On The Rocks (Royce)

43

Jacob's P.O.V.

"How did it go?" Chresanto asked curiously once the both of us were sitting down at the kitchen table, a plate of food in front of us. I'd just walked in the house and now I was sitting at a table, about to have a conversation that I was both dreading and anticipating. "You know, at Blaze".

"It was good, it went a lot better than I thought it would" I nodded a little, picking up a piece of bourbon chicken with my fork. "Mr. Anderson didn't force me to do anything I didn't want to do".

"I don't understand what you mean".

"I heard he's made some escorts who want to part away from the club do... Sexual endeavors as if to like, give thanks to him for letting them work there" Chresanto frowned, easily giving away that he wasn't happy, "but all he did was talk to me, he didn't yell or touch me, he just talked".

"You know I wouldn't have let you go alone if I knew that's what Sean does".

"That's why I didn't tell you".

He didn't say anything as he ate some of his mashed potatoes, he looked at me for a really long time, to the point where I began to worry that there was something on my face. I was seconds away from asking him, but he spoke up.

"I've really missed you" he admitted, "and I'm really sorry that I pushed you away because of my drinking problem".

"That's not entirely all of your fault, I know that it's hard to overcome an addiction. I shouldn't have expected you to easily put down the drinks and I shouldn't have waited so long to tell you how unhappy I was".

"I'm glad you did though, I never meant to hurt you".

I smiled a little, "I know".

He cleared his throat and looked around the empty kitchen, Hadley and Quentin were upstairs, the two were nice enough to give us privacy. Quentin most likely didn't want to be around me anyway, so it was no problem for him to leave Chresanto and I alone. Hadley offered a smile and carried Luna up the stairs with her.

"So there are obviously a few things we need to discuss".

"Yeah, how long are your children going to be here?"

"A month".

"Okay, that's not a really long time, hopefully Quentin will maybe hate me a little less by the end of it".

"He doesn't hate you, Jacob, I promise, he doesn't. He just... Doesn't understand, you know? He'll come around, and if he doesn't then I'll talk to him. You have a right to be here, this is your home".

"Thanks, I really appreciate that. Let's talk about your alcoholism, I think that's really one of the main things we need to address".

"Yeah, so I'm five days clean and so far I don't feel any different, I'm not overly irritated but sometimes I can't sleep because I'd usually get drunk at night, so I'm usually up tossing and turning. Since I don't get a lot of sleep some nights, I'm tired a lot more often. Um..." He thought for a moment, "my heads shake a lot too, and I get headaches too, but I'm sure all these things will subside the longer I stay sober. The first twenty four hours was rough, but it's supposedly gets easier after".

"Are you planning to talk to a therapist? Or is this something you want to see if you can do on your own first?"

"I'd like to see if I'm able to quit on my own".

"And if you can't?"

"Then I'll get help".

I wasn't one hundred percent sure that Chresanto could do this on his own, breaking an addiction was hard, but I wasn't going to force him to get help quite yet. Forced rehabilitation had a very high failure rate, I guess if Chresanto wanted to see a therapist, he would have to be on board with it too.