Chapter 26 Ev
TWENTY-SIX
ev
“I’ve never done therapy before,” Santos admitted.
I’d cajoled him into getting into bed after the rug proved not fluffy enough to conceal the hardwood beneath.
I thought he would’ve tried to fall asleep now that I was back here, and he’d gotten whatever it was out of his system, but he’d set us face to face and spent who knew how long alternating between gazing at me with so much emotion it had me holding my breath and placing the softest kisses everywhere he could reach.
“Well, there were the mandatory check-ins with the psychiatrist, but I hope therapy isn’t like that. ”
I hummed. My heart had only begun to slow down after panic had seized me when I’d walked into his room and found him a shell of who he was.
When I’d remembered Tony’s words about taking advantage of my experience. It hadn’t felt like I thought it would, not that I wanted to focus on any of that right now.
Santos needed me, not the layers and nuance that came with kink and power exchanges.
“Neither have I,” I pointed out. My mother had brought it up once, when I was in middle school, and I’d frozen during a photo call I barely remembered now.
Of course, the headache of a blue blood going to therapy, regardless of how close to the bottom of the line I was, hadn’t been worth the hassle, so here I was.
“A bunch of the guys at Plumas go to therapy, though. And they talk a lot about the struggle to find a good one, so I think if it feels like with that psychiatrist, then you just have to find someone else that you click with.”
Santos grimaced. “That sounds exhausting.”
It did.
Nothing I could say would change that fact.
“I’m still proud of you.”
“Why?” he snorted, frown etched in place as if there was nothing I could say that would be more out of whack. “I’m a failure.”
“You aren’t,” I whispered. “I told you, you’re my hero.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“I don’t mean it in a, you served way.” I scrunched my nose. “You just are.”
“Okay.” He stretched his arms over his head before pulling me closer to him.
There was a warmth that came with following his lead that had never been there with anyone else.
It wasn’t D/s, but it was…serene. The calm that came with knowing what I could give him, what I could do for him. “I’m still sorry.”
“I think that’s fine.” I frowned. I didn’t actually know that it was. I just knew that, whether or not it made me selfish, being here with him felt right. That this really was the way it had always been meant to be. “You and me, right?”
His eyes started to droop, but he nodded before wrapping an arm around me.
It was fine.
Perfect.
It was still perfect in the morning, even when the doorbell was being pounded by someone downstairs.
I groaned. Santos would usually be up before me, but now not only I had to deal with the resounding sound and the fact that I still wasn’t a morning person, I had to figure out how to get his weight off me before my bladder burst to pieces.
Was that even a thing?
I shuddered.
“Santos?”
No response.
Great.
Well, he needed the sleep. It was a good thing that he was getting some rest. I didn’t think he’d woken up once during the night.
There was no way he wouldn’t end up waking up when the doorbell was replaced with my phone buzzing.
Fuck.
At least I could tell whoever was at the door wasn’t my parents.
Shit.
I blinked hard as I scrambled off the bed, the issue with Santos’s weight forgotten as I accepted the call.
“Hi, Marco, how are you?”
The last thing I needed after throwing the Hi, I love wearing skirts and women’s clothes to my parents was to prove them how useless I was.
Marco was one of the head gardeners for the estate, and he only bothered to interact with me when it was an emergency.
He was also quick to rat me out to my parents if I didn’t act fast enough.
Shit.
Okay, I could pretend my heart wasn’t trying to get out of my chest while I scrambled for some clothes, and then I’d just have to go downstairs and deal with whatever emergency it was this time.
“Hey, man, are you home? I need some shit signed.”
Oh.
Well, that wasn’t that urgent.
“Yeah, give me five and I’ll go meet you.”
“Sure, bud.”
I ignored the discomfort that came with the condescension in his voice and ended the call.
He really usually called about urgent stuff.
No idea why I had to sign something, either, when usually his signature was allowed, or my parents pre-signed stuff beforehand, however that worked.
Part of me wondered if I should call my mother and ask, but that would go against the whole proving that I could handle things on my own and the clothes weren’t a deterrent.
