Thrive: A Friends-to-Lovers Standalone Romance (Stonewood Billionaire Brothers Series)
Thrive: Chapter 9

Therapist: Is there temptation back home?

Jay: There’s temptation everywhere.

Therapist: Do you think partying and drug use will be readily available?

Jay: That’s not the temptation that I’m worried about.

Jay

Mikka had finally met her match. I smiled to myself as I unpacked a few things and thought of her face when Lorraine blasted her about her work and my partying. Her hand tightened on her leather bag so hard, I was sure the leather would be worn in that spot the next day.

Welcome to Greenville, where everyone knows your name, your business, and your dirtiest secrets. She was going to lose it here and I was going to enjoy watching her unravel. The woman needed to let go. She needed a town who knew everything about her so they could help make her whole again.

Greenville was small, but it had a massive heart, one that worked wonders on someone who was broken. It was the perfect place for both of us.

Even if it would be hard as hell to have our problems flying around in the gossipy wind of the place.

At least that wind smelled of pine, autumn, and freshly cut grass.

Home.

Lorraine placed peonies on my dresser. The crazy old woman was the sweetest person I’d ever met. She knew we’d grown up with rows of peonies near our windows. She’d helped my mom plant a few.

I sighed at the idea of calling my parents. My mother was going to argue with me about staying at her house again, I just knew it.

She’d offer the space, and probably give me the run of the place if I told her I couldn’t relax around family.

She didn’t understand that my childhood home would be a crutch. I didn’t want that. It may not have been a healthy choice to search out my discomforts, and the therapist said it could even be a potential risk to my sobriety, but it was the only way for me to heal.

I needed to be in a place where people called me on my shit, where I couldn’t hide away in my own room. I’d found that out the hard way in rehab. I’d come close to getting comfortable, close to some of the other patients who wanted me to sneak out at night with them. The temptation had almost been too much, but it was just enough for me to realize I needed to surround myself with harsh truths.

Lorraine’s place allowed for that. The woman would be truthful even if it killed her.

Mikka’s head popped in again. Her dark, straight hair fell like a waterfall toward the waist. “Do you think we’re going anywhere tonight? Should I dress for company or for sleep?”

I immediately pictured the woman in next to nothing, ready to climb into bed with me. My mind was mixed up; I hadn’t been with a woman since rehab. Mikka had imprinted on me or something. I needed to erase the memory of our kiss; I needed to replace a different fixation.

“I probably need to bite the bullet and show my face in town tonight.”

“Great, I’ll come with.” She replied so quickly that I knew she was babysitting, not coming for enjoyment.

“I’m fine going on my own.” The words rumbled out of me harsher than they should have.

She rounded the corner and straightened, hands on hips. “Jay, it doesn’t sound great, but what Lorraine said is true. I’m your keeper for the month. I get to come with you and monitor your every move. I’m keeping your ass in line.”

“I’m not trying to get out of line, woman.”

“Then, you won’t have a problem with me coming along.”

I sighed. “Fine. The pub is where everyone will be.”

She wrinkled her nose. “A pub, Jay? We can’t go to a pub. Surrounding yourself with partying is not the way to…”

I stood up to stalk toward her, but my steps faltered when I saw her head jerk back a little. Mikka was always the tiniest woman in a room, but I used to be able to go toe to toe with her. She never cowered, and the skittishness reminded me how very different we were now. I held up both my hands and murmured, “We should lay some ground rules.”

Her eyes narrowed at my hands and then, instead of me invading her personal space, she stalked up to invade mine. I towered over her as she craned her neck to glare right in my face. “Fine. First one: I’m not broken. Don’t treat me like I am.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Come on, Meek—”

“No, Jay. I’m still me.” Her brow furrowed. “I might have been through something, but that doesn’t make me any different. I’m me.”

“And I’m still me!” I bellowed at her, trying to get her to understand she didn’t have to be afraid of me. I whipped my arms out to the side. Then I yanked them back, instantly regretting raising my voice at her.

This time she didn’t flinch, though. She smiled. “Good, back to you getting pissy and yelling at me. Just where I like to be.”

I took a breath. She was going to drive me insane; I already felt it deep in my bones. “Woman, I’m trying, okay? My first instinct is to protect you, even if it’s from being scared of me.”

“I’m not scared of you. It’s just… I can’t help it. I’m not used to being around…” She trailed off.

Exposing an open wound hurt like hell. Talking about that wound was like scraping it clean with sanitizer. I didn’t want her to feel the pain any more than she needed to, so I poured alcohol on my own wound to distract her. “So, ground rules: I need you to trust me to go out like you did before I went to rehab.”

