Mending Michael (29 page)

HOLLY

"You got mail," Griffin croons from the front foyer, placing it in front of me on the kitchen island where I'm eating lunch and reading Amy Harmon's
Making Faces
, since I finished and loved
Running Barefoot
. "It's from Hunter Hill," he adds.

I snap my head up. "What if it's a rejection letter?"

"You try again. Just open it."

With another prompt from Griffin, pushing it at me, I pick up the envelope and slide my finger under the seal. Unfolding the tri-fold sheet of paper, my hand shakes. I know if I don't get into the psychology and social work departments, there's always next semester, but I'm so anxious to get started in my new major, finally finding something that excites me. And it's the only thing that gets me excited these days. Since Mick's been gone. And because Donny seems to know where he is but won't say, I've taken his disappearance as personal. Without Rose or Ben or even Braden around, I have nothing to keep my mind from falling into an abyss of self-pity—something I've always tried to avoid. But I can't help it anymore, because it hurts so much to know Mick doesn't reciprocate my feelings. He'd asked me to wait. I waited. And then he took off.

"Well. Stop keeping me in suspense." Griffin nudges me, surprising me from behind. "Did you?"

I haven't even read the letter yet; I've been too busy with that pity-party I'd thrown for myself. So after quickly scanning the letter, a tiny spark of joy runs through my veins. I bring the paper to my chest, and whisper, "Yes," as I sigh.

Griffin hugs me and kisses the top of my head. "Congratulations, Holly. I knew you'd get in."

"Thanks, Griff," I say, folding the letter and sticking it back in its envelope.

"I'm gonna get going. Gotta pick up Cali from work. You sure you don't want to come with us to the mall?"

"I'm sure." Griffin always asks me to join him and Cali, but I'm tired of feeling like a third wheel. I'd rather stay home and read. "Thanks for asking."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Okay. If you're sure."

"I'm sure, Griffin," I say, my annoyance growing each time he asks.

"Okay." He grabs his keys off the counter and leaves out the front door. Two seconds later, the door opens again.

"Griffin. I said I'm..."

It's not Griffin standing in the kitchen doorway.

It's Mick.

"Hi, Holly. Griffin let me in. I hope you don't..."

But he doesn't finish.

He cannot.

Because he has to stop talking to reach me before I fall off my stool. The kitchen darkens, but I'm aware that I'm now leaning into his chest. I'm unable to speak, but my brain is screaming at him. Wondering where the hell he's been all this time.

MICK

My God. She is more beautiful than I remember. Though I'd picture her flawless face every night before I fell asleep and every day before I'd get out of bed, my memory didn't do her justice.

After carrying her fainting form to the living room couch and laying her down, her eyes flicker as she comes to. As she is safe on the couch, I fetch her a glass of water and return to her with it, kneeling in front of the couch while I gently feed it to her.

"I'm good," she rasps. "I can do it."

I hand her the glass and stare, in awe, at her beauty, while she sips her drink. Her hands are wrapped securely around the glass when her eyes find mine. "Why? Where?" Her head scarcely shaking back and forth, she again whispers, "Where?"

Taking the glass from her hands, I reach behind her head and sit it on the end table. She sits herself up against the armrest, and I take her hands. With increasing breath and a pounding heart, I tell her. "Rehab, Holly. I'm an alcoholic." I nod as she bites her bottom lip. "It was a long time coming, but I never could admit it." I take a breath, and she's still looking at me wide-eyed and holding back tears. "Not until I realized I could never have
you
unless I stopped drinking."

Her expression changes to confusion. Shaking her head, she opens her mouth, but I hold up our hands to stop her. "No. Holly. I know it wouldn't have been a condition of yours, but...you are perfect. So absolutely perfect, and...you were right. I needed to get my shit together...you were so right."

"I didn't mean it like that," she says quickly.

I lift my brows. "I know that. I do. But...my drinking was the whole reason my shit had fallen apart in the first place. And it's something I couldn't have overcome on my own." I take in her bubbling eyes and use my thumb to catch a falling tear. "I wanted to be perfect for
you
. I
want
to be perfect for you." I bring my hand back down to hers. "That night. The night I quit work?" I take another breath. "I couldn't stand seeing you with Ben anymore."

She opens her mouth but I shake my head.

"I know you weren't dating him, but...you could have been. So easily." I pause to catch my breath once again. “That night, I just wanted to pull you up off that chair where you sat with your friends, wrap you in my arms, and...claim you as mine." I laugh beneath my breath, knowing how absurd
claiming
someone sounds, but it's the truth. "I couldn't do that, though. I wasn't worthy of you. Still, I am not, but I am closer. When I would drink, I was trying to numb the pain from my past. Drown in it, so to speak, in a quest to forget... But all it had done was make each subsequent day more painful." Holly's expressive eyes are holding mine, fastidiously, intent on hearing me finish. "I am no different than my sister. What made me believe that I ever had been, I have no idea. Still...I couldn't admit...what caused me to admit that I needed help as much as my sister was..." I let go her hand and run my thumb along the corner of her mouth. "You see...more painful to me than soberly recalling my past...is to never be able to hold you again. You alone are the reason I spent the last month in the first sober state I'd known in fourteen years."

As I expect, her jaw drops and her eyes jump.

