“You know we’re eventually going to have to go to the precinct or wherever and actually give our statements,” Mary said as we picked over the remains of the brunch she’d put together.
“They said today; they didn’t say what time today.”
Mary rolled her eyes, shaking her head at me. “It’s true! And it’s not like they’ve called us to ask us to come in immediately.”
I’d had a few missed calls from some of the members of my band—one from Jules, one from Mark, and two from Dan; but I hadn’t even made the first attempt to call them back.
“So now you’re free,” Mary said. I heard something in her voice I didn’t like, though; I couldn’t say exactly what it was.
“Free?”
Mary looked down at her plate and started moving crumbs around into little constellations. She’d put a playlist on in the kitchen while she was cooking, and Franz Ferdinand came on; mournful melodic picking plucked at my ears, almost taking me out of the conversation, while Alex Kapranos’ voice crooned. How can I tell you I was wrong? How can I tell you I was wrong? When I am the proudest man ever born…
I shook the song out of my head. “What do you mean, free?”
“I mean, you don’t have to go to rehab,” Mary said, her voice going sharp. “You can go back to everything you left behind. You can party it up.”
I bit my bottom lip. I couldn’t, in all honesty, say the thought hadn’t occurred to me. While we’d been showering together, it had filled my mind that I could go out and find a new source; surely someone was already jockeying to fill the void that Big J’s arrest made in the local drug scene. Nick probably already knew who might have product. The Miami culture scene hated a vacuum more than nature ever could.
“I could,” I said slowly. “But I’d have to leave you behind if I did that.”
Mary looked up sharply. “Yes, the hell you would. I’m not dating an addict, Alex North. Not an active one.”
I took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I said, picking at the crust from my toast. “I’m not…I don’t think I want to…” I bit my bottom lip until I felt a sharp little jab of pain and then backed off. “I’m not saying that I’m going to be clean and sober forever.”
“Okay,” Mary said. I saw her open her mouth to say more and I raised a hand to silently ask her to hear me out.
“But for right now, it’s pretty easy to see that I wouldn’t have been on the hideout from J if it weren’t for the fact that I was flirting too much with that whole scene.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “I think…I think I want to see how this goes.” I looked down at my plate again. I could see a little bit of yellow residue from the runny yolk that I hadn’t managed to sop up with toast. “The only thing I’m really sure of right now is that I want you.”
“North, this…there’s a reason that they tell people not to get into relationships until they’ve been sober for a certain period of time…”
“Fuck that noise.” I looked up from my plate to meet Mary’s gaze. “I’m not like, going to do a program or some shit like that,” I said, waving the idea aside completely. “But I think that I should at least give this whole not using drugs thing a fair shot.”
Mary laughed. “So, what you’re saying is you’re not going to consciously be clean and sober, you’re just not going to use.”
“Not for the foreseeable future.”
Mary sighed. “I can’t…if you’re going to just go back to using again in a couple of weeks, or a month…or even six months…”
I licked my lips. “I’m not asking you to commit to me for the rest of your life,” I said quickly. “But you’re—fuck, Mary, you’re goddamn amazing, don’t you know that?”
“You’re not really in the best place to—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I said, my voice absolutely dead level. “I know what I want. I want to stop using for a while and see how it feels. I want to get to know you better. I want to see if what we’ve got going between us is just two broken people or if we can be fucking better than that. Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
Mary pressed her lips together and I could see the thoughts flicking through her dark eyes as she considered what I was saying. “Okay,” she said after a minute, exhaling slowly. “If I’m honest with myself, yes, I do want to see where we can go with this.” She looked up and met my gaze. “But Alex… I can’t be with you if you’re going to use. You get that, right? And I swear to god if you start using and then lie to me about it because you don’t want to lose me…”
“Want me to call Nick? He’ll tell you in a heartbeat if I backslide. He’d love to have an excuse to call you up and chat.” Mary frowned in confusion. “He still thinks you’re as hot as a fucking four-alarm fire.”
“Ugh,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “I will never in a million years understand how guys in a band can all have the hots for the same girl and not self-destruct over it.”
“Because we don’t let it interfere. I’ll call Nick right now and have him give you his word that he will call you the minute he ever finds me using, if I haven’t told you first.”
Mary took another deep breath and stared into my eyes, and I saw that knowing, penetrating look that I loved—but that also intimidated me, even after seeing her at her most vulnerable.
“We’ll come up with ground rules,” she said finally. “I’m not going to be responsible for your sobriety. Let’s make that clear right off the bat.”
“That’s fair.”
“We’ll get you in with another counselor. I can’t be your counselor if I’m seeing you romantically.”
“Whatever you want,” I said with a little grin.
Mary frowned sharply. “No. You are going to act like a fucking adult and you are going to name your own terms and we are going to have a mature goddamned relationship, or I’m out right now, even if you are the best lay I’ve ever had.”
I smirked. “I knew I’d get you to admit it.”