Page 52 of Spotted at Lighthouse Bay
A smile flashed across his face. “Not as a bodyguard, no.” He turned, looking at the tea shop, then at her. “I went away for a memorial. It was for my cousin Cody.”
Her heart sunk. “I’m so sorry. Were you close?”
He nodded. “Cody was six years older than me. I always looked up to him. I never thought…” He shook his head. “After I joined the army, he was inspired to join, too. But after he deployed, he was never the same. He started drinking to deal with the fallout.”
Addy stood perfectly still.
Rick went on. “At first, no one wanted to admit it was a problem. He still held onto a job. He was fun to be around. What could I say? I was his little cousin. I never told him what to do. But then…” He shook his head. “I should’ve said something. I should’ve done something.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t tell any of us, but his liver was failing. I found out when they called me as his emergency contact. He tried to stop drinking and started having seizures.”
“Oh, Rick.” She wanted to grab his hand. She wanted to pull him in, wrap him up.
“I thought maybe it’d be a wakeup call. I wanted to get him help, but he didn’t want to miss work. He stopped answering my calls. I found out he’d gotten evicted from his apartment.” He sighed. “I promised I was going to come out again, make him at least talk to me, but he got into a bar fight. He hit his head on the curb and never woke up.”
Her eyes flashed with tears. “Rick, I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. You didn’t need to know this,” he said.
She grabbed his hand. He squeezed it once before letting go.
“What I’m trying to say…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “That’s why I was gone. It was important, but it’s over, and I’m not going to leave again, okay? I won’t let anything else happen.”
“I know.” She nodded, staring at him.
His eyes were hard again, looking out at the water.
“We should get back,” he said, turning around. “I’m sure everyone’s worried about you.”
She didn’t know what else to say, so she followed him up the hill.
Nineteen
He walked quickly, disguising his gasps for air as exertion. Would Addy notice? The tingling in his hands was fading, but his heart was still racing and his chest was in a vise.
Rick could tell her about Cody. It had been a year. He should be able to talk about it, especially with her.
But Addy couldn’t know about this problem of his. This weakness. The shooting pains in his chest. The numbness in his hands. His vision tunneling into darkness.
If Rick thought he was about to die, the decent thing was to keep it to himself.
They reached the tea shop and he pulled the door open for her. He forced a smile, or at least he thought he did.
Inside the tea shop, the air was pleasantly warm and smelled of cinnamon and bergamot. Sheila was shouting at Marilyn. Patty stood with her hands on her hips, watching as Sheila whisked Addy away.
The room kept shifting beneath his feet. Rick took a seat at a table near the door and tried the techniques he’d read on the internet. The feel of his jeans on his hand. One yellow thing he could see. Two red things…
Enough of that. He needed to watch the entrances. The guys could be lurking around. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to Addy.
The vise crushing his chest loosened and he took a full breath, then another. He wasn’t dying. Not this time.
Just a little panic attack.
As if it being “little” were such a thing. He hated the term. He hated the feeling, the loss of control and the humiliation.
No one seemed to have noticed, though. He’d staved it off for now. Addy couldn’t know what a mess he was. She would think –
