Adonis
He hadn't answered Gemma’s question that night. Instead, he was sitting in the rec room of a church in Moorpark, eating stale cookies and drinking even more stale coffee. He’d spent one very long hour in his van trying to figure out who gave up sex, with a really hot celebrity actress, in favor of a roomful of people in recovery. He couldn’t make sense of it until the last speaker rose.
He closed his eyes as the woman told the same tale others had shared over the years. How their addiction had robbed them of their autonomy. How men took a woman’s inebriation as a license to violate them. The story sparked the same outrage in him that it had sparked all those years ago. Outrage that had fueled his anger and led him down the path to making the biggest mistake of his life.
As the meeting wound up, Adonis lingered in the back.
“If it isn’t the Greek god,” Claude Crawford said, clapping him on the back, hard.
“Been a while since I saw you.” Adonis grabbed Claude’s right hand and shook it.
“Spending more time at home these days. Stacee cooks real good. You should come over sometime.”
“Maybe.” Adonis meant no, but was trying to be nice. Dinner parties were awkward for everyone around him. When people are drinking, they can never think what to offer a sober person besides water, not that Claude would make that mistake. But it would still be awkward nonetheless. He’d stopped being fit human company years ago.
“We should make a plan. Your maybes never become yeses.”
“How’s it going with Stacee?” Adonis asked, changing the subject from his lack of social graces.
“Still good. Been four years.”
“Mmm-hmmm.” He hadn’t had any relationship approaching that time. But for some reason he was thinking about it. Maybe it was because his brother and sister had settled down. Maybe it was because Dominic was always going on about it. Either way, he was starting to wonder if his past was really a disqualification for a future.
“Have you told her your rock-bottom stories?” he asked. Claude had a couple of doozies. He’d made a good sponsor because he hadn’t judged Adonis when everyone else had.
“What are you doing right now?” Claude asked, looking scarily inspired.
“Going home.”
“Wrong answer. You’re coming home with me.”
“Don’t you think you should call Stacee first?”
Claude gave him a look that made him feel like a stray puppy in need of a home, or at least a big bowl of kibble.
Adonis shifted his gaze out the window as they pulled up to the nondescript tan and brown stucco structure that looked no different from the grocery and drug stores across the street. It was like the same builder did all the exteriors and the only difference was the number of bathrooms. But he didn’t say any of that to Claude. Ugly stucco notwithstanding, this was a huge step up from Claude living in his car.
“Adonis Andreis. Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. It’s been too long,” Stacee said through the open door after the elevator had chimed on arrival. She wrapped him in a bear hug next, not letting go for a good long time.
Human contact. The feeling of being touched by another human being made his head throb behind his eyes and above his nose. Kind of the way he’d felt when he’d escaped to Gemma’s bathroom.
He stuffed down the urge to push her away. The warmth and smell of a woman reminded him that he could go a week or two without being touched by another human being. This week had been an overload.
Until this afternoon, he didn’t know how much he’d missed it. He couldn’t tell Gemma, or Stacee for that matter, how little he deserved it.
“Sorry for barging in on you like this, but Claude here wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“You never need to apologize, Adonis. You know what, I take that back,” she said, turning into the narrow galley kitchen immediately to the left of the front door. “You have to tell me why it’s taken you all these years to come to my house.”
“I didn’t want to intrude.”
“How is it an intrusion when I extended an invitation?”
“Invitation?”
“Don’t go all coy on me. I have your e-mail address. Claude has seen you some nights. I swear… Well, I’m not going to dwell on all that. Just glad to have you here—finally. You eat shrimp?”
“Sure.”
“Good. My brother picked this up at the Ventura Harbor fish market. Fresh off the boat. You game?”
“Sure,” he repeated as his stomach growled in solidarity.
“You make me laugh, Mr. Adonis. Have a seat in front of that too big television Claude bought.”
“I got it so you would watch Food Network,” Claude protested in earnest.
“If that’s true, what channel is the Food Network?”
“Let me show you the bathrooms, you can give me your opinion on today’s construction,” Claude said, steering Adonis by the shoulder into the rest of the apartment. The engineered hardwood floors and engineered stone counters were a dead ringer for those in his own apartment. It all looked beautiful on the surface, but when did the imitation of something become a stand-in for the real thing?
