Work has been a drag all day. I’m exhausted and off my game. My bleary eyes are meant to be reading through reports, but my attention keeps drifting back to my phone. I still haven’t apologized, though my fingers have lingered over her name at least twenty times today already. I’ve sent at least fifty haphazard attempts at conversation to the bin, and if I didn’t want a drink last night, it’s all I can think about right now.

The cursor is blinking in the text box under Lola’s name again when my secretary buzzes me.

“Mr. Daire, Jimmy’s here to see you.”

Christ. This is exactly what I don’t need right now.

I don’t even need to give her the green light because she has standing orders to let Jimmy in whenever he drops by. It’s part of our arrangement. And even though I might be a big shot in this office, to Jimmy I’m just a little fish in a sea of assholes.

The door opens a minute later, and he walks in like he’s about to take a meeting at the Pentagon when he grabs a seat opposite my desk. Jimmy is in his sixties but still dons an unimpeachable crew cut from his military days. His eyes are sharp, and his body is strong, and even though I’d never tell him, so he reminds me of Jean Claude Van Damme. I have no doubt the ladies thought so too, back in his day.

“We have a problem,” he begins.

I push my phone aside and give him my full attention. Jimmy isn’t one to trifle with words. I already know what’s coming, and I deserve it.

“You see that out there?” he gestures to the world beyond the window. “It’s a glorious day. The birds are chirping, the grass is green, and I just ate a piece of pie from Lou Malnati’s that could make a grown man cry.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” It’s past six, and I haven’t been outside since three o clock this morning when I arrived.

Jimmy leans forward and plants his elbows on my desk. “The problem with this scenario, Adrian, is that you seem to think the sun shines out of your ass.”

“Good one,” I respond. “I can use that for my next ad copy.”

“Come and take a walk with me.”

I hesitate for only a minute before agreeing. It’s been too long since we’ve talked, and I could use some fresh air.

Ten minutes later, we’re huffing it through Grant Park. While the locals and tourists alike flock towards Buckingham Fountain, Jimmy opts for a quiet park bench in the shade where we can talk and people watch.

I decide it’s best to start with the obligatory questions. “How is Graziela?”

“She’s pissed off is what she is,” Jimmy answers. “She asks about you, and I have nothing to tell her because you go AWOL on me whenever the hell you feel like it. Have you ever gone to bed with a pissed off Brazilian?”

In spite of my shitty mood, my lips quirk. “Can’t say that I have.”

Jimmy shakes his head. “Next week, you’re coming to dinner. You can explain to her yourself why you’ve been selfish enough to disrespect her and make her worry.”

“Next week,” I agree.

“And you better bring some chocolates and wine. The good shit. You want her to be in a forgiving mood or else you might end up with so much heat in your dinner you’ll be glued to the toilet for the next week.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

Jimmy likes to joke about his wife, but deep down, he knows he’s the luckiest bastard on the planet. She’s drop dead gorgeous and doesn’t take shit from anyone, including him. When nothing else could, she kept him on the straight and narrow, and at the end of the day, Jimmy wouldn’t hesitate to lay down his life for her. They’ve both been good to me. Almost like parents, you could say. And they don’t deserve the silent treatment I’ve been giving them.

“Where have you been?” Jimmy asks.

“I’ve been working.” It isn’t the full truth, and I feel like a piece of shit for my lame excuses. I’ve always been honest with Jimmy. The first thing he told me when he became my sponsor was that he wouldn’t tolerate any bullshit lies from me.

My real father was never a figure in my life, but Jimmy felt like one from that day forward. He wasn’t joking. The first time I lied to him was also the last. His wife gave me some sort of potion that had me puking my guts out for days. The lesson was hard but well learned.

“Avoidance usually only means one thing,” Jimmy says.

“I’m not avoiding you.”

“Then what the hell are you doing, son?”

I peer over at him. This man has given me so much of his time over the last year. He’s received nothing in return for the amount of work he’s invested into my sorry ass. His face is stern but proud, and full of nothing but love for me. I can’t lie to him. I can’t even omit the little things.

