8
Small steps
Rafferty hunched over his coffee, elbows on the worn Formica table, head bowed like a man in prayer. Or defeat. He wasn’t sure which. The coffee was lukewarm, the aftertaste bitter, but he sipped it anyway, because it gave his hands something to do.
The meeting had been exactly what he’d expected.
And yet not.
Church basement. Check.
Creaking folding chairs in a circle. Check.
Air that smelled like burnt coffee. Check.
But the people?
Normal, everyday folk. A bank teller with a bum leg. A mom whose daughter had died. A suspended coach hoping to get his job back. An older man he was almost sure had been his grade-school teacher.
There were no ex-cons. No desperate junkies. No exposed arms riddled with needle marks. No former undercover DEA agents.
And there was nothing, nothing anonymous about the meeting.
Small towns didn’t have secrets. Not really.
And his secrets weren’t secrets. Not anymore.
Everybody knew his family. Knew him. Knew most of his story.
He’d been in the headlines.
The Lawson twin who’d gone south. Literally.
The one who’d come back haunted and hollow-eyed.
A scuff of shoes approached. “You’re gonna waste away, broodin’ here like this.”
He looked up.
Aunt Marlene — his mother’s best friend and diner owner — stood at his elbow with a coffee pot in one hand and a maternal scowl on her face. Her grey hair was pulled into a frizzed bun, and her lipstick was slightly smudged.
“You need food, Rafferty. I’ll get you some eggs.”
“I’m fine,” he muttered.
“Fine is what people say when they mean the opposite.” She placed a clean mug on the table and filled it with fragrant, steaming coffee without asking and then added, “Got a slice of buttermilk pie with your name on it.”
“Aunt Marlene—”
“Your ma would want me to look after you.”
He exhaled and looked away. “Fine. One slice.”
She flashed a victorious grin, removed his lukewarm coffee, and retreated to the counter.
He leaned back against the booth seat and stretched out his legs, absorbing the sounds around him.
The clink of silverware, the low hum of conversation, the rattle of glasses, the sharp wail of a small child.
Somewhere in the kitchen, a radio played faint country music.
Just a diner with everyday people going about their everyday lives.
It was all so … ordinary.
So normal.
And yet, so foreign.
Extending his arm along the back of the booth, he felt the NA pamphlet jab him through his jacket.
Reminding him.
Mocking him.
He was not an ordinary everyday person anymore.
He hadn’t meant to take the pamphlet, but his hands had grabbed something on the way out. Like a fallback weapon.
Or maybe as proof he had attended. For his mother.
She had guilted him into going. “Just once, Raffie. Do it for me.”
So, he’d sat in that basement, surrounded by strangers confessing how their choices had wrecked their lives.
He didn’t share. Didn’t say a word. Just sat in the corner, minding his own fucking business.
No tears. No healing.
Still — he hadn’t bolted.
He hadn’t belonged, either.
Or had he?
He’d spent years avoiding the stuff. Never used. Not once.
Not until Brazil.
Not until he’d been bound to a chair and injected like clockwork.
Every dose had felt like a theft. Of control. Of dignity.
And now here he was — sitting in a damn diner with the smell of burnt coffee and Step One echoing in his ears: “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction.”
Powerless.
How he hated that word.
He’d built a life on being sharp, careful, always two steps ahead.
But in that dank basement cell?
He hadn’t just lost power — he’d lost himself.
One of the guys at the meeting had said something that stuck. “Doesn’t matter how you started. Only matters what you do now.”
He sat forward and traced a finger around the rim of the mug. He couldn’t go back and change the past. And he certainly did not want to stay like this either — adrift, bitter. Afraid of sleep.
Aunt Marlene returned, sliding the promised slice of buttermilk pie in front of him. “Still warm,” she said with a pointed look, then turned and bustled back to the counter without waiting for thanks.
Rafferty stared at the pie for a beat. The waft of vanilla turned his stomach. He picked up his mug and took a sip of coffee. It scalded just a little. He welcomed the burn.
The bell above the diner door jangled.
Laughter — shrill and unchecked, jarring his nerves — burst through the entrance.
Four teenage girls spilled inside, sports uniforms clinging with sweat, ponytails bouncing. Their sneakers squeaked across the linoleum as they darted toward the ice cream stand.
He recognized one. The blonde-haired one. Brandy-Lyn’s eldest. Amelia, if he remembered correctly.