"Yes. I had my first taste of alcohol when I was ten. Why wouldn't I have? We'd had more stock of
it
than we'd had milk." I shrug. "Once I'd realized its effect, I'd found a way to cope. It never got out of hand...though as the years passed, I'd needed more to get the desired effect. Anyway, you get the picture. But I'm sober now. Twenty-one days. And though I have forever to go...I'd love to heal... recover...with you by my side. I am not perfect, Holly. I never will be. I'm emotionally scarred. Damaged. And I have a
lot. Of. Shit.
But I'm scooping it up, babe. One piece at a time." I hold her face in my hands. "Will you stick with me while I do? Will you finally be my girl?"

She hesitates about a tenth of a second before she tackles me to the other side of the couch. "I love you, Michael. Of course I'll
be your girl."
If I'm not mistaken, she just made fun of me.

"Would it have been better if I'd said,
'be my lover?'"

"Hell yeah," she exclaims.

With Holly tangled in my arms finally, I can't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "I love you, too, Holiday Eliza Sabrina Buchanan."

"Shut the hell up and make love to me already."

And that is exactly what I do. I shut the hell up and make love to the woman whose hug has the power to heal me from inside out.

When I am done kissing every inch of her velvety soft and supple body, when I am spent from the release of months of aching desire for her, when I am satisfied with making her scream out my name in pure ecstasy, I fall to her side on the narrow couch and spend the rest of the day and night holding Holly in my grateful arms.

Three Months Later

The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving

MICK

I've taken this road every Wednesday night for the past three months. Each night, it's a different road, a different place, a different time. Tonight is my last night. My last
consecutive
night, that is.

"You sure you don't mind waiting?" I ask Holly, who is with me tonight, because we are heading up north for the weekend. "I feel bad..."

"Stop, Michael. I don't mind. I'll be studying for my Human Behavior exam anyway." She pulls into the lot, parks, and turns off the engine.

"And you're positive you want me coming with you tonight?"

"Oh my God, Michael," she laughs and reaches over her center console to take my hand, "of course I want you coming with me. It's Thanksgiving. And Rose's mom said it'd be good for her to see her friends. She thinks it’ll help her get back to the way things were
before
her accident if her friends are around."

"Yeah, but I'm not really a friend. She only knows me as Mick the bartender."

"And now she'll get to know you as Michael the IT guy for the Borough of Haledon."

I squeeze her hand at the mention of my new job. A job that allows me tuition reimbursement for the night classes I've enrolled to take during the spring semester. "I'm still Mick to everyone but you and my sister, Holly." I laugh.

"Yeah. I know, but I like referring to you as Michael. It suits you better."

"Did I ever tell you how much I love you?" I ask, brushing my unheld hand down the side of her cheek.

"No." She narrows her eyes. "I don't think you ever did," she lies.

"Well let me tell you," I release her hand and run my fingers through her hair above her neck, "I love you so much that without you, I wouldn't be half the man I am today. Six months ago, Holly, I was barely hanging on. The grayness around me was darkening by the minute, and I felt like a blind man with nothing to help me lead the way. I didn't know how I was going to get Kenna back. I didn't know how I was going to save my sister. I realize my aunt came through for me too, but it was
you
. It was you who helped me get up each morning—whether you knew it or not...That night you found me, drunk off my ass in my apartment...that Friday that Kenna was stolen from me..." I shift closer to Holly to hold her more comfortably. "I was ready to give up. I had no fucking idea how I was supposed to get my niece back in my arms, but when you showed up...determined to see me do what I needed to do...you opened my eyes. My heart began to hope...my soul...it began the healing it so desperately needed to do." Moving in closer, I bring Holly to me and kiss her mouth just once—a lingering touch of our lips to show my gratitude once again. A kiss not unlike the first time I had kissed her. "Thank you, Holly, for bringing me back from the dead. And for that...I love you more than I can ever possibly tell you or show you. But I promise. Each day that I am alive, and each day ever after, I will find a way to prove to you just how much I love you." I hold her beautiful face in my hands, as I've grown accustomed to do. "You own me, Holiday. Body, heart, and soul. Totally and absolutely own me."

"Michael Ross. I love the shit out of you." She jumps at me, lifting her legs over the console, and straddles me in the passenger seat of her car. Wrapping her arms wildly around me, she presses her mouth to mine and plunges her tongue deep inside my mouth.

I let her have her way for several pleasurable seconds before gently pushing her backward. "Hey, there is no shit to get out of me. I got it all together, remember?"

She smiles. "Damn straight you did. Now go... you can't be late."

I open the door and let Holly get out before me, since she's on top of me, and I have no choice. Her lips are still warm from our kiss when I kiss her again. "See you in an hour," I tell her.

"I'll be waiting," she says.

And so...

On my ninetieth day, I walk into my ninetieth meeting, a more hopeful, more confident, more capable man. And though I owe that to my own hard work, I know it would not have come to be had it not been for Holly's faith in me. For her love and belief in me is what helped me to once and for all stand up and be a man...without the drink.

Once inside the meeting hall, when it is my turn to speak, I begin my usual ritual of breathing in courage, imagining Holly's arms around me, and breathing out the words that I must not ever forget. "Hello. My name is Michael, and I'm an alcoholic."

The End

To read book one in the Hunter Hill University series – Calling California – click
here
.

To read Maybe This Life, a love story that transcends lifetimes, click
here
.

To read the young adult empath trilogy – The Honor Trilogy, click
here
.

Thank you for reading my books.