Thrive: A Friends-to-Lovers Standalone Romance (Stonewood Billionaire Brothers Series)

Therapist: It isn’t your job to help everyone be happier, Jay. Do you understand that?

Jay: It is actually my job as an actor to provide the audience an experience.

Therapist: So, when do you turn that off? When do you focus on you?

Jay: I don’t know.

Jay

I stormed off into the night air, trying to rid myself of my anger. Every darkened area on Mikka’s ribs had me wondering. Was that a punch? Had he hit her with something else?

I should have broken his jaw, beaten him to within an inch of his life. It was another regret I’d carry with me for a long time.

I roamed around the town I’d grown up in. I tried to forget what I saw, tried to get lost in my own memories and remind myself that she was her own person, that I couldn’t make everyone’s lives better.

I walked down the sidewalks, took in the homes with meticulous landscaping. Jerry, a man not much older than my father, knelt near some of his mulch and was pulling weeds. He didn’t look a day older than the last time I’d seen him doing the exact same thing.

The black paved road beside the sidewalk contrasted with the autumn leaves of the maple trees that surrounded it. It was the same road I’d sped down a million times in high school once I’d gotten my license. I remember begging a cop just two blocks away not to ticket me. He let me off easy, probably because he’d known my parents. Everyone knew everyone. The kids I once played with in the woods near my house were buying up the same homes we’d passed and the same yards we’d ran through.

Sandy fluttered up her sidewalk when she saw me, and I saw the same interest in her eyes I’d seen years ago. I entertained the idea of something with her as I accepted her invitation to dinner, but Mikka lingered in the back of my mind.

I was the friend of a victim, and I didn’t know how to do more without pushing her further away. I needed her to see her own value without shoving her face in it, without forcing her acceptance of the situation.

I knew it didn’t work that way. Yet when someone you care about is constantly hurting themselves by going back to their abuser, your gut reaction is to rip them away, to shield them even if they don’t want the help. The shield warps into a way to repel them from you though.

I was giving her space and letting myself cool down. I needed to distance myself, remind myself that she wasn’t a woman I wanted to get tangled in the sheets with. Sandy was supposed to be that reminder.

It didn’t work.

That was the funny thing about returning to your hometown. It reminded you of what you had growing up and it served to remind you of what you were missing then and now.

Sitting across the table from Sandy, I missed my Little Pebble.

“Sandy, I’ve got somewhere to be.” I cut our dinner short, folded some bills up to leave on the table.

The blonde woman pursed her lips but didn’t push me. She nodded and stood to hug me. “Let’s get together sometime soon?”

I nodded and left.

The night sky was dark enough with no city lights that the stars burst out all the constellations. It had me wondering about Mikka’s mother’s story. Was Yue Lao up there trying to untangle our red strings?

I peeked in on her when I got back. She breathed so softly when she slept, I was reminded of how tiny she was. I backed out of her room fast, afraid I’d lose my control. I wanted to rip her sheets off and make her let me examine the bruising again. I wanted to scoop her up and put her in my bed where I could watch the moonlight dance upon her skin as she slept soundly.

Most of the night I stayed up worrying about the woman that wasn’t mine but who I was starting to think should have been a long time ago.

“You were out late.” Mikka confronted me as we crossed paths the next morning.

I’d checked on her the night before, stood in her doorway wanting to rip her sheets off and make her let me examine the bruising again.

“I caught up with some friends. How are you feeling? Your side still sore? Are your ribs…”

“It’s fine. It’s almost healed.” She turned to the small staircase and her hand gripped the railing tightly. “Our company called, Jay.”

With her eyes downcast, I knew what it meant. “If they want to drug test me, I said I was happy to do it. Did the package come with the supplies?”

She whispered, “I hate this. If I was trying the way you were and someone told me I had to check in with a test, I’d be so mad.” She ripped her hands from the railing as if the thought burned her. “It’s not fair that they’re making you do this.”

“It is, Meek. It’s fixing the trust I broke so many times with the media. It’s proving the point they need me to make to finish off this movie.”

“You only have a few scenes left, right?” she asked as she walked back to her room to get the white plastic bag that held the urine cup. The whole process was degrading, a way to put me in my place, and definitely a way to make sure I was serious about promoting this movie the right way. “And you promised to behave through promotion. I’m just frustrated for you.”

I leaned against her doorway as she ripped open the package and handed me the cup. “Babe, you might not see it yet, but I’ve acted the scenes, I’ve delved into the lead. This movie is it. It’s going to propel society into wanting more equal rights. It’s going to win awards. It’s brilliant. The director knows my mishaps and controversies can’t taint that. He’s covering his ass and I get it. I agree. This movie needs to shine purely on its own.”

Her eyes started to glisten at my words.

“Are you okay? Your ribs hurting?” I hesitated, still worried.

“I’m just really proud of you. You’ve taken shit parts, Jay.” She laughed despite the tears in her eyes. “I knew it when I saw the script too. And I just want this month to work, you know?”

I stepped into the room, a small smile forming on my face at her downtrodden look. “Mikka, if it takes me pissing in a cup in front of you a few times, I think we can get through it.”