Or the man I was leaving alone in my bed.
I supposed there was a chance that I could come back before he woke up.
It had been a beautiful thought while it lasted.
Of course, the second I was out of the house and following Marcus so that I could sign the delivery for some repair my mother hadn’t informed me about, it turned out that there were more issues I had to sign on to and direct them around.
I cringed every time I leaned on Marco to guess what I had to say.
I never really understood why me—or my parents, for that matter—had to oversee anything.
None of us had the studies, or the knowledge.
My father had spent one summer working at a landscaping company, and he thought he could keep up with all the workers now.
I’d tried once, and my mother had quickly decided manual labor wasn’t my calling.
I’d agreed, but it meant that I felt like a marionette being paraded around.
And blamed for everything that went or could go wrong.
That last part was fun, and it went on, and on, and on, while I pretended that I gave a fuck about a property that should be used to house people, and not just for decoration and, maybe, occasionally, a background for a movie or historical show.
Right now, it also meant that I was being paraded around, while Santos was alone in the house, and he was going to wake up alone in a cold bed, which would be fine any other day, but today was surely not the day.
Last night had been relevant. It should have led to a lazy morning in bed, and more confessions and soft words and mushy stuff.
Now by the time I got home, he’d be up doing something, and the vibe would be off.
Or he wouldn’t even be home, as it happened. He texted. He’d gone on a grocery run. It wasn’t anything concerning, but it bothered me. I had a right to be in a grumpy mood if I wanted to.
Then again…
No, I had to work all this energy out somehow.
Santos would freak out that it had to do with him—I would—and that wouldn’t do.
I really wanted to support him. It bothered me that he was keeping more than half of it from me.
I got it. That woman had abused him in ways that made me want to rage, details or not, and it had to be worse because of all the abandonment issues he had we didn’t talk about often, and he didn’t have to tell me everything, but I should be a safe space.
“What are you doing on a treadmill?”
Fuck!
I yelped. Badly. It wasn’t a good look, I was aware.
“How long have you been standing there?”
Between how badly I was panting because I hadn’t realized how out of shape I was, and the fright he’d just given me, my heart was not recovering from this.
I was totally going to make it into one of those Embarrassing Ways To Die shows.
Were they still filming new episodes? I watched way too many when I was a teenager and had nothing better to do with my time, but it had been a long time since then.
“Since when do you have a treadmill?”
“My mother went through a phase in between fad diets, I don’t know.”
Just as I didn’t know how I’d remembered it was in the attic upstairs. Or how I’d remembered she’d bought this one specifically because they had marketed it as so lightweight and easy to move.
I’d say it was false advertising—I kept thinking I was one wrong move from breaking something on the way down—but I’d been determined, and now it was plugged to the side of one of the studies that never got any use.
And I was sweating more than I had in ages.
“Okay…” The total confusion on his face was replaced by a teasing smirk. I liked how it looked on him. I just wasn’t sure it was going to play in my favor. “Did it go okay with the landscaping company?”
“Same old story.”
Santos straightened. “If someone said shit…”
“Oh, no, nothing like that.” I bet it would’ve happened if I’d worn something more out there, but I’d stuck to a pair of nondescript jeans and a sweater.
Sure, it had flowers in it, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen me with makeup before because one of them had called when I’d been about to head out.
There had been looks the first few times, but they were shut down quickly.
If I knew who was responsible, I’d totally ask my parents to give them a raise, but it wasn’t a topic that had ever come up.
“It just bothers me that I’m a glorified pen pusher. Nothing new.”
“Just as I’m a glorified bodyguard?”
I pursed my lips. “Well, I’m sure you’d be able to actually bodyguard me if something went down. Unlike, you know, if I had to actually manage anything about the estates on my own.”
Santos stepped closer. “Why don’t you turn off the treadmill, babes? I can give you a workout if that’s what you want.”
Was that what I wanted? I’d wanted slow conversation in bed, and morning breath, and snuggling. I hadn’t forgotten about that movie-inspired fantasy.
A workout that didn’t involve my legs numbing down sounded good too, though.