Goodbye. It sounded so final. And perhaps it was. Whatever madness the world had been since Friday, it was finite. Benito had his life, and Mickey had his. They couldn’t entwine. Theycouldn’t.
But for reasons Mickey didn’t understand, he couldn’t lie to Benito either. “I’m not like you,” he said, voice like gravel. “At least, I don’t think I am. You seem stronger.”
“Than you?” Benito laughed. “Wow, son. I’d love to know how you figure that.”
Mickey shrugged and his tense muscles shrieked in protest. “You’re doing something I had to stop because I’m fucking weak. I couldn’t be around what I was doing without becoming what I was trying to exploit, and I’m still fighting that. I’llalwaysbe fighting that.”
Benito frowned, piecing together Mickey’s cryptic confession. Perhaps a different person would’ve found no logic in it, but Benito, whether he knew it or not, was a thinker. He took the scraps Mickey offered him and put them together. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a fiend, and the wreckage I see in you right now is you fighting that battle over and over, like you have long before we fucking met?”
Relief swept over Mickey, fast and kind, even if the wasteland it left behind was cold and cruel. “Don’t call me a fucking fiend. But, yeah. I’m an addict. Coke. It’s been years, but it never goes away, and I can’t look at someone like you without... Jesus fucking Christ, I can almostsmellit on you.”
“I don’t use. Never have.”
“Doesn’t matter. You move it, and don’t deny it. Iknowyour life. It was mine before I fucked it up so bad I had to run a thousand miles to make it right.” Mickey slammed his mouth shut and closed his eyes.Fuck.This was why he didn’t have deep conversations. Withanyone. Because he wasshitat keeping himself locked up. The gates looked strong, but up close, they were rusted and weak.
He blew out a breath.
Opened his eyes.
Benito was still there, still leaning forward, gaze open, searching. Under the table, his hand found Mickey’s knee. He laid his palm over it, warm and soothing. “Breathe,” he whispered. “It’s okay.”
It wasn’t okay, but Mickey obeyed anyway. After a minute, he dropped his elbows on the table. “I’m sorry. Maybe I got it all wrong and I’m just fucking paranoid. That’s a thing I have too, or I used to, anyway. It’s not so bad these days.”
“What about the rest of it?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long have you been clean?”
“Three years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.” Mickey reached for his cold coffee. Glared at it and set it aside again. “Some days it’s brand new, and I’m not as good at dealing with it as I need to be.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“For putting you back there. I had no idea.”
“I’m not wrong, am I?”
“About what?”
“All of it.”
It was Benito’s turn to shiver and close his eyes. Mickey gave him a minute, caught up counting his own pulse as it thumped in his brain. This wasn’t how he’d imagined this morning to play out. He’d picked the gym to meet as neutral ground. Where they could be two blokes who liked to lift while having a simple conversation. But nothing about either one of them was fucking simple.So let it go. Lethimgo.
No chance. Mickey added it to the long list of things he was too weak to do.
Benito opened his eyes. Where they’d been clear since he’d demolished his breakfast, now they were strained. “I can’t tell you anything.”
“I know.”
“Youdon’t.It’s not as easy as being what I am or what I do. It’s all I know.”
“I thought that too.”