Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
XAVI
Enfield loves frotting. He’s hungry for it all the time. I’m not sure he knows if he likes my hand around our cocks or his hand trapping them more as we rut madly against each other. He doesn’t seem to have a preference.
Likewise, he also enjoys being on top of me as much as being beneath me. He’s equally frenzied in either position.
Part of me really wants to see how he likes other things. I want to show him new stuff, but I’m not sure if I’m willing to truly push it. The reality is, tomorrow, our attorneys return, and we begin the execution of whatever process they’ve come up with.
That means our days together are numbered. Tomorrow, I’ll find out exactly what that number is.
I think we need to stop all the sexy time. We need to stop kissing and cuddling and… hanging out too, probably. I think I really like him. That’s dangerous. He’s made it clear in very direct terms that this is a means to an end.
This entire contract is a means to an end. That end is finally in sight. The end he’s been fighting for since he was a teenager.
I’m not part of that end. It seems the outcome is going to leave me hurt. I can’t let myself get more attached to him. Tomorrow is the true beginning of the end.
I left Enfield in his bedroom right before he got on a call with Sarah to have a video date with his likely sleeping daughter. I meet Sparrow in the backyard by the door in the wall separating the neighborhood from the expansive field behind it. He’s waiting there with a four-wheeler.
Sparrow grins, and I climb on, wrapping myself around him.
He doesn’t turn us toward his family’s neighborhood.
Instead, he revs the engine and takes off to the north across the field.
I don’t know how much acreage is back here, but it feels like it goes on forever before we actually hit the treeline. Then he takes a right and heads east.
The sun shines down, kissing my skin. I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth of it on my face, the wind in my hair making it dance wildly. Sparrow drives until the trees curve again, and we follow them around.
Before getting too close to the highway that the trees abut, he takes a sharp right, and we speed straight through the middle of the field toward his neighborhood.
He hasn’t been back to my house since his siblings’ birthday four days ago. He’s called me every day, and while he pretends there’s a reason, I know he’s actually checking in with me. Making sure I’m okay and Enfield hasn’t turned into an asshole again.
I haven’t talked to Sparrow about Enfield and me, and what we’re doing. Saying it out loud might make it feel too much. Too big. Too real. Too doomed because it’s about to end.
The whine of the engine quiets as we slow. He pulls into the back of the house under construction, only… it looks finished.
“Wow,” I say as he kills the engine. “I guess I haven’t been here in a while.”
“Nope,” he answers as I climb off. He follows and then leads me to the back door. The yard is still mud, but there are wheelbarrows and a heap of plants, a mountain of sod, and maybe a dozen different stones piled all over the place. Also, a backhoe.
“Still working on landscaping,” I note.
“Actually, I can’t decide if I want a pool. Uncle Oscar has an enormous pool, so do I really need one? But what if I want some privacy?”
“Are you finally admitting this is your house?”
Sparrow meets my eyes with a smirk. “Yeah, Xavi. It’s mine.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
He shakes his head as he looks around. “I don’t know. I guess I feel a little… bragging. I’m twenty-three and building a house. Not a tiny house but a big one.”
“Not as big as the Arila mansion,” I note and look at it over the tops of the few houses separating Sparrow’s new house from the giant one.
He snorts. “I don’t have that much money.”
“You were afraid to brag to the rich boy living in a hundred-year-old McMansion that they’re inheriting simply by getting married and surrounded by a tall wall to keep all the little people out that you were building your own house?” I clarify.
Sparrow laughs. “My logic is flawed,” he agrees.
“I sold a third patent two days ago and… I kind of feel out of water. I’m not saying that I haven’t lived a comfortable life, because I have, but…
it’s weird having so much money. I feel like if I spend it, I’m wasting it.
But letting it sit in my bank and whatever feels… uncomfortable.”
“You are investing and shit, right?”
He hums, nodding absently as he stares at the mud that is the backyard. After a minute, he shakes his head and turns for the back door. I’m not surprised to find it’s unlocked.
