Page 48 of Ice
“Why, kid? That’s all I want to know, is why.”
I pointed at the water jug, and he grabbed it and poured some into a paper cup. It took a few sips before it actually started tasting like water, but it helped.
“What did you do to Lissa?”
His forehead creased.
“Who?”
“My therapist. Lissa. Dr Chase.”
His frown became a fierce scowl.
“I sent that bitch packing, and she knows never to come near this place again. Fucking useless if you ask me. First off, she abused her position by getting so close to you, and then shefailed you completely, by sending you into whatever the fuck tailspin sent you to that dive.”
I shook my head, my stomach roiling a little with the motion.
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“She’s your therapist, or she was. Her job was to stop you doing what you just did. Instead, she managed to seduce you, or some shit.”
“I fucking seduced her, okay? Or… fuck… I was trying to. Where is she?”
Reacher shrugged. “Don’t care. She’s not going to be coming anywhere near you in future.”
“That’s not your call. I choose who I see, and… Jesus… I want her. I fucking need her.”
He scratched at his head for a minute, watching me, but staying silent.
“Reacher, I mean it. It has to be her. Fuck… how did she even get home? She wasn’t allowed to drive.”
He got up, clearly feeling more comfortable pacing.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Look… if I tell you some stuff, will you keep it between us? It’s humiliating for both of us.”
“Jesus. I’m gonna regret this, right?” Probably. I shrugged.
“Look, we’ve been getting closer for a while, and she was worried about me tonight, so she tried driving here, but she’d been drinking, and she got pulled over. Her licence might be suspended over this. If she loses her licence, she might lose her job too.”
He was staring at me. “Seriously? This woman who fucking drives drunk is the perfect person to help you get off the drugs? I’m calling bullshit on that.”
“It was stupid, yeah, but it was a mistake. We’re fucking human. We make them. She made one, and I wanted to look after her. She was so upset. Uh… we were getting uh… Jesus.”Was I really going to tell him this? I’d rather die. I pulled at my hair.
“Fucking hell, just tell me, already. We need to get this done and out of the way, so you can start fucking cleaning up again.” Great. Perfect. Only this time it wasn’t a decision being made for me. Or was it?
“Jesus, Reacher… I fucking went off early, alright?”
His frown suddenly relaxed, and he said ‘oh’. He paced some more.
“First time with someone since you were attacked, right? Since you got clean.”
“So?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s uh… I’m pretty sure that it might not be that unusual, for shit to uh… go wrong like that.”
“For a man to start jizzing all over women before he even gets inside them? That what you’re tiptoeing around?”