He tensed, setting his mug down.
And watched the entrance.
Then she walked in.
Windblown, her half-undone braid hitched across her denim-covered shoulder, she stopped and looked around.
Her gaze swept past him — but then she jerked her head and looked right at him. That slight, almost imperceptible narrowing of her eyes made something shift in his gut.
She’d seen him. Registered him.
Rafferty swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He’d tried so damn hard not to think of her since their last encounter. But it had been futile. His pulse hammered, wild and fast, like he’d just pounded out a five-mile run.
She didn’t smile. Just tilted her head, as if thinking about her next move.
Then she walked over. “Mind if I sit a moment?” she asked, voice low and frayed at the edges.
He should’ve said no. For so many reasons.
But up close, she looked like she had run those five miles. Concern edged out the heat in his chest. “Sure,” he said.
Brandy-Lyn slid into the seat across from him and dropped her keys on the table, exhaling hard, her spine sagging like someone had just removed invisible scaffolding.
She pressed her fingers to her temples. “They’re still riding the high from the win,” she said, jerking her chin toward the girls. “Me? I’m just riding on fumes.”
“Rough day?” he asked.
She huffed a breath that was half-laugh, half-growl.
“Try an emergency vet visit, a busted water line, and three kids whose schedules require divine intervention.”
She paused, looking up at him. “And you?”
He hesitated, fingers tightening around the mug. “First NA meeting.”
Her eyes softened as they rested on him. “That’s a big step.”
He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t press. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward — it simply was.
She cast a glance at his buttermilk pie. Without a word, he slid the plate toward her. “Help yourself.”
“You sure?”
“Marlene forced it upon me,” he said dryly.
She grinned and picked up the fork. “Guess I’m doing you a favor.”
He watched as she took a bite, lips closing around the fork. “Dangerous kind of favor,” he muttered, the burn of desire hot and urgent.
Their eyes locked, heat sparking in hers to match the fire in his. She blinked and looked down. He tracked the movement of her throat as she swallowed, a delicate shift beneath her skin.
He forced his gaze away and focused on his surroundings.
The scratchy speakers crackled out a mournful country tune, all heartbreak and steel guitar, barely cutting through the clatter of silverware and the low hum of conversation.
“You don’t want to know how the meeting went?” Talking about the NA meeting was easier than watching the way she devoured his pie.
She froze, fork hovering in the air. “I figured you’ll tell me if you want to,” she whispered, slowly placing the fork on the plate.
Gratitude spread within him. Back home, they’d want to know — along with their stares of pity and unease.
“I think part of me believes I deserved what happened to me.” He lowered his gaze to the table. “All those years pretending to be something I wasn’t. Always in control. And then—” He stopped himself. “Forget it.”
Brandy-Lyn didn’t press.
He felt her watching him, though. Not judging. Just … present.
After a moment she said, “We all survive different ways, Raff. Doesn’t mean we earn the worst of what comes.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed that. “I just … I don’t know what to do with this version of me now.”
Her eyes met his across the table, and he couldn’t look away. “You don’t have to know tonight.”
For a moment, everything else faded — the diner noise, the pressure in his chest, the tangle of guilt and want that knotted tighter every time he looked at her.
“Mom!”
Brandy-Lyn sighed, glancing over her shoulder. “Coming,” she called back, and stood, pressing her palms flat to the table. “Thanks for letting me sit. And for sharing your pie.”
He nodded. “Anytime.”
She pushed the plate back to him. “Eat something, sugar.” Then she tilted her head and added, “And if you ever want to talk, you know where I live.” She turned and joined the girls at the counter.
He watched until the diner door closed behind her, the echo of her presence lingering like the warmth of a fire just out of reach.
And he picked up the fork and finished his pie.
Reaching for his wallet, his fingers brushed the forgotten pamphlet. He pulled it out, unfolded it, and stared at the printed Steps — too neat, too tidy. Like they belonged to someone else's life.
Still … there had been something about the room.
Something in the quiet courage of people who weren’t pretending anymore. And for the first time in months, he acknowledged silently, he hadn’t felt entirely alone.
He tucked the paper back into his jacket, left a few bills on the table, grabbed his helmet from the seat, and rose. He hadn’t decided yet …
But maybe — just maybe — he’d go back to the basement meeting next week.