The house is stunning. Tall ceilings, stone features, and modern fixtures, but filled with old charms in the curved lines and elegant crown molding.
“Beautiful,” I say.
“It is,” he says. “It’s been finished for a couple weeks. I have the C.O. and everything, but I’m still sleeping in my childhood bedroom.”
“You don’t feel like an adult yet.”
“I think it’s because I’ve been an adult since I was a kid.
Moving through the educational system as rapidly as I did means that I far surpassed those my age, and in a way, the people I had classes with.
Forced to kind of grow up to fit in. It’s a lot of contradiction that I don’t really want to lay at your feet. ”
“We can talk about it if you’d like. You always listen to me when I’m stressed or upset.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not really sure what I’m saying or what I want to say, though. I’m a fish out of water, no matter what I’m doing, and not sure what to do to find comfort in my life.”
“Is that why you’re going back to school?”
He wanders to the kitchen, runs his hand along the stunning island, and smiles.
“I’m bored. That’s why I’m going back. I’m taking art because it’s nothing I’ve ever done before, and I think it’ll be a challenge using the side of my brain that I never use.
I also think maybe it’s an excuse not to move into my house because I’m not ready for that much independence. ”
“So you’re going to live in a dorm then.”
“That depends.” He meets my eye. “On you.”
I chew the inside of my lip. “I don’t want to be the reason you’re scrounging for housing until I make up my mind.”
“I know. I’m likely not going to be living in the dorms on campus, but in off-campus student housing. I already have a bid in for whatever opens up. We’ll make it work regardless of what I get.”
“You don’t have housing in line yet?”
Sparrow shrugs. “I can stay with Lathan if I need to. He has two bedrooms.”
Lathan is his cousin with no relation. He’s the child of his parents’ best friend. So they grew up as siblings but call each other cousins.
“I forgot he attends Longwood U,” I note.
“He’s on a long track,” Sparrow says, grinning. “This is his second freshman year. Last year, he moved out of the dorm and into a small apartment above a local bar. He didn’t like dorm life.”
“Why?”
Sparrow shrugs. “No idea. I didn’t ask. But when I mentioned something about housing, he offered the spare room if I need it, so I won’t be homeless, at least.”
“I hate the idea of you being down there,” I say. “That’s selfish, I know. I’m happy that you’re following your… passion or whatever.”
He laughs. “Or whatever.”
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
“That’s why you should come with me. You could enroll in some courses. Maybe take some business classes to help with your business.”
“It’s a hobby at best, Sparrow. You know that.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“If I make it into a business, I’m going to stop doing it. I know myself. It’s fun as long as I don’t have to do it.”
Sparrow pulls out a stool and sits. He pushes another out with his foot, and I join him. “Want to talk about you and Enfield yet?”
“No.” I look around the kitchen. “This looks intimidating to fill.”
He snorts. “You have no idea. You should see my shopping cart online for just the basics like dishes and silverware and cooking shit.” He shakes his head.
“Insane. I buy cheap and replace it in a couple years, which means I’ll be spending the same as if I just spent for the more expensive shit that’ll last. So put the money up front or wait and spend it again. ”
“I kinda want to move with you,” I admit, changing the subject again. “I guess…” I don’t know what I guess. I don’t know what I want to say.
“You want to see what happens with Enfield,” he supplies.
“But I know what’s going to happen with Enfield, right?
The lawyers are here tomorrow to begin the execution of releasing the contracts.
That’s it. Like a week, right? Well, a little longer.
The annulment isn’t immediate—like a month or something,—tbut then what?
He leaves, and you leave, and I’m here alone. ”
Maybe with a broken heart.
“What do you want to happen?”
“What I’ve always wanted to happen,” I complain. “I want to be in love. I want a husband and a happily ever after.”
“Okay, now change that to what you want to happen with the situation you’re currently in, taking all the details of what’s happening right now into account.”
