“Me either,” he whispered as he settled Sophie on his hip then carried her to the sink.
“So that chip kind of matches your eyes.”
I looked up from the pink medallion in my hand to find Victor smirking at me over coffee and pie. Blueberry pie, and it was quite tasty.
“It’s pink,” I pointed out.
“I know. Just thought I’d say something to yank you out of the fog you’ve been in all night. You itchy for a drink or something?” He stabbed his pie with his fork, breaking off a large slab, then spearing it.
“No, no, I’m good. Steady.” The coffee shop was what people would coin as “Classic Fifties Diner Chic” on Pinterest. Not that I spent much time on Pinterest. The diner was filled with old people and members of the Boston fire and police departments. We’d taken to coming here after meetings just to talk about things. Life, hockey, our addictions, hockey, kids, hockey. We talked a lot of hockey. Vic knew the sport about as well as anyone, and he was the only recovering puck pusher that I knew here. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind. The stem cell transfer will be done in less than forty-eight hours.”
“That’s good though, right?” he asked around his mouthful of pie.
“Yes, very good.”
“But you’re nervous.” I nodded. He swallowed then washed his bite down with some dark roast coffee. “That’s to be expected. When Jackie was fourteen his appendix went schizoid. We rushed him to the hospital and the whole time we were there I thought I was going to fucking die of anxiety. Seriously, the only thing that kept me sober was knowing that my boy needed me clean when he came out of surgery. Well, that and I had Dan to cling to.”
“Did your children get sick often?” I enquired as I poked at the flaky crust of my pie with my fork. Vic laughed. My gaze lifted from the slice of pie. “That’s funny?”
“Jokey, you have no idea. Kids are always sick or hurt. My daughter plays hockey. She’s broken an ankle, two fingers, and had a tooth knocked out. Jackie… well, he’s not as athletic as BJ, but he had his share of shit, being beat-up for being genderqueer, bullied, and then the usual kid sicknesses. If you’re thinking that once your baby girl is all cured of her cancer—and she will be because Vic K. said so—that she’ll never be sick, then you need to clear that thinking out of your brainpan right now.”
I blew out a breath. “I’m not sure I can handle her getting hurt. It’s been…” I paused to find the right word. “It’s been so hard to sit there and watch her suffer. The chemo makes her so sick, and I think her hair is getting thinner. I just…”
He reached over the table to grab my hand. “Hey, you got this. Trust me. You feel shaky at any time you got my number. You call, and I’ll be there. You got family, yeah?”
“Just the team.”
“Ah, okay, well don’t be shy about reaching out to them or the team counselor.” He gave my wrist a squeeze. “There’s also her uncle. You and he seem to be close, and by close, I mean close.”
I made a face that pulled a snort of amusement from my pie-eating companion.
“Yes, Isaac is a fine man. But he has carried the burden of her illness for so long. I want to ease that strain from his back however I can.”
“He sounds like a real angel.”
“That’s gracious of you.”
“Gracious, that’s my middle name,” Vic tossed out amicably, then his expression shifted from joking to serious. “Look, I hate to be the one to bust your bubble here, but dating when you’re working the program can cause a person—and I don’t mean that person is you, Jokey—but some people have been known to replace their substance abuse problems with a brand-new addiction.”
“You mean to relationships or intimacy?”
He nodded. Part of me wished that Victor would go back to being that sarcastic asshole everyone pegged him as being. This serious side of the man was making me nervous.
“Just saying that if you form a strong attachment to that sexy baby uncle that it might be a new addictive behavior, right? You may never learn to stand on your own two feet. Again, not saying that will happen to you, just throwing this out as my role as sponsor extraordinaire.” He took another bite of his pie and chewed.
I blinked at him. I had known that he’d worked through his own steps in his own way. Victor didn’t seem the sort who stuck to rules and protocol too strictly. As if he were one of those magical ones who could just grab hold of their addiction and shove it out the window. While he was a rule breaker, he did have demons of his own.
“Yes, I know all of that,” I confessed with a sigh. My brain—perhaps my own demon—was telling me that a new, less harmful addiction might be just what I needed. “Perhaps I need to become addicted to being a father.”
He pulled a face as if he’d found a sour berry in his pie.
“Well, see, the thing is that booze was such an important thing in your life that when it’s gone it feels as if you’ve lost your identity.” His hazel gaze met and held mine. That made so much sense that it literally stole my breath for a moment.
“It shouldn’t have been my whole identity. I had hockey.”
He chuckled venomously. “Ah yeah, hockey, that beautiful sexy mistress. She can chew you up and spit you out. Wow, that sounded real Hall and Oates, huh? Point is that it takes a strong man to keep his head on straight while recovering. Let me tell you, I put Dan through some shit when I was coming to grips with my drinking. Just be aware of the pitfalls and don’t swap out one addiction for another. That’s all I wanted to say in my sponsor voice. Do with it what you will.” And just like that he was back to the snarky bastard that I had come to know rather well in such a short time. “Have you fucked him yet?” he asked with a leer, and I gaped. “Enquiring minds want to know.”
“Of course not. My daughter is battling cancer. Who can think of sex at such a time?”
“A little comfort goes a long way when you’re facing something that difficult. Just saying,” he added when I began to grumble in earnest. “You know what Rick Springfield says about human touch.”
“I touch him plenty.” A red eyebrow flew up his brow. “Not that way. Kindly, softly, a kiss—”
“A kiss?” Damn it. “Tongue kiss?”
“Can we talk about hockey now?”
“Coward,” he sniggered, but let the topic drop and launched into a long story about his days in Cayuga, which was the feeder team for Boston. Hockey was safer. Much, much safer.
When the coffee and pie were gone, I thanked Vic and headed home. When I stepped inside, Isaac was sitting on the sofa with his iPad open next to him, watching an old movie, and sipping on something heavy with cinnamon, which I could smell from the door. His gaze moved to me as I toed off my sneakers.
“How was the meeting?” he asked as I sat down beside him, twisting to the side so I could look right at him. He was watching an old movie with James Cagney.
“Good.” I showed him my newest chip. He gave me a wide smile. “The pie and coffee were good as well.”
“You found a worthy sponsor by the sounds.”