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“Okay, I’m in an Uber, be there in fifteen minutes.”
When I first started attending the AA meetings where we met, we’d flirted a little. We became friends, and she made her interest in me clear.
But when I decided to ask her to be my sponsor, I did so because I needed her that way more than I wanted to fuck her. Avoiding sexual entanglements is one of the first rules of sponsorship in AA.
She’ll demur at first like a good sponsor should. But it won’t take much to talk her round. It’s selfish, but I need it. Because in the years since I last saw Beth I’ve had good sex, a couple of encounters I’d even call great. But nothing like the full-blown sensory experience I had with her. I remember my heart beating so fast I thought it would explode. I wanted that again—needed it. And Porsha has come closer to being what Beth was as a friend than anyone I’ve met in a while. And I’m attracted to her. Nothing like Beth, but that’s because there is no one else like Beth.
But if If anyone can take my mind off this, it’s her.
“Hey Carter…I came back, and you were gone. It’s pretty early…uhhh, I hope you’re not freaked out by what happened. I understand if you want a new sponsor, so don’t feel bad about asking someone else. But, if you decide that you liked how it felt…then, I’d like to do it again. And again. Either way, call me.”
I delete Porsha’s message and drop my head into my hands with a groan. Trying to have sex with my sponsor is probably the stupidest thing I’ve done in years. She’s beautiful and smart and three years into her own sobriety journey, she’s an amazing support. But last night I was hard and aching with a need I knew she couldn’t satisfy. When she went to the corner store to buy condoms, I threw on my clothes and left.
By the time my Uber pulls up to my building I’m exhausted and grateful there aren’t any twenty-four-hour liquor stores close by.
I stop at the reception to pick up my mail. The doorman isn’t in his seat, so I ring the small bell to get his attention.
“Oh hey, Carter my man. I was just about to call up to your place. Someone stopped by—”
I cut him off with a groan. “If it’s not a delivery—”
‘You’re not here,” he finishes for me.
“Exactly.” I grin.
He fidgets with his dark blue tie and smiles. “Even if it’s your mother?”
“Especially if it’s my mother,” I quip.
“Oh…shit,” he mutters and looks over his shoulder in the direction of the door to the management office.
Unease prickles, and I start to back away from the reception desk.
“What’s going on?”
“I let her up.”
“What?”
He shrugs, completely unconcerned. “She’s your mom, yo. You should talk to her. Ain’t right. Listen, I’d give my right arm to talk to my mother again.”
I level him with a withering frown. “You’re lucky I like you, man.”
He hands me a bundle and gives me a two-fingered salute. I roll my eyes at him and take my time walking to the elevator.
I know it’s shitty to avoid my family, but they stress me out. Although, if I’m honest, everything about my life in New York City stresses me out.
She’s sitting at my dining room table with a mug of steaming coffee in front of her when I walk in. She looks up, her wide eyes shadowed by exhaustion, her face is free of make-up, and her dark hair is scraped back into a ponytail.
She’s squeezing her mug so tightly the skin on her knuckles looks like it’s about to crack.
I shut the door, drop my mail on the table, and take a seat across from her. “Mom…”
She shakes her head and brushes her tears away to compose herself. “I’m glad you remember I’m your mother. Because the way you’ve acted since you got back, I wondered if maybe you’d forgotten.”
“Come on, that’s not—” Her eyes narrow in warning. “What?”
“Don’t compound it with a lie. You haven’t been to Sunday dinner once.”