I think about what we’ve been doing for the past few weeks. In a way, we’re doing exactly what we should be doing in the days leading up to our wedding. We’re talking, getting to know each other. We’re fooling around, exploring each other. Spending time together.
“Actually, my answer doesn’t change.”
“You still want your happily ever after with Enfield.”
“This is going to sound insane, but… yeah. I like him more all the time. In a way, I think he’s exactly right for me.”
“Despite how he treated you in the beginning, you still feel this way? Knowing he has three kids and a nightmare of a mother?”
“You don’t like him, do you?”
“Xavi, you haven’t called me crying since you were ten and afraid that you were going to have to marry a girl because of what your brother was going through. You called me crying three times in less than a week because of him. No, I don’t like him.”
“You can’t blame him for being angry at the situation he was tricked into,” I point out.
“Not at all.” He reconsiders. “Actually, yes, I do a little. He didn’t read the fucking contract.
That was irresponsible on his part. This all could have been avoided if he’d read the first few fucking paragraphs.
But even if I negate all that, being an asshole to you was a choice. He made that choice.”
“He apologized.”
Sparrow stares at me. I’m not going to convince him to like Enfield.
“What if we get together for real? Are you always going to dislike him?”
“Maybe.”
“Sparrow!”
“I’m not as forgiving as you are. He’s lucky I didn’t castrate him.”
I sigh.
“However, I support you. No matter what you choose, I’ll always support you. Even if I disagree.”
“You don’t think we should really get together.”
“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. Have you two had a conversation along this line at all?”
Asshole. Calling me out like that. The smirk he gives me when I don’t answer says we both know I haven’t.
“I’m afraid of what he’ll say,” I admit. “I’m afraid he’s going to tell me that when this is over, it’s over.”
“Which makes me hate him even more.”
“He hasn’t actually said that!” I defend.
“The fact that you think there’s a possibility means that you have no confidence in his genuine interest in you.”
“But I’m a guy, and he’s not gay. Maybe…”
“Maybe he’s just experimenting, and it means far more to you than it does him.”
I bow my head. I opened myself up to that interpretation, and it’s not even wrong. “Yeah.”
“And you haven’t talked to him about how you’re feeling.”
“Yes. I just… I feel like the possibility of my happy ending has been ripped away from me twice now, and I don’t want to feel it for a third time.”
“You’re not arguing for me to like him.”
“Thank you for always wanting to protect me. Maybe I’m being na?ve, but… I really think that he could be the one, Sparrow. I don’t think he’s malicious. I don’t think he’d mess with my feelings.”
“I’m going to try not to throw up as I say this, since it sounds a lot like I’m defending him in my head, but what if he also thinks you’re just passing time and messing around because you’re both there?
In the same situation. With the same end goal in mind.
Have you thought about that? I agree with your assessment—that’s not malicious if he believes you’re in the same place he is. ”
I sigh. “I don’t want to talk about it because I am afraid of what that conversation will lead to, but… I guess I really need to.”
“Preferably before tomorrow when your attorneys return. It’s more work and more time for them to rearrange after you’ve agreed on what they present tomorrow.
Not that I think you care about the time, but I’m thinking about how they may have to come back to the parents’ attorneys with changes, giving ground for…
I’m not going to pretend I know legalese, but giving ground for not breaking the contract as it is. ”
I shake my head. “They’ve already broken it. Nothing takes that away.”
“Xavi, stop being intentionally obtuse.”
“Yeah, I know what you’re saying.”
He leans forward, taking my face in his hands. “Think about this. Let’s say that you talk to Enfield and you’re both on the same page. Let’s say that he, too, wants to see what happens between you two. That means that you can rewrite the contract you share and only include things you both want.”
Chills of anticipation and possibility make gooseflesh rise on my arms. I inhale deeply. Hope is a dangerous thing. I know that. Even as it fills my chest and heart and mind.
“Can you imagine?” Sparrow asks. “Can you see it?”
I nod.
“You know what this means, right?”
I inhale deeply again and nod. “Yeah. I need to find the courage to talk to him.”