Chapter 6 Enzo #3
Enzo studied Seven’s face, but he gave away nothing. “Do you want me to stop?”
Seven stared at his hands. “No. Not unless you want to.”
“I wouldn’t, not even if I wanted to,” Enzo said.
“Why?”
Enzo frowned. “Why what?”
“Why do you want to? You don’t leave little gifts for all our other co-workers.”
“You’re not just a co-worker,” Enzo said. “You know that.”
“Then what am I?” Seven challenged.
Enzo thought about it before carefully asking, “What do you want to be?”
“Not some contractually obligated sugar baby,” Seven spat. “If that’s what you’re hoping for.”
That wasn’t what he was hoping for. Fuck. That was the problem. He just hated that Seven was mad at him, hated that he’d disappointed him, hated that he’d hurt his feelings.
Seven didn’t deserve any of that.
“What do you think would have happened between us if I hadn’t brought up the contract?” he murmured.
Seven shrugged, still unwilling to meet his gaze. “We probably would have hooked up again.”
Heat shot through him. “And then what?”
“And then what, what?” Seven asked, glancing at him and then looking away again, like he couldn’t meet his gaze for too long.
“I don’t know what. Both times I reached out to you, I was having a really bad week.
I was just looking for a distraction. A way to forget about shit for a while.
I didn’t realize you were doing some kind of charity work that first night. ”
“What?” Enzo asked, choking on the word. “What the fuck does that mean? Charity work?”
Enzo’s heart shattered into a million pieces when Seven shook his head softly and said, “I thought we had a good night.”
“We did. It was an amazing night,” Enzo said.
“Then why did you tell me I hadn’t earned the right to call you Daddy? Why did you tell me you needed to train me? Why did you act like I had to earn a spot in your bed?” Seven asked, the words thick, like he was forcing them out past the lump in his throat.
“Because,” Enzo started, then sighed, deflating. “Because I’m a fucking asshole.”
Seven’s head jerked up. “What?”
Enzo shook his head as he contemplated what he wanted to say without trying to make it sound like he was making excuses or blaming Seven somehow.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell him he was just playing out a scene, that he thought Seven was more experienced with BDSM than he was.
All of that was true, but it didn’t negate the fact that Enzo had tried to play with him without any conversation in place.
He’d started in the middle and then somehow expected Seven to follow along.
“I was playing out a—” He stopped short. Fuck, Vince was right. He was a coward. “Do you want the truth? The real truth?”
Seven looked at him like he was an idiot. “Duh.”
Enzo hesitated for a moment, scrubbing his hands over his face before he looked at Seven. “I was trying to have my cake and eat it, too.”
Seven glanced up and then away again. “Uh, explain?”
How the fuck was he supposed to explain this without stripping himself bare? Without admitting how fucking pathetic he was? “I wanted to see you again.”
“I wanted to see you, too? So, what was the problem?”
Enzo sighed. “I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about you since that night.
I still can’t stop thinking about you if I’m being honest. But I knew that if I let you come over again, I was going to have a hard time letting you go.
So, I was an asshole. I thought if I was…
crass enough and cold enough, maybe you’d agree, and I could still get to see you but on my terms. Where it was safe. ”
Seven was quiet for a few seconds before he asked, “Are you saying that you don’t think I need training? That I wasn’t too much of a brat? That you would have let me call you Daddy?”
Enzo huffed out a humorless laugh. “Baby, I’d probably let you take a sledgehammer to my nuts if you looked at me the way you did that night.”
Seven laughed softly. “I really thought we had a good night.”
“We had a great night,” Enzo assured him. Life-changing, even. “I’m just an…”
“Emotionally-stunted man baby?”
“Sure,” Enzo said. “That works.”
Seven exhaled through his nose. “Look at you, becoming self-aware.”
“I have my moments,” Enzo said. For a while, they both fell silent. He knew he was pressing his luck, but he couldn’t let it go. “I know it’s none of my business, but why have you been coming here so often?”
“The truth?” Seven asked.
“Duh,” Enzo countered.
