heights. You’re lucky I let you play CEO for six months, but that doesn’t give you a fucking title.”
His wide eyes and step back told me I’d gone a little too far, but I didn’t care, not about this, not about anything.
“You’re also lucky I’ve not kicked you back down to the ground floor.”
I turned on a dime, leaving him standing there, and decided maybe it was best I leave for the day. Maybe I needed more than what was in my pocket.
So what if I ended up sobbing on my bathroom floor again? I’d done it a million times by now. I was used to it, and I’d forget the gruesome details by morning.
————
Yellow teeth, yellower eyes, and a tall, wiry frame stood over me, a tray of shots in his hand. He sat down at the table beside me, the clear shots clinking and spilling over the lips of the glasses.
“You didn’t have to pay for them,” I grumbled, tipping one back and relishing in the burn of the cheap booze as it slid down my throat.
“My pleasure, bud,” Adam said. He touched a glass to mine as we fired them down in rapid succession. I’d missed nights like this—though not so much the mornings after—where he and I and his group of friends would drink until the moon set and the sun rose, where I’d stumble back to my apartment on 16th Street and collapse on the bare floor.
I only wished I hadn’t given Gray the keys.
“I told you it wouldn’t last,” Adam laughed, but it was hollow, a slight hint of sympathy to his tone. “I tried ten years ago. Don’t feel bad about it.”
“I don’t,” I lied.
In reality, I couldn’t feel worse about it. This was the point I hated getting to, where the thoughts that haunted my sleep hit me in waves in my waking hours. I could get past this point, to the stage where walking was hard and driving was out of the question, and they’d quiet down again, but any further than that and I’d end up a shell of myself. I made a mental note to wait until I was home for that so I didn’t end up in the bathroom here, instead.
But I couldn’t stop the onslaught as I drank.
What kind of father was I? Holed up in a dark and dreary bar, music from ten years ago, at the earliest, booming over the speakers, the neon signs hurting my head. Granted, Dana hadn’t confirmed it with her own mouth, but Lottie had made it more obvious than ever, and I’d felt that connection every time I was around him. I had been right. My gut had been right. Drew was mine, and I was screwing it up before he was even seven months old.
If anything, I was worse than my own father. At least he’d waited until I was thirteen to abandon me. So much for breaking that cycle.
A fist hit the table, and as I turned to look, everything in between blurred into nothing until I focused on him. Bobby practically fell into his seat, hollering hello to Adam over the music, asking him where the group was, I guess they’d met up beforehand.
I watched him as I knocked back another, watched as he took what wasn’t his and plucked a shot glass from the tray. He’d been pissing me off lately in my sober bouts, in the mornings before I’d had a drink and the evenings before I drowned. My house was a fucking wreck because of him. Half of my clothes had gone missing, and even now, it was plain to see he’d been taking them as he relaxed in one of my good suits. Whether his were getting ruined in his own antics or whether he’d simply lost them in the piles of trash filling his room, I wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t even asking. He was just taking .
And I fucking hated his haircut.
I blinked, and he was speaking.
“Another round?” Bobby asked, his gaze cutting to me as he leaned forward onto the table.
“I don’t know. I might head home,” I sighed, glancing at the clock and nearly losing my mind as I realized two hours had passed. It’s fine. It happens.
“Come on, man. It’s Friday. No work tomorrow, no bitch to hold you down anymore,” he laughed, placing one hand on my shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
From the sway of my body and the no longer incessant thoughts, I’d hit the calm before the storm. Any more and I’d be a fucking shipwreck. “Don’t,” I breathed.
I looked to my right, hoping Adam would back me up, but the space he occupied before was empty, and the glasses he’d drunk from were gone. When did he leave?
“What? She’s fucking insane. Keeping your kid from you? I mean, what kind of woman does that? You don’t need her,” he droned on and on. He knocked back the last shot left on the table before leaning into me again. “Get us another round, Cole.”
“I don’t want another round,” I snapped, tugging my shoulder from his grip and watching as the world spun.
“Seriously? You were fine ten minutes ago.”
“You didn’t mention Dana ten minutes ago.”
“Oh my god, man,” he said, dragging one hand down his face in frustration. “Stop letting that cunt get into your fucking head?—”
My hand went flying before I’d even made the decision. I grabbed him by my tie, wrapping it around my fist, and tugged him toward me. “Don’t you ever call her that again,” I growled, bringing his face just inches from mine, watching as the little drops of spit landed on his unshaven face. “Do you understand me?”
The laugh that bubbled from him had me pushing him back harshly into his seat, relinquishing my hold on him. “Christ, she’s really got her claws in you,” Bobby said.
He pushed himself to his feet, swaying a bit, before glaring down at me.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do, Cole. You’re not my fucking dad,” he chuckled. “You’re barely Drew’s.”
My hands buzzed as he walked away, the desperate temptation to beat his face in where he stood smothering me. But I wouldn’t do that. We were both on edge, both suffering from a relapse. A part of me held an inch of grace for him.
Even if it meant sobbing on the bathroom floor of a rundown bar in the middle of Boulder.
My phone pinged, and I fished it from my pocket, the blind hope that it would be Dana fueling my actions. But it was a call from my sponsor. I canceled it. I couldn’t be bothered lying anymore today, whether that was to myself or anyone else. Wasn’t sure I even could at this stage.
How did things get this bad?
I stared at the wood of the table, memorizing the swirls in the knots and the way each piece was nailed together. I was already becoming a shell of myself tonight, but in general, I was useless. Weak. A piece of shit, a deadbeat, a failure. Dana was right to push me away. She was right to keep me from Drew. Maybe she was even right to keep the truth from me.
I waited until I heard the front door close before stumbling my way up to the bar and settling into a high top chair, passing my card over the counter, and asking the bartender to keep them coming.