"So you starting to get itchy to get on the road again?" asked Jerry, handing AJ a styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. "Isn't that how you described it to me? Itchy?"
"Yeah, itchy," he agreed, giving Jerry a grin and wiping his hands off on his coverall before taking the coffee. "I dunno though. I'm kinda liking the break." He took a step away from the car and patted the grill. "I'm done here, by the way."
Jerry inspected his work and tightened one cap -- that AJ knew didn't need tightening because he'd just checked it himself a few moments ago -- then grunted his approval. "I left her in good hands," he said. "Of course, I already knew that."
"It was an easy one," said AJ, and it wasn't even modesty, it just had been. "Just needed some cleaning up, mostly."
"A couple of months ago, you wouldn't have called it easy," said Jerry, swatting at AJ's hand away so he could close the hood. "A couple of months ago, you would've been worried about your manicure." AJ picked at an old scab from a cut on his thumb and silently agreed with him. "You've come a lot way since then. Course, we still have to see if she'll run."
"Oh, she'll run," said AJ confidently.
Jerry grunted again and nodded and didn't try it. "So you want to tell me what you're doing here at seven in the morning, and have obviously already been here for a couple hours?"
"Not drinking," said AJ, his grin falling.
"Ah," said Jerry, like the answer had been no surprise to him. It probably hadn't; it was why he'd asked in the first place. "Bad night?"
"Yeah, I guess," he said, taking a tiny sip of the still-steaming coffee. "Went and saw Nick this weekend."
"Oh yeah? How's the kid doing? I bet it felt good to be able to see him for yourself, instead of just hearing reports from your friends."
"Yeah, it really was," AJ had to admit. "He's a tough kid, he's hanging in there."
"So why the tough night then? Just memories?"
"Man, I don't even know where to start," he said, blowing on his coffee this time before sipping it. He made himself comfortable leaning against the front bumper of the truck, feeling the words just about ready to spill out. "Guess I got hit with a bunch of stuff at once. Being back there, and then Nick, too, plus there were things with Justin and with Sarah. I couldn't sleep, decided it would be better to come out here than use any of my old tried and true methods of putting myself out."
"Good call," said Jerry, perching himself against the truck right next to AJ. "So. You wanna try tackling that stuff one at a time, then?"
AJ hesitated only a second before nodding. Jerry wasn't just there to give him something to do with his hands, after all, and he wasn't just any friend. "The thing with Justin, it's nothing, really. He just shook me up a little."
Jerry frowned and AJ knew he was gonna have to clarify that. "He didn't do anything to hurt you, did he?"
"No, no," said AJ quickly, even smiling. "Nothing like that. He just surprised me with something. He's actually ... I really misjudged him, before we met. He's a good guy. A good friend."
"Well, there's nothing wrong with that," said Jerry after a moment, smiling back. AJ didn't realize how much he'd been hoping for that smile until he got it. "As long as you know I'm still keeping my eye on him."
"You wouldn't be you if you weren't."
"Damn straight. So you're good with that, then? Nothing else getting to you on the Justin front?"
"Nah. You know, I don't even know why I brought it up. He caught me off guard with something, but it was a good thing. Or at least, not a bad thing. Justin's a good part of my life right now."
"Okay then." He didn't look or sound like he quite believed the diversion, but he didn't ask again. Jerry knew him well enough to know he would talk when encouraged, but not when pushed. Most of the time. "So what next? Nick or Sarah?"
AJ swallowed his sip of coffee while he considered. "Nick," he said finally. "That's the big thing, I guess. And Sarah ties into all that anyway."
When he didn't go on right away, Jerry gave him a careful elbow in the side. "So what's the story there, then?"
"It's just ... you had to see him, Jer. All small and quiet and ... I know this is such a good thing for him and is probably saving his life, but it's hard to find Nick in there. In that guy that I saw."
"Harder than it has been this last while, since he started drinking too much?"
AJ actually had to think about that, think back to the Nick he knew once -- back before he had started on that path, let alone when Nick had. It was longer ago than he really wanted to admit. But he did recognize it was a very different Nick from the one he'd known lately. He just didn't know how much of that was the addiction and how much of that was just Nick growing up.
