Page 26 of Darkness and Duress

“Not gay.”

“For fuck’s sake, I got the memo the first thirty-five times you said it. I don't give a rat’s ass what color of the fucking rainbow you are.”

“Mmkay. S’blue.”

“What?” I pocketed my phone with a scowl and shifted my body to grab him by the shoulders.

“Blue’s m’favorite… color.”

I stopped for a microsecond before continuing my backwards walk to the nearest free table. “Right. Cool story, baby. You gonna sit like a good boy or do I gotta break out the belt and strap you down?”

“Tha’s kinky,” he giggled. Hand to God, Marco giggled like a fucking kid. I grunted with the exertion needed to get him into the narrow, hard plastic booth seat before giving his head a little bump with mine.

“You're full of surprises. Literally don't move, Marc, or I swear to God, I'll push you into traffic.”

“Mmkay. S’do it.” He shifted to climb out of the seat with another chuckle. “Boop, all gone.”

“No. Nope. Forget I said that.” An uncomfortable queasiness settled in my stomach as he tried to muscle himself out of the chair at the promise of being pushed into traffic. I cursed myself in my head before gathering his cheeks in my hands. “Baby, look at me.”

His blood-shot sea green eyes jerked all over as he tried to focus on my face. Close enough, considering what I was working with.

“Big Mac. I'll even share my Pepsi.”

“Mm. Mmkay.” He nuzzled his cheek into my palm and shut his eyes with a sigh. “S’nice.”

A frisson of something warm and molten and forbidden crawled over my skin as I reluctantly let go and took a step back. There was still a chance he could bolt for the door, but at least now, he wouldn't get far. With the amount of alcohol still left to metabolize, I wondered if he would even last as long as it took me to get to the counter and back.

I kept him in the periphery of my vision as I waited for our food, tapping my foot with every second that passed too slowly. My nerves were dancing on a razor’s edge the whole time, and once the kid called out my number, I grabbed the shit anddarted. As I suspected, Marco was more melted than mobile, but his eyelids fluttered open as soon as I slid into the seat across from him.

“Hungry, Sad Panda?” I dug around in the bag, pulling out cartons and boxes and napkins galore. I'd probably gone a bit overboard, but he needed to fucking eat.

“Mn.” He reached for a fry, missed, tried again, and then slumped in frustration.

“Right. Jesus, Marc. The fuck am I gonna do with you?” I grabbed the fry and held it up, stifling a chuckle as he chased it with an open mouth like a baby bird.

“Ionno.”

It took me a hot second to decipher “I don't know” from the jumbled syllables he slurred. Sighing to myself, I opened the box for the Big Mac, straightened out the buns, and then carefully situated his hands around the mess.

“Eat.”

“Mmkay.”

And boy, oh boy, did he eat. If he weren't drunk off his ass, I would have assumed the sounds he was making were intentional, but I knew he wasn't trying to sound like a B-rate porn star. He was just completely consumed with his food and clearly enjoying it. He didn't scarf it down, he fuckingshoveledit. There were grunts and groans. Moaning and humming. The Big Mac disappeared in four massive bites before I slid the ten piece nuggets under his face. Those were gone just as fast. By the time he was done with that, his body was hunched over the table and his head was held up by one palm as he mechanically shoved fries into his mouth, audibly sharing his enjoyment with each and every damn bite.

“Baby, water.” I uncapped the water bottle and pushed it into his line of sight. “Slowly… if you drink as fast as you eat, you'll drown.”

He scowled at me with bleary, unfocused eyes and grunted before swiping the bottle up. He was still drunk as a skunk, but the glimmer of the Marc I knew best of all was starting to shine through the fog of his liquor. With any luck, we had gotten ahead of the worst of it. I watched as he leaned back slowly with the motion of draining the bottle, his throat bobbing with each long swallow. He had absolutely no right being this fucking sexy while he was such a God damn hot mess.

“Will you be a good boy and stay in the fucking car this time?” I collected our trash and eased out of the seat. “I'd like to get you home before midnight. And hopefully before you yack all this shit back up.”

“M'not gonna ya-rf.”

Yack. Barf. Yarf. I found that far more entertaining than I should have. He didn't appreciate my laughter one bit.

“Come on, big guy. Time to go home.”

“Mn. Mmkay.”

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