I started to unbutton my worn jeans as I walked closer to her. Her dark almond eyes widened to saucers. “What? You can’t… that’s not… Oh, my God! Close the door!”

She slapped her hands over her eyes and swerved around me to rush over to the door and slam it shut. While she did it, I followed through on my word and whipped my dick out to piss in the cup.

“Jay!” she screamed from behind me. “What the hell! That isn’t what they asked you to do. When they said you needed to be watched, I’m pretty sure they meant your bathroom door, you idiot!”

“Nah.” I screwed the cup’s cap on and placed it on the table to zip back up. When I faced her, she was still covering her eyes. “I’m done, woman. Don’t act like you haven’t seen a million dicks after working in a porn shop.”

“Replicas of dicks and real dicks are two completely different beasts.”

“Are they?” I countered. “Tell me, which do you like more?”

“You’re really asking me questions like this with your pee in a cup on the table?”

I smiled. “I’m not ashamed, baby. Nothing to be ashamed of, according to my therapist.”

“I don’t think your therapist knows we’re talking about porn while drug testing you.”

“I was just talking about vibrators and dildos. If you want to go down the porn road, we can. What kink are you into?” I shrugged.

Her face heated, and her reddened cheeks made my dick twitch in a way it shouldn’t have. The porn talk wasn’t helping matters.

What always surprised me about her was that she never backed down from the challenge. She lowered her chin and looked up at me like she’d been tested this way before. “I don’t do porn, Jay. A little BDSM is fun to watch, sure, but let me be honest: a man that can deliver head-banging, screaming good sex and knows that some acting for a video never lives up to the real thing is so much better than porn.”

Fuck me. I want her.

With that, she sauntered up to me, grabbed my piss off the table, and studied the cup. “All clear. Not that I had any doubts.”

“You sure?” I asked, arms crossed.

She flashed the test lines on the cup at me. “Control strips here indicate that all is working and the T below it is testing your levels of all these drugs. Not one showed up. So, yes, I’m sure. And, yes, I’m sure I didn’t have doubts.”

“You had them,” I shot back. “You tried to follow me out yesterday.” I had seen how much it pained her when I told her to stay behind, like she didn’t trust me, like she wanted me on a leash.

I tried to understand. Enough bad choices with drugs and the ones you loved, that trusted you, that had provided you support in the past, became the ones that had no trust in you at all, that kept you tethered rather than supported, hoping you wouldn’t fly off the handle again.

Everyone had to doubt me at this point. I doubted myself some days.

“No, actually, I didn’t doubt you. Me wanting to follow you was because I didn’t want you to stay angry with me. I cared that we weren’t getting along. I want us to be in a good place. I care about what you think of me. Probably too much. I didn’t doubt you.” She whispered the last part, but it spoke volumes to me. Mikka had seen me at my worst but kept pushing me to be my best.

A true friend did that, stuck it out with you when you were lying on the ground so miserable that no one else would be caught dead with you. Then they’d pick you up and still believe in you after all was said and done. They believed even when you didn’t believe in yourself.

“I appreciate you, Meek.”

“Do me a favor, then. Don’t pee in front of me again.”

She left me just as my phone started ringing.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Jay, Lorraine called and said that your friend Mikka is the ray of sunshine her plants needed this fall.”

“I told you: she’s a good PA and an even better friend.”

“Brey said she met her too. And Ray said she’s stunning.” My mom wasn’t going to stop.

“Mom, I realize the whole town is probably talking about the one person who isn’t from here. They’re all going to have something to say about her.”

“Well, you know I don’t like secondhand chatter. I expect to meet her soon.”

“It’s not worth you coming to town.”

I shut my eyes as the line went silent. She was navigating uncharted waters with me. My mother and I had always been close. I would take the name of “mama’s boy” any day for that woman. She’d stood tall during rough times with my father, given her three growing boys unconditional love as we ran around eating her out of house and home.

She’d given me everything growing up, and I was rewarding her by fucking up. I needed time to make it right, not have her abandon her getaway where she was finally rekindling a romance with my father.

I didn’t want to be her burden; I wanted to be the son that made her proud.

And if she came now, the town would bombard her with questions, push her to come to my rescue when it wasn’t her fight. I needed to face them, not her.

She cleared whatever emotions she was experiencing from her throat before replying. “I won’t come if that’s what you need from me.”

“Just for a while, Ma. I need space for a while. It’ll be easier this way.”

“You’re crazy if you think that town’s easy,” she grumbled.

A laugh burst from me. “It’s what I need, though.”

“You know best.” It wasn’t condescending—she really meant it, and her words made me wonder how I ever ended up where I was.

I’d been given everything, and she’d never weighed down my road to success.

“I love you, Mom. Stay beautiful.”

“I’ll try. It’s really not easy.” Her laugh lifted my spirits. “Love you. Call me if you need me.”

We hung up, and I took a moment to reflect before I went down to breakfast. I’d call my therapist later that evening and tell her this was part of the breakthrough every addict needed, a reminder of where they came from and why the drugs weren’t worth the destruction of what they’d built for themselves, what their families and friends had helped to build with them.

I was lucky to see my treasure.

And I hoped the feeling of being grateful would become my new addiction.