Seven gave him a wry smile. “Because Vince said it would drive you crazy.”
He was going to kill his brother with his bare fucking hands. Of course, he was responsible for all of this. Meddling asshole.
Enzo leaned in, snagging one of Seven’s hands, grasping it loosely. “You get that you drive me crazy without any help from my family, right?”
Seven shrugged, looking at their joined hands. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re into me.”
Enzo chuckled. “Oh, yeah?”
“You’re really bad at hiding it.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” Enzo said, letting his words die off.
Seven’s fingers curled around his. “It doesn’t matter, though.”
Enzo’s stomach clenched. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?” Enzo asked, not following.
Seven was silent for a solid minute. “You met my mom, right?”
“Yeah, she’s great,” he said, unsure why the conversation had just taken such a sharp left turn.
“She is. Amazing, even. Smart. Funny. Successful. Gorgeous. The total package. She was a professional model when she met my dad. She was on the cover of magazines.”
Enzo nodded, hoping it encouraged him to continue. Seven’s mother had been all those things and more.
“My dad, on the other hand, is a complete loser. He’s been in and out of prison so many times he practically has a cell with his own name on it. He treats women like they’re disposable. He treats my mom like she’s an option. And—for some reason I can’t even fathom—she lets him.”
“She loves him?” Enzo asked.
“She does,” Seven agreed. “She loves him so much she gives him her money, her time, her life. You know what he gives her? Nothing. And she just accepts it. She lives her life like she’s single. But whenever he calls, she goes to him.”
“People are…complex.”
Seven shook his head. “I’m never going to do that. Ever. Not for anyone,” he vowed. “But especially not for you.”
Enzo’s eyes went wide. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
“You did,” Seven cried, face twisting like he was in pain.
“You did ask me to do that. You sat right across from me and told me that I could sleep with you again if I learned to be obedient. You told me the only way I could sleep with you again was if I asked for nothing more than money and orgasms.”
That was what he’d said. Knowing what he did about Seven’s father, the exchange between them now seemed a thousand times worse than it already was in his head. He’d cut him deeply. All to protect himself.
“It’s not—” Enzo started, then caught himself with a dull laugh. “I was about to say it’s not you, it’s me. It sounds so fucking trite, but it’s true. I didn’t write that contract because I thought you were somehow lacking, I wrote it up because I know I am.”
Seven frowned. “You know you’re what?”
“A shitty fucking boyfriend,” Enzo said.
“Meaning…?” Seven prompted, keeping their fingers tangled between them even though he was still so painfully guarded.
Enzo never talked about this with anyone. It was too fucking embarrassing. “The last relationship I was in…was a fucking disaster.”
“That’s hardly unique. Most relationships end…until you find the one that doesn’t. No?”
“You make it sound so easy,” Enzo said, his expression pained.
“Vince was right. She really did a number on you,” Seven murmured.
Enzo sucked in a sharp breath. “Vince told you about her?”
“Only that you had a relationship that ended badly and that it had fucked you up in the head. He said you use BDSM as a way to keep distance between you and whoever you sleep with. He also said that’s not how it’s meant to be used.”
“He’s one to talk…” Enzo muttered.
“So, what did she do to you?” Seven asked. “And don’t tell me you don’t want to talk about it. If you want me to understand, then just tell me.”
He hated talking about this. He felt like a fool. Pathetic. Oblivious. A million other adjectives. But Seven was right. If he was going to explain himself, he couldn’t do it without talking about her. He might as well rip off the Band-Aid.
“She slept with my best friend.”
Seven’s breath caught. “Damn.”
“Yeah. And I couldn’t even blame anyone but myself.”
“It’s your fault she was sleeping with your best friend?” Seven repeated.
Enzo nodded. “See my previous shitty boyfriend statement. I was the one constantly canceling plans. I was the one who missed every anniversary, every birthday. I was a fucking asshole. I was consumed with the idea of making partner before we got married. She got tired of being alone. He was always there.”
“That’s no excuse,” Seven said. “I don’t care how absent someone is, I would never do that.”