"Well, no," he had to answer finally, but he couldn't really elaborate on that. Jerry seemed to be anticipating his answer, though.
"You're not the same person you once were either," he said. "I'm not the same person I once was. So it makes sense that Nick might not be quite the same person anymore. Oh yeah, he'll find some of it again -- you just gotta give him more time for that, AJ -- but there's gonna be other stuff, too."
"So you're saying I gotta get to know him again," said AJ. "Well, that's not too much of a surprise." It was what the other guys had had to do with him, after all. What they were *still* doing.
"Just try not to forget it. You'll stress a lot less that way."
"It was just hard, to see it," he mumbled, sipping the coffee again. It wasn't much of a substitute for what he once would have been drinking when he was stressed, but it was what he had.
"It's always hard to see it. Even when it's not someone you're that close to. And especially when you're so new to recovery yourself."
"He is doing good, though. Real good. I just hope we can extend this break long enough for him to get the time he needs. However much that is."
"Unlike you?"
AJ sighed. "Yeah, well, we had commitments. I knew that. And, you know, the itch -- I wanted to perform again. But it was hard. I don't want Nick to go through that."
"At least you'll be there for him. He'll always have you."
"Huh," said AJ, draining his cup and crumpling it in his fist. "You sound like Sarah."
"Well, that Sarah's a smart girl," he said with a grin. "She'd have to be, to sound like me."
It was AJ's turn to elbow Jerry back. "Didn't you used to bug me about having an ego?" Jerry just laughed. "But seriously, you think she's right? That I'm the only person Nick's gonna have to talk to?"
"Well, not the only person," he amended right away. "I never said just you. He has other friends, too. You would've been pretty screwed if the only people you were allowed to turn to were former alcoholics. Nick's lucky to have you, but you're not all he's got, I'm sure."
"Right, I'm not," said AJ, nodding. "I mean, that's the thing with Sarah. She's precious and I know she's trying to do the right thing, but it's like everything has to be done by the book."
"There's a lot to be said for having some structure in your life."
"Well yeah, sure, but it's more than that. She didn't even think I should be friends with Justin."
"I didn't think you should be friends with Justin."
"But that was different," AJ insisted. "You didn't think I should be friends with Justin because you met him and thought he was a cocky little shit." And Jerry had seen AJ was unsure about it, had responded to that. "She didn't want me to be friends with Justin because he was in the industry. That's the only reason."
"I'm sure she was only looking out for you," said Jerry, but AJ didn't miss that he was frowning a little.
"Oh, I know she was," said AJ. "And I love her for it. I just ... wish she'd stop telling me how to recover. And now Nick, too, she's trying to decide for him what he should do, who he should talk to, what he should have access to. I love having her help, but ... "
He let the sentence trail off, and Jerry seemed to think about it for a while. "I can see both sides," he said finally. "She's done her homework. She knows the clinically best ways to do this, she knows all the steps. She can probably recite buzzwords with the best of them. And that's not a bad thing."
"But?" prompted AJ, hoping some support of him was coming, too.
"But she's missing the most important part, I think. That all that is just a framework to build on. That's your base, that's your support and your strength. That's where you need to start. But that's not the end -- you build your life back up on top of that."
Just hearing Jerry put it like that helped AJ start to reconcile what he had been doing with what Sarah was insisting he should be doing. Even if he couldn't find the words to justify it to her yet.
"Nick probably needs you guys to help him build that framework for a while. But he's also gonna need to be making his own choices, or he's not getting anywhere. She's gonna need to give him that."
"She can do that," said AJ, trying to sound sure even though he wasn't, not of that.
"Course she can," said Jerry. "She's a great girl. You're lucky to have found her."
"I know."
Jerry ruffled AJ's hair like he was thirty years older than AJ, not less than ten. "You doing better now?"
He was, he could feel it in his gut, and in his head and in the smile that insisted on spreading across his face. "Yeah."
"Good," said Jerry. "So come on. Let's go get some breakfast."