My face falls. “It did. Believe me.”
“How do you cope now then?” he asks.
“I don’t,” I reply. “I push it down and…try to forget.”
It’s oddly vulnerable and feels uncomfortable to say out loud. Yet, the way Carmine’s eyes start to glitter with tears, makes me glad I said it.
He looks so pretty when he’s about to cry.
I wonder what his tears would taste like on my tongue…
“You can’t,” he tells me.
“Nope,” I tell him. “that’s why you’re chasing it with every bottle you can.”
He swallows hard and his jaw shifts. “I don’t fucking know how to stop, Soren. It’s…it’s like a haze. Every single day. I think about stopping, I wake up and I say no more. One day. I can go one day. But then, I can’t get out of bed without it.”
“So don’t,” I reply slowly.
“What?” he mumbles.
“Don’t go without it; just don’t go overboard like you have been. Going cold turkey ain’t gonna work for you. Fine.” I pick up a few more fries to eat.
“I don’t know,” he says with an exhale and looks at my fries again. “I don’t know if I can.”
“So, text me. Call me.”
“I—what?” Carmine looks at me with furrowed brow. “Call you?”
I swallow the fries and tilt my head down a little, lowering my voice.
“When you think you’re going to go overboard, come to me. I’ll stop you,” I insist.
“How?” he asks, his face shifting curiously. “By telling me not to?”
I smirk. Heat trickles into my stomach and groin as I imagine him doing everything I tell him to. Imagine him sayingYes Sir,Please Sir. This is as close as I’m going to get, I’m certain. Maybe it’s wrong to use the situation like this.
I don’t care.
“Yes,” I say simply. “You’ll do as you’re told, and things will work out. If you don’t, you’ll be punished.”
Carmine’s face turns pink and his breath quickens. I can see his chest and shoulders rise and fall. He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out.
“Does that work for you?” I ask.
He licks his lips again, takes a breath and then chuckles. Seeming to relax.
“Whatever you say,” he says in a teasing tone.
I grab a fry and hold it out to him. “Eat.”
He looks at it. “I don’t?—”
“Take it.”
Carmine hesitates, but finally takes the fry and eats it. I watch his mouth move as he chews, and his throat as he swallows. He already looks less terrible.
“Good?” I ask.