“It’s beautiful. Gotta beat the nineteen eighty-five F one-fifty.”
“Ah, man. I still dream about that car. It was a workhorse and a hell of a temporary house.”
“Can’t beat a real roof overhead, though.”
“True. You bought a house yet?”
“Not in this market. Not ready to mortgage the rest of my life.”
“I’m not talking the mini mansion of the moment. But I always thought you’d do a fixer or a flipper or something like that.”
“I grew up in a house that wasn’t ever finished. I wouldn’t do that to myself.”
“You seeing anyone?”
Stacee set some plates on the dining table in the open-plan room. “Is that why we haven’t seen you? Some girl or…guy taking up all your time?” Her eyes flickered away as if she was embarrassed to have made the wrong assumption.
“No guys,” he said to Stacee’s retreating back.
A steaming ceramic dish came out next. Stacee, hands covered by a thick towel, placed the dish on the small round table carefully.
“C’mon over. You can check out the TV later. It’s sixty inches of nothing to watch.”
He heeded her command, his mouth watering at the smell.
“Looks great,” he said, folding himself into one of the brown dining chairs.
They joined him. Stacee doled out a heaping portion onto his plate. “There’s plenty more, so don’t be shy.”
There was silence as he shoveled the first few bites into his mouth. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had shrimp and grits, but it was as good as he remembered.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Stacee said, looking at him under her lashes as she sipped at a cola. “No guys, but a girl, maybe?”
“A client approached me.”
“And…”
“We walked on the beach, but I bailed after that.”
“Why? The beach sounds lovely, it gets cold, you wrap her in your arms, next thing you know…”
“It was with her dog, so…”
“Why’d you bail, man?” Claude asked as he got up to get the forgotten pitcher of lemonade off the counter.
“One of the first things you told me was to step back from relationships.”
“That was for the first year, maybe a bit more if your personal inventory is complicated. But not forever. No recovery program expects you to go it alone for the rest of your life. That’s priesthood, not sobriety.”
“I can’t imagine anyone would want to get involved once they find out about my background.”
“Plenty of sober people have relationships. No one over twenty comes into stuff without a past. Tell him, Stacee.”
“I love Claude. He did some shit in his past he isn’t proud of, I’m sure. It’s not anything I’d share with my mamma even if she asked. But you know what? He’s a great guy now.”
“Shit.” Claude’s face colored. “I wasn’t fishing.”
“It’s true. You get up every day. Go to work. Take care of us. Pay taxes. Volunteer to help out those who’re coming behind you and need a hand. You’re not perfect. Don’t go getting your head all swelled up. You spend too much time with that damned TV, and you could stand to lift a broom once in a while.”
“Even I sweep,” Adonis said, laughing as he high-fived Stacee.
“If I had a shop vac, I’d use that damned thing every day. With the right tools—”
“I could get you one.”
“He doesn’t need anything like that blowing the fuses in here.”
“Fuses? It’s not nineteen seventy,” Adonis teased.
“Fine. Circuit breakers or panels or whatever. But you’re dodging the topic. Why don’t you go out with this woman?”
“You sound like my dad. He came to her house and practically put a shotgun to my head, which is how we ended up on that beach walk. But she’s a client.”
“Bullshit,” Stacee coughed into her hand. “You think you aren’t worthy. You have that written all over your face. Every addict in a relationship has a rock-bottom story.”
Adonis looked at Claude, but the man wouldn’t meet his eyes. He’d been a good friend and probably hadn’t revealed a thing to Stacee.
“My father forgave me. My sister didn’t.”
“What could be so bad?” She stood and picked up the plates, their clatter into the sink only slightly louder than his beating heart. “You want dessert? Got strawberry shortcake,” she said. Stacee brought a foil-encased pound cake, a bowl of cut strawberries, and a tub of whipped cream to the table. “Honestly, Adonis. You’re a great catch. You don’t drink, you do beautiful work, and your looks live up to your name. Unless you killed someone, I can’t see anything that would make a living, breathing woman stop short.”
Claude bowed his shaking head into his hands.
“Oh shit…did you… I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, Stacee. I’ve come to terms with what I did, but Emily…” He hated that his voice cracked. “But Emily Little won’t ever get to have a boyfriend, get married, have children—and neither should I.”