Page 20 of That Weekend in Paris
“Is everything all right?” I ask, cautious.
“Yeah,” he says. “There are just times when I know I do better not being alone.”
Well, I can certainly identify with that. Klein looks as if he wants to elaborate, say more. I instinctively wait.
“I don’t know if you heard about my stint in rehab. Or if you knew I had a drinking problem.”
The shame in his voice ties a knot in my heart. “There were rumors. I didn’t know if any of them were true.”
He laughs a short laugh. “I imagine most of them were.”
“Are you okay?”
He looks at me then, and I can see in his eyes that he is surprised I’ve asked. “I am. I mean I think so. To be honest, the reason I came to your room is because I was tempted to pour myself a drink. I know it will temporarily make me quit thinking about things I don’t want to think about.”
“But that’s only temporary, right?”
“Right.”
“What can I do?” I ask, wanting to be the shoulder he needs to lean into right now. And then I find myself confiding, “My dad was an alcoholic.”
His eyes widen. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. It’s not something I let myself think about too often. He died when I was four. In a DUI accident. That he caused.”
I feel Klein’s shock. He looks as if he has no idea what to say to this. “I’m sorry, Dillon,” he says.
“Me, too. I’m sorry he never got help. Or that no one in his life gave him that ultimatum. It was one of my mother’s biggest regrets.”
“Alcoholics can’t be helped until they want to be helped,” Klein says quietly.
“There’s guilt nonetheless,” I say. And then, “You did get help, Klein. That’s the part that matters. Not what came before. We’re strongest when we turn our back on our weaknesses. That’s what you’ve done. But when you need someone to talk you down from that ledge, you can always call me. Anytime at all.”
“Thank you,” he says, his gratitude evident in the two words. We hold each other’s gaze for a couple of long seconds, and I feel the clicking of a connection between us. Understanding of something that can only happen when two people have experienced a similar pain.
Klein shakes his head a little and says, “I guess I need to head on over. Would you like to go with me now?”
“Yeah,” I say, realizing I’ve been hoping for this all along. “I’m ready, actually.”
“You look beautiful, by the way,” he says, his gaze again settling fully on my face. I feel heat flood my cheeks, drop my gaze like a high school version of myself, and say, “Thanks.”
“No. Really,” he says, “you do.”
I settle on the option of silence, because I can’t think of anything to say that would make me sound less than awkward.
“I’ll go ahead and get us a car,” Klein says, waving his phone.
“Great,” I say, “let me just grab my purse and a jacket.”
He waits for me by the door, and as I walk past him, I notice his cologne, how good it smells, and how perfectly it matches my sense of him. I imagine pressing my face to his chest and breathing in that heady scent.
Okay, where had that come from? I give myself a mental swat and head for the elevator, pressing the down button and waiting with my back to him.
“I hope this goes well tonight,” he says softly.
I turn then to see the worry in his eyes. “It will. Do you always get nerves before a show?”
“Sometimes more than others,” he says, “but playing in a place like this for the first time is a little newly intimidating.”