Enzo shrugged. “She said she kept waiting for me to notice she was cheating on me, but no matter how obvious she made it, I was still too self-absorbed to notice.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. So, I don’t do relationships anymore. Contracts just make things less…painful.”
Seven shook his head. “For who?”
“For anyone stupid enough to want to see me more than once,” Enzo answered, feeling like there was an anvil in his stomach.
“How long ago was this?” Seven asked.
Enzo shrugged. “Almost eleven years ago now.”
“And you don’t think you’ve changed at all since then?” Seven asked. “Not even a little?”
“I don’t know. But is it worth risking your heart?” Enzo asked. “Do you really want to be with someone who is at his mother’s beck and call? Who’s at their clients’ beck and call?”
Seven gave him an unimpressed look. “You get that I have my own life, right? I have friends. I have law school. I have my own…extra-curricular familial obligations. I have my internship. I’m an adult.
You could have just explained things, given me the option of opting out.
The irony is I wasn’t even looking to date you.
I just wanted to forget my life for a few hours. ”
Enzo really was an asshole. “I’m sorry. Turns out, I’m really good at self-sabotage.”
Seven patted his hand. “It’s never too late to turn it all around.”
“With you?” Enzo asked, hating how his heart clenched at the thought.
“No, not with me.”
His words were a kick to the chest, but it was no more than Enzo deserved. “Is there really no chance you’ll forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Seven said, giving him a sad smile. “I’m just not willing to settle for scraps.”
Enzo licked over his bottom lip. “And if I offered more than scraps?”
Seven studied him for a moment. “After you kissed me a few weeks ago, I kept having these stupid little daydreams about us as a couple. Living together, working together.” He paused to eye him meaningfully. “Playing together. Calling you Daddy. An actual relationship.”
Enzo tried to swallow past the invisible hand around his throat. “Oh?” he managed.
“Mm,” Seven said. “I’ve been coming here a lot, talking to doms. The more I learn, the more I think I’d like this type of relationship…the more I think about having this type of relationship with you.” A sad look came over his face. It made Enzo’s stomach dip. “But then reality sets in.”
“Reality being…?” Enzo heard himself ask.
“The one thing I hear over and over again is that submission requires trust.”
Enzo nodded. “Yeah.”
Seven caught and held his gaze for the first time all night. “And I can’t trust you.”
Enzo blinked rapidly, his face flushing as he tried to fight the wave of emotion threatening to overwhelm him. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Seven said, sounding desolate.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Enzo got up the nerve to ask, “Where does that leave us?”
“Friends?” Seven offered.
Enzo gave a stilted nod. “Sure. We can be friends.”
“Good,” Seven said, not sounding any happier about it than Enzo.
Enzo reluctantly released his hand. “Can I still leave presents on your desk?”
“Do you leave presents for your other friends?” Seven countered with a smile.
Something shriveled within him. “I don’t have any friends,” Enzo admitted. “Not anymore.”
Seven gave him a pitying look. “Sure. You can leave me all the presents you want. Just don’t think it means I’m going to jump back into your arms.”
“Of course not. I just…like seeing you smile.”
Seven shook his head. “For someone who sucks at relationships, you sure are a sweet talker when you want to be.”
Enzo struggled to come up with any kind of retort that didn’t involve falling to his knees and begging Seven to give him a chance to prove himself. But deep down, he wasn’t sure if he could prove himself. Enzo didn’t want to be the one to hurt him again.
“Call your brother and tell him we’ve worked it out.”
Had they? “Yeah, okay.”
They sat in silence until Vince came to let them out. He didn’t grill them about their talk—he didn’t say anything at all—just escorted them back to the floor. When Seven said he was leaving, Enzo followed him out, waiting with him for his Uber to arrive.
As the car pulled up, Enzo heard himself ask, “What if I wanted to try to earn your trust?”
Seven opened the door, then turned to look at him. “You can try.”
“Okay,” Enzo said, nodding.
Seven gave him a little wave. “Until then, see ya around, friend.”
Enzo returned a barely-there wave. “Yeah, see ya.”