“It’s Lola.”

He doesn’t answer me right away. Sometimes his answers don’t come for days or even weeks. His words aren’t scripted or printed in the page of a how-to manual. They are as authentic and blunt as it gets. For every problem, there’s a solution, Jimmy likes to say. And he means it. Because even when I gave up on AA, Jimmy never gave up on me.

He always made everything as simplistic as possible. His moral code was straightforward, and he taught me that mine could be too. He’s danced with the same demons and experienced real-life horrors, and I know that Jimmy will never lead me astray with his advice. I could admittedly use some of it right now.

He squints up at the sky and watches a cloud roll. “I always knew you’d come full circle with that girl.”

“It was a matter of time,” I admit.

“You care about her, but you hate her too.”

I can’t deny it. And I hate that he can see that in me. Those feelings are still there, even after everything. I’ve concluded that they can’t be purged, with fire or alcohol or even fucking my anger out on Lola.

“It doesn’t go away,” I answer. “From one minute to the next, I can’t decide whether to banish her from my life entirely or chain her to the bed so I can keep her.”

“Life is funny that way,” Jimmy muses. “I hated Grazi too the first time I ever met her.”

“You did?” This little tidbit throws me for a loop because you’d never know it by looking at them now.

“That woman was so goddamned stubborn and pig-headed I couldn’t stand to be near her. But I’ll tell you one thing though, she was a firecracker in the sack.”

“Again, I’ll take your word for it.”

“It took me a while to figure it out.” Jimmy grins, lost in the memory. “How I could hate every fucking thing that came out of her mouth and still want her so bad. It was like she put some kind of voodoo spell on me and I couldn’t stay away.”

“Well, you obviously figured it out eventually.”

“I did.” He glances at me. “Once I started taking a good, long hard look in the mirror.”

I’m curious, but I know I won’t like what he has to say. “How so?”

“Sometimes the things we hate so much in others are a reflection of the way we feel about ourselves, son. I don’t know much to be concrete in this world, but that’s a hard lesson we all have to learn.”

I fidget with the phone in my pocket while I mull over his words.

“Lola represents the one thing you’ve never been able to let go of,” Jimmy says. “You blame yourself for Ryan’s death.”

“I’ve never denied that.”

“No, you haven’t, but you blame her too. Now riddle me this. Is it her fault, or is it yours? Because logic would say that it can’t be both.”

“Funny you said before it was neither,” I remark dryly.

“Well, I can say it until I’m blue in the face, but it doesn’t make it so until you accept it. And only time can change that. Not me or God or anyone else. Time is your master. Time and the wisdom that comes with each passing day.”

Sarcasm is my go-to method for uncomfortable truths, and I deploy it now. “I don’t know that I ever get any wiser.”

“That’s just a cop-out. You said it yourself, Adrian. You don’t tolerate weakness in others, so don’t tolerate it in yourself. You can either face things head on and deal with it now, or you can live a life filled with regret.”

I shift my gaze to a passing jogger in tight black spandex and try my best to inspire an erection, but she isn’t Lola, and I think the truth is she’s fucked me up for real this time. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s easy to tell you to do the hard thing.” Jimmy laughs heartily. “Always is. Now I don’t know everything about this girl, but from what you told me she has some issues herself. She’s exactly the kind of girl that probably doesn’t need to be getting tangled up with a man like you unless you are prepared to be the man she needs.”

“It’s only a temporary situation,” I reassure him.

“That sounds like more bullshit to me.”

Any argument would be a waste of breath. Most of what I say is bullshit, but if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that what Lola and I have is temporary.

“Go back to your roots,” Jimmy suggests. “See how far you’ve come. Go and face down all of your demons if you have to, and remember the person you wanted to be back when you were just another nobody in the trailer park.”

That sounds about as appealing as getting my bum leg chopped off, but I don’t admit it. If I did, Jimmy would just tell me that’s exactly why I need to do it.

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that,” he says. “And do it fast, son. The world keeps on spinning regardless of what year you’re stuck in.”