Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Josh Lanyon Read Free Book Online Page B

he remembered the angry contempt on Max’s face, heard that whiplash get the fuck out of my office, it was all he could do to keep down the boiling acid of his dinner.
    Crackbrain. That pretty much summed it up. How had he not realized ahead of time what a disastrous decision he was making by not telling Max what he’d done? Apparently it was only too true about the permanent brain damage cocaine caused.
    He let his head fall back on the arm of the sofa and stared up into the soaring cathedral ceiling past the grid work of blackened beams into the ink shadows. He couldn’t let himself think about Max. The rest of it was already more than he could deal with. If he was arrested…if he lost his job…?
    Either one of those was liable to prove too much for his fragile equilibrium. He knew better than anyone how weak he was, how…untrustworthy. His relationship—friendship—with Max was one of the things that gave him the most happiness, most comfort. No, he couldn’t even consider that loss right now. Not on top of the rest of it.
    Swift jumped up, scattering the neat stacks of papers. He circled the large room, too nervous to stay still any longer. He needed…something.
    Maybe a walk.
    The rain had stopped. The cool air would feel good after an hour of sitting so close to the fire. He could stretch his legs, fill his lungs, clear his head.
    He started toward the coat hook by the door but stopped.
    No . No, leaving the house now was not a good idea.
    Swift mentally ran through The List. The list of ways he’d found of coping when the craving started. The first version of the list had been supplied by his therapist. Since then he’d had six years to come up with his own personal tried-and-true methods of distracting himself from that twisting, gnawing hunger. In the beginning he’d resorted to elaborate diversions: hyperbaric oxygen treatments, infrared sauna, acupuncture and massage therapy. Now days a long walk was one of the best things, but at night…no. The night offered the wrong kind of possibilities. Sex was a good distraction and comfort, but the only person he wanted to have sex with was Max. And jacking off on his own was a poor substitute for that.
    He could usually find some relief in small, homely things like a cup of hot tea and calming music, a hot bath and aromatherapy candles, looking through art books, meditation and visualization techniques. Martha Stewart Living magazines. He had a whole collection of them. There was something very comforting about Martha’s ruthless discipline and focus—something almost Zen. And there was always yoga. Yoga and meditation.
    He couldn’t stand the thought.
    It was disheartening to realize that he’d come to take his focused well-being so much for granted that he felt unprepared to deal with the sudden resuming of the symptoms of addiction.
    Not that Swift had been silly enough to think he was cured, but after six years he’d reached a point where dealing with his habit was no longer the mainstay of his day. What had triggered the craving? The phone call from Bernard? The fight with Max? All of it? None of it?
    Whatever the reason, he now needed a distraction. Nothing that was going to trigger anxieties or put him in temptation’s path. He went into the kitchen and fixed a cup of chamomile tea, carried it back to the cluttered comfort of his office and sat down to sort through the papers and books and brochures he tended to stockpile.
    He didn’t let Mrs. Ord in this room to tidy up, or he’d never manage to find anything at all—not that he spent a lot of time in here. Mostly he worked in his office on campus or at one of the local coffeehouses. When Swift did work at home, he tended to sprawl on the sofa in front of the fire or, in better weather, on a lounge chair in the garden.
    Looking around at the stacked books and piles of paper, he tried to decide what needed doing first. His gaze fell on the bookshelf and a familiar spine. He rose and pulled the