Addicted

“I’m going to have to take this, Ms. Truman,” she says before slipping the toothbrush into a clear plastic bag.

“What? I can’t brush my teeth?” I ask, confused.

“It’s not your teeth I’m worried about you using this on, dear,” Judy says as she pulls her glasses down the bridge of her nose and glances at me over them.

I suddenly get her meaning and laugh. “No, no, no. I swear that thing only goes in my mouth. I wasn’t planning on—”

Judy raises a hand to stop me. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book, Miss Truman. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re given a nonbattery-operated toothbrush before you go to bed.” She cocks her head to one side, smiling tightly as she puts all my stuff back into my bags. “Wonderful. You’re all set for our community meeting, then. It’ll be a nice introduction to the people you’ll be joining in group therapy during most of your stay here.” She looks over my shoulder, behind me. “Oh, here comes one of them now. We can all walk down together. Matthew?”

I turn to see who she’s talking to and my breath catches. Sauntering down the hallway, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his chin held high—almost in defiance—is one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen. He’s tall with broad shoulders, a tapered waist and jet-black hair. His sweatshirt sleeves are pushed up to show off his meaty forearms. As he eyes me up and down, I feel a shiver run through me. Then our gazes meet. Despite his punkish gait and facial expression, he has a young-looking face complete with baby blue eyes and two dimples that flash on his cheeks when he smirks at me before he looks away so fast I wonder if I imagined it.

“Talia, this is Matthew Skylar. Matthew, would you mind showing Talia to the community meeting room? I’ll be right behind you two.”

Matt shrugs his shoulders, turns and begins to walk down the hallway. For a moment, I’m frozen in place and then I realize, oh, right, I’m supposed to follow this guy. I start to move, but Judy calls out after me.

“Oh, wait. Talia?”

“Yeah?” I answer distractedly.

“Before we go, I forgot to ask you for your cell phone. I need to lock it up. Cell phones are used for one hour each night under supervision.”

“What?” I ask, still not quite hearing her.

“Your cell phone?”

“Oh. Sorry,” I murmur before taking my cell phone out of the kangaroo pocket of my sweatshirt and look at Dottie’s text one last time before placing it in the doctor’s plump, outstretched hand.

DFIU, Talia.

It’s then I realize that I am completely and totally fucked.

Chapter Three

Don’t look at his ass.Don’t look at his ass.Don’t look at his ass. I keep repeating the mantra to myself, but as Matt walks down the hallway in front of me, it’s the only thing I find myself doing as I shuffle down the corridor behind him. Even in his sweats, the fabric stretches over his lower body in such a way that I see his muscular butt and the little indentations on either side of it. I was told this place has a gym and it’s obvious that Matt has been putting it to good use. His ass is hypnotizing.

I feel as if Judy, who’s walking a few steps behind me, is studying me as I stare at Matt. I glance back to check and she eyes me from over the top of her glasses again, giving me the same warning look that she gave me when she thought I was going to jack off with my toothbrush. I jerk my head back around and snap to attention, chin parallel to the floor, eyes forward. Like I’m in the army or something. My staring at Matt feels forbidden, dangerous under this doctor’s watchful eye, and a sense of giddiness—dare I say a thrill?—runs through me.

We pass a room, its door slightly ajar, and I get a brief glance of a massage therapy table with fresh white linens on it, the top sheet pulled down slightly as if in invitation. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I see myself facedown on the table, Matt shirtless above me, his large hands—which are currently in fists by his sides—massaging my naked body thoroughly.

Farther down the hallway, we walk by the sauna, its frosted glass door covered in condensation, and I think of Matt pressing me up against it in an embrace, my hand leaving a steamy print just like Rose—or Jack? no one knows for sure—did in the scene with the car in Titanic.

I hear Judy clear her throat loudly behind me as if she overheard my thoughts and I jump. I turn back around with a sheepish smile. I consider how this woman thinks all I do all day is daydream about sex and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Thankfully we don’t have to go past any more rooms because suddenly there is a group of people coming from the other end of the hallway and, like a school of fish, they turn abruptly and enter the door in front of me. “Here we are, Talia,” Judy says as she falls in step with me and gestures to the doorway with one arm as if she was presenting a game-show prize.

The room has cheery yellow walls and smells like a combination of fresh paint, hospital disinfectant and something waxy. About ten bright blue folding chairs have been arranged into a circle on the cherry-red carpet. Taped to the large picture windows are some hand-drawn pictures, the products of art therapy, I assume. Stick-figure people, a triangle on top of a square to make a house, large scribbles of gobbledygook as if the artist abruptly changed his or her mind—all of the Magic Marker creations faded and bleached by the sun. Coupled with the primary color palette, the room looks like it belongs in an elementary school classroom more than a rehab.

The group takes their seats and, like a game of musical chairs, I sit in the only one left that’s vacant, which, of course with my luck, happens to be right next to Matt. Dammit. I can’t look at him anymore, I have to be the old Talia—nice and pure, her pigtails swinging as she sings and dances with a puppet. And so I survey the people sitting around me instead. The woman on the other side of me is tall and thin, sitting ramrod-straight in her chair. She has a pixie cut and large doe-like eyes that frantically dart from one person to another like a pinball. The only other woman besides manic-pixie girl and me has platinum-blond hair with a loose curl that reaches the back of her kneecaps. Rapunzel has her head down as she picks at her chipping yellow nail polish, her lips in a perpetual frown, like a trout.