She picked at a nail and then readjusted her blouse.

“I’m serious. This won’t work otherwise. You need to trust me to go out alone like you did before.”

“I never trusted you.” Her words fell out so quick, she tried to catch them by slapping her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that. I trust you as a friend. It was just different when you were…”

“High? You can say the words, Meek. I was high and off my fucking rocker. No one can trust someone like that.”

“It feels wrong,” she admitted, her voice small. “I don’t want to rub your addiction in your face.”

“There’s a difference between talking about my addiction and rubbing it in my face. If I said you were with an abusive guy for years and you learned from it, it’s different than saying…”

She held up her hand to stop me. I wanted to continue. My frustration at her situation pushed me to. I needed to shake her from her world, show her that there was something better out there.

I was scared I wouldn’t be able to, that there wasn’t a rehab for the physically abused. They needed it just as much as any other addict, a place they could go to remember who they were before, a place that would teach them to break the habit and live without the person that had caused them so much pain.

“I’m technically still with him, Jay. We’re just on a break.”

I breathed in deep. “I know. What’s it going to take to change that?”

“It’s not that simple. He knows me like no one else. We’ve built this life together and he’s hurting too. Who is going to help him get better? No one understands him like I do, understands that he doesn’t mean it.”

“What if it ends up being someone else getting hurt?” I tried a different angle. “What if your mom showed up there and he was pissed about something. What then?”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“You sure?” I countered, lifting my eyebrows and motioning toward my face where he’d aimed a punch. I saw the look in his eyes, I saw him weighing his options with me in that room. He’d have taken down anyone he knew he could beat. His best option in that moment was to say sorry, though. It was a calculated move on his part and he’d played it well.

She looked down at her outfit: ripped black jeans and a white designer top that hung loosely over a black bra. “I’m sorry you know about all our baggage, Jay.” Then she gripped the sides of her shirt as if she could squeeze out the emotion she was feeling. “God, I know I shouldn’t even be apologizing for his behavior. It’s just… I need time to rework things.”

“You mean rework them into working? Sometimes things just don’t, Meek. Relationships fail.”

Her gaze shot up to me. “I’m not used to failing. I don’t. Okay?”

“I said the relationship was failing, not you. There’s a difference.”

Her manicured fingertips ran over her top. “This okay for the pub?”

“Anything you wear is phenomenal, little one.” I brushed off her question fast. “Did you hear me, Meek? Just because your relationship isn’t working, doesn’t mean you failed. Got it?”

If I didn’t push her out of her comfort zone, no one would. No one else knew. And she was making sure that no one else ever would. He’d ruin every part of her before she had a chance to tell anyone else. She slid her small hands over the cotton of her tank top. “What do you want me to say, Jay? Dougie’s struggling. He hasn’t been able to replace a job, he wants to contribute to our household financially, he’s lost confidence because I told him about us and…”

“These are excuses for something that’s inexcusable,” I shot back.

“Do you think some of the things you’ve done over the past few years have been excusable, Jay?” Her hands fisted at her sides as she stepped back to stare me down, heels clicking against the wooden floor. “You hit on me when you were wasted, knowing I was with another man. That’s not what friends do. And you’ve slept with countless women, degraded them by doing blow off every nook and cranny of their body and wasted a multitude of opportunities because you were too high to follow through with them. You had a problem. So does Dougie.”

I nodded at her anger and let her words sink in. She compared me to him and I wondered if she thought I was just like him, if she thought I’d give in again and piss away the opportunity of a lifetime. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to exchange insults.”

“I do. We need ground rules. Number one is us remembering who we are. If you say you’re not broken, I’ll try to remember that. Two is us trusting each other, and three is honesty. I want honesty and you should too.”

“Honesty doesn’t have to be mean, Jay.”

“In our case, it does.” I motioned toward the door to end the conversation. There was nothing left to say. “Let’s go before it gets too late.”

“Sure. I’ll call us a car.” I wondered if I should tell her that no car was going to come for us in a town of less than six thousand people, especially when I hadn’t booked a service for the trip. She scrolled through her app to look for a driver nearby.

She kept scrolling and scrolling.

Chuckling, I grabbed her phone. “Babe, we aren’t requesting a driver from thirty miles away. You’ll be here all night waiting. The bar’s down the street.” I walked out of our room and down the stairs.

She caught up with me, sputtering the whole way. “Jay, wait? Should I bring my bag?”

“No.” Her and that bag.

She didn’t listen; I heard her heels scurrying as she went to get it. “Jay, wait… are you kidding?”

“Kidding about what?” I said as I watched her come down the steps.

