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“If you think there’s a single chance I’m not inviting every single person I’ve ever laid eyes on, you’re crazy,” I joked. “No one will ever believe me if I don’t.”
She got distracted after that with other customers, so I slipped outside to call Mia and tell her all about it. I wasn’t even sure she’d want to know, but she was my person. She was the only one I wanted to tell about anything.
~
Since I was in Brisley, it seemed only fitting to make a stop by my usual Gam-Anon meeting. I was feeling alright for once, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need to go, nor did it mean I didn’t want to see the people there. Unlike Cori and the gang in Domingo, I knew pretty much every member of the Brisley chapter like they were my own family. Ricky was a musician who had a handful of chart-toppers and pissed away all his royalties on lottery tickets and craps. Andria had been arrested twice for tax evasion but turned over a new leaf almost a decade ago and now had a family we were all proud of, and our ringleader Jerry was the kind of man you couldn’t help but look up to.
He’d been down darker paths than any of us, and I always found myself getting lost in the stories he’d share with us. I wondered sometimes how close I’d come to having stories as wild as his – though I’d had more than one gun pointed at me in my day, I’d never been shot, and I never got so far in with a bookie that they started taking appendages. I wasn’t sure if that was luck, skill, or the fact that I was so fucking good at my day job that “bad debt” was never “bad enough,” but I didn’t suppose it mattered.
I had people to worry about now. As much as I missed the adrenaline rush, just being in love was giving me one of those. Not just that, either, it was like an adrenaline rush, a dopamine hit, and a world-class hangover all in one but in the best way.
Sharing her with them was easy. Normally when I’d gotten up to that podium and tried to speak about my love life, it was desperately awful. I could see the discomfort on people’s faces and practically feel how badly they’d wanted to sprint for the door, but now? Every face in that room was thrilled for me, and it only got better when Jerry finally presented me with my two-year medallion.
“You missed your anni. Where were you?” he asked, ruffling my hair. “Don’t tell me I have to take this thing back already.”
“Hell no.” I playfully pushed him back and tried to fix it. “I was just busy in Domingo with my girl and my house. You’d hate it at their meetings though, Jer. Coffee’s awful.”
He held his heart like he’d never been more offended in his life, then shoved some of the little coffee packets toward me. “Take these back with you then. There’s just no accounting for taste, is there?”
I shook my head and braced myself as he moved out of the way to let the others come up and congratulate me. Truthfully, I’d steered clear of this place on my anniversary because I didn’t want anyone making a big deal out of it. I hadn’t even brought it up to Sterling for the same reason, though part of me felt like I should’ve at least told him.
After all, I wouldn’t be where I was in life without him. I wouldn’t be half the man I was without him and our dad, and I certainly wouldn’t have had the courage to go after Mia if Sterling hadn’t shown me all these years that I still deserved to be loved.
No, as embarrassed as I was that I needed a medallion at all, some things were worth celebrating ... and some people are worth celebrating with no matter what.