She huffed. “You must be kidding. I can’t walk all the way there in these shoes. They’re purposely made to be uncomfortable. I honestly believe the designer concocted them as a torture device.”

“You can’t walk all the way there? Woman, you are in shoes like that every day of your life. Why are you always wearing them if they hurt?”

“Because they go with the outfit.” She scrunched her face up like she was disgusted that I’d even asked.

I schooled my expression to be as serious as possible. “Do I need to carry you?”

“You’re an asshole,” she muttered and breezed by me out the front door.

I watched her walk with purpose ahead of me until she got to the end of the driveway. “Which way?” she yelled.

I ambled up to her. “I’ll drive us if your feet are going to hurt. Lorraine’s got a pickup in the garage if you really don’t want to walk.”

She breathed in loudly. “I’m just trying to get my bearings a little here. I’m on edge but it’s fine. I want to walk. I need to let off steam.”

I nodded and slipped the bag off her shoulder and onto mine. Then I slung my arm around her and fit her up against my side. When I did, she sighed into me. I whispered into her hair, “We’ll go, you can have a drink, we’ll give the town what they want, then leave. Everything’s going to be okay.”

I made the promise without knowing if it was true. I needed to believe it as much as her though. We were two broken pieces, trying our best to appear whole.

“I’m supposed to be telling you that, Jay. You’re supposed to be getting better here, not me.”

“Both of us together, Meek. We’re doing it together. I’m not letting this movie slip between my fingers and you’re going to figure out what you need without your boyfriend. If at the end of the day, you need him…” I shrugged. I couldn’t continue the statement because I wasn’t sure I could let it happen.

She nodded into my shirt and I hugged her closer as we walked. Her coconut lime shampoo mixed with the fresh summer air that reminded me I was back home.

In my town. And with her. I breathed it in deep.

The walk to the pub relaxed me, even though we bickered over her damn shoes. She insisted she was now comfortable, even after telling me the shoes were a torture device.

When we walked in, the woman beside me stiffened. This wasn’t her scene. The low ceilings and dark wood floors matched the mellow feel of the place. A bluesy track played from the one and only jukebox in the corner, and every single vinyl seat in the place was filled with familiar faces.

Some of them I was happy to see; others I could have done without.

Every head turned our way when Ray yelled out, “Jay Stonewood!’`

Mikka jerked back, obviously not used to such a boisterous greeting. She knew LA clubs: loud, flashing lights, clean floors, sleek interiors. People might have looked my way but she blended into the crowds there. Here, people were looking more at her than me.

Ray owned this place after his pop passed on, and he hadn’t updated any of the design. It was lived in. Loved. Comfortable.

The exact opposite of a big city hot spot.

Ray’s bald head shined as bright as his smile in the flickering light over the bar. He lifted the sidebar to greet me. “You son of a damn gun. Get your ass over here and give me a hug.”

A few others waved and said, “welcome back.” I let him bear hug me, his flannel shirt reminding me that Mikka and I might be overdressed.

“Hey, Ray.” I patted his back. “Looks like business is going well.”

His belly shook with a chuckle as he looked between Mikka and me. “I’m the only bar within 10 miles. Of course business is going well. Who’s this pretty thing? I hear you’re trying to keep him in line.”

Mikka cleared her throat and shot her small hand forward. “Word seems to travel fast. Yes, I’m Mikka, Jay’s PA.”

“A PA?” His eyebrows rose. “Whoa, boy. You sure you need it now that your career is about to tank? I read about it in the tabloids.”

First dig. I shook it off, ready for thousands of them. This is what I would have to do. I’d prepared for the onslaught of questions. It was the way to face my reality over and over again. I had to be strong enough to handle this and not slip backward. The movie, my career, and my life meant too much. “I hope so. I’ve weathered the worst of the storm. I’m hoping rehab spat me out better than ever.”

He grunted. “Rehab for what? The tabloids didn’t say. Is it drugs? Because you know I don’t believe in a problem with alcohol.”

Ray, to put it bluntly, didn’t care if you were an alcoholic. He only cared that you were an alcoholic at his bar.

“Problem is with drugs, Ray. You know I can handle a drink.”

“In that case, want a round?” He lifted a shoulder, conversation over for him. One down, thousands more to go.

“I’ll still take just a water, and Mikka will want—”

“Vodka soda with lime,” she blurted. “And, two shots. Straight. Please.”

Ray winked at her and motioned us on. He’d send one of his waitresses to deliver the drinks. “Vodka?” I questioned as we maneuvered around a couple of tables to one farther in the back. Donny and Karen, an older couple that my parents regularly talked with, got up to leave. They waved us over, welcomed me back, and gave up their table.

Her manicured nail tapped on the table as soon as she had sat down and situated her leather bag next to her. She cleared her throat. ‘Do you need me to do anything, introduce myself to anyone?’

Her tense shoulders, her dark eyes looking more hesitant than I was used to, almost made me reach for her hand. ‘Meek, relax. It’s a bar. We go to bars all the time.’

‘It feels like everyone is staring.’ Our drinks arrived and she downed her first shot immediately. She winced and sucked in air through her teeth. “Is it bad that I’m having this in front of you?”

“No. I can drink.” I shrugged. Alcohol had never been my problem.

“Okay,” she murmured and stared at the next shot like she wasn’t sure she should take it.

“The drinking and partying around drugs is my problem, Meek. Cocaine is the problem.”

When her hair fell over one side of her cheek, she pushed it behind her ear quickly and looked at me through her lashes. “It’s not the right time for me to ask the questions I probably need answers to sooner or later.”

“You want to pull out your planner and go down a list, don’t you?”

One side of her mouth lifted and she rolled her eyes before grabbing the next shot and downing it too. “Why does it feel like I have more eyes on me than I’ve ever had in all the times we went out together?”

‘Because you do.’ I shrugged and leaned back into the booth where I could drape my arms along the top. ‘They know me, they haven’t seen me in ages, and they want the latest gossip. They don’t know you, which means there is more gossip to be had.’

She spun her empty shot glass around. ‘Can I ask you something?’

I nodded, wondering why she didn’t just jump right in. ‘You can always ask me. Why are you dancing around me like we aren’t who we used to be?’

‘Do you think we are?’ She tilted her head and the light hit her skin in just the right way to make it glow.

I remembered how smooth she felt under my touch, how soft her neck had been when I ran my hand along it. If I touched her now, would she shudder like she had back when I kissed her? Did she think about that night as much as I did?

‘Of course.” I chuckled and spun my glass of water on the table. “And absolutely not.’

She smiled. ‘Fair and accurate answer.’

‘I’m trying to be honest. Ground rules, right?’ I leaned forward and moved my leg under the table so I could nudge hers. ‘So, ask me.’

‘You agreed to come back here to get clean. I get that it’s home for you, but do you honestly think it’s the healthiest choice?’

I started to tell her I needed to push myself, I needed to get better quickly and test how well I could handle my surroundings. My hometown would push me to my limits in facing my problems. No one sugarcoated anything here.

Before I could blurt it all out, Ray’s voice boomed across the bar again. ‘Another Stonewood and the newest one too,” he yelled at no one in particular as he went to hug my brother and sister-in-law. “She’s my favorite of them all, folks.’

They smiled and said a few hellos to people but I saw my sister-in-law’s face. She wasn’t here to make nice with anyone. She was blazing through the crowd, glaring people down to get them out of her way.

Aubrey Stonewood, my sister-in-law, and also my childhood best friend, was barreling toward me with fury in her emerald eyes.

I waited. I even relaxed into my seat. The spitfire was about to fireball me and I needed to be ready. Mikka watched in amazement as the most beautiful couple in America—as magazines called them—stopped at our table.

‘Do you want me to start or are you going to?’ Brey asked, crossing her arms as she glared down at me.

‘Brey, meet my friend Mikka,’ I calmly said.

‘I’m not here to meet your flavor of the week, Jay. I’m here because I had to hear from the Greenville grapevine that my best friend is in outpatient rehab at Lorraine’s. Now, I replace out you didn’t bother to dial the number that I know for a fact is on speed dial right when you stepped foot in our hometown.’

I looked behind her to see Jax, my brother, smirking like a man on the same damn drug I had a problem with. His drug of choice was just his wife though. He loved seeing her madder than a bat out of hell.

‘Jax, don’t look so amused. She’s going to replace a reason to be pissed at you too,’ I grumbled and sipped my water before I acknowledged her rant.

She snatched the drink from my hand. The woman wasn’t going to let me approach this with any nonchalance. She held the drink behind her for Jax to grab. He did so without even blinking. ‘Don’t play games. This isn’t a game. This is our friendship. I’ve cut my heart open and bled for you. How could you not call me?’

Her words finally cut in; I finally felt the impact.

Games.

I was so used to replaceing fun and games in everything. Had I been skipping over the serious parts of life? Putting my meaningful relationships and friendships on hold?

Brey was right. She’d poured her heart out to her friends, shared some of the darkest secrets about her past with an abusive father.

I wanted to tell her that calling her felt like pulling her down with me, that my time here would be painful enough without them around seeing me struggle through my failures. I wanted to tell her I needed to apologize for not being a better friend to her. I wanted to be the friend she was to me.