Chapter 9
I stood awkwardly in the huge kitchen, surrounded by counters and an island filled with food, plates, and fruit bowls.
At one side of the room, at the counter with the double burners, Rocco was dressed almost in a distressed formal look—unbuttoned shirt, untucked too, with his hair formerly coiffed but now ruffled through.
I recognized he was talking to their grandma—nonna, I’d remembered that.
“Santo’s boyfriend,” Rocco said.
As their nonna’s head was turned, I watched him dip his finger into the large pot and lick it clean. She gave him a whack with a wooden spoon, almost chasing him across the kitchen to me.
She welcomed me with a hug and a sniff at my neck. “You smell like Santo,” she said.
“I do?”
Rocco smirked at me. “So, he hasn’t ruined you yet.”
His nonna gave him another whack. “Quit it,” she said.
“You quit it,” he said, rubbing his elbow.
As she raised it to whack him again, he apologized to her.
“But in all seriousness, you two are together?”
I nodded and incorporated a slight headshake as well. I didn’t know. I needed Santo here to moderate whatever was going on. “I’m his assistant.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” she said, giving my cheeks a pinch before asking me the same question their mom had.
It was nice to be seen, although they thought—probably wished—I had European in me since they were heavily influenced by their Italian history.
Luckily, I loved pasta. Who didn’t love pasta?
Before it got more intense, Santo came up behind me and laid an arm around my shoulder. “Nonna,” he said. “You’ve met my boyfriend, Isaiah. Isn’t he just adorable?”
“I was just saying that to him,” she said.
I looked up at Santo, and in that moment he kissed me, with the gentle slip of his tongue in my mouth right in front of his family. It was cold, the taste of alcohol on his breath. I wanted more of it—the tongue or the alcohol? Both, probably.
“Well, the two of you are just adorable,” his mom said. “And I hope you’re nice to him.”
“I will be,” I let out.
She chuckled. “Think she was talking to Santo,” their nonna said. “You’ve got a sweet soul.”
“I do?” I looked at Santo for reassurance.
“You do,” he whispered back. “And I will. I’m in the process of getting him to move in with me.”
“The process,” I repeated with a snicker.
“We’ll have to give it some time first.” I felt at my wrist and realized why everyone was saying we were together already.
It was true, I suppose, but I hadn’t realized how visible the bracelet was—or the signal of Santo’s ownership.
It made me feel warm inside, protected for the first time in my life, more than what I thought a family’s protection was supposed to feel like.
My own family trauma was in competition, trying its best to spin negativity on the family I was walking into.
“You all best get washed up,” his mom said. “The lasagna’s almost done, just need to finish the sides. And of course, fresh focaccia.”
Santo continued to squeeze his hands on my sides. “Bring an appetite?” he asked.
I nodded. I wanted so desperately to call him Daddy right now, to pout and snuggle my head into his chest with the way this entire family made me feel warm.
“And someone get Tomaso on the phone for me,” she said, her voice turning sharper. “I wanna hear from him why he’s decided to forsake the family.”
“Ma, just call him,” Rocco said with a sly smile.
“Yeah, because he’ll answer that,” Santo snickered.
Their nonna tutted, pulling her glasses on the metal chain up from around her neck. “Anyone know where my phone is?” she asked. “He’ll never turn down a call from me. He knows I’m not scared to give a boy a spanking or two.”
Santo’s hand dropped to my ass, pinching it, and startled me into a light hop-jump.
I was mostly still nervous about portion sizes and getting all my food finished like Ronnie had been laughing about.
It turns out, she didn’t plate too much for me.
Think she saw the size of me and could immediately tell just how much my stomach could handle.
She’d made quite the spread, but apparently it didn’t compare to her Sunday spread, which was what that sauce was on the hob for.
There was laughter at the table, and we ate at a table.
These weren’t TV dinners, and we weren’t waiting for Vanna White to turn the letters on Wheel of Fortune.
All of this was forcing comparisons, which told me I really preferred this way of living.
We left with food in Tupperware containers, and even a jar of the magic tomato gravy as they called it.
Santo drove us back in a fancy sports car from the family garage.
He hadn’t touched another drop of alcohol since we arrived, so I felt comfortable with him driving—even if he was a bit of a speedster and I had to hold onto the edges of the seat while balancing the warm food on my lap.
This was living. For the first time, living, and not stressing about getting assignments in or job hunting. I was living. Santo’s kisses quite literally breathed life right into me. He was giving my life CPR, and I was waking to see the world in color for the first time.
* * *
It had been two weeks and I still hadn’t accepted Santo’s invite to move in, despite basically living there.
I didn’t want to go back to my apartment and clean or pack everything up into boxes to bring inside his nice, crystal clean penthouse apartment.
I’d just mess the place up like I had done my place.
Being around Santo was magic, even though he was threatening people on the daily, and sometimes that included violence.
Last week I’d heard someone’s leg being snapped and the crunch went right through me—not like it went through him, but apparently that’s what happened when you owed the Bianchi family a million dollars.
I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do with a million dollars.
Santo gave me extra kisses and cuddles that night, along with a gold sticker for my chart.
And today, that chart was full. All those stickers.
All that good behavior. We had to work first, but Daddy Santo promised me something very special to celebrate the milestone.
I was on the verge of telling him I loved him.
I could see love bombing when it was happening, and honestly, I wanted it.
I’d spent my entire life seeing happy couples on social media, posting cute videos, and shit that I wanted.
Yeah, I wanted to be love bombed with gifts and special moments too, and Santo gave them to me.
“I think your gift is at the penthouse,” he said in the car on the way home from the construction office.
He’d been in meetings with his brothers all day.
They were securing plots of land to build an LGBTQ center on, and it made me so giggly and happy.
The world, a.k.a. Boston, had painted them as hardened criminals, but instead, they were just three gay brothers forced to be bad because of fucked-up family situations.
Oops, no swearing. “I hope it’s something you’ll like. ”
“I’m sure I will,” I said, containing my excitement.
“Firstly,” he said, pressing his lips to my cheeks with a kiss, then to my ear.
“I want you to get undressed, take a shower, use that exfoliating scrub that makes your ass tastes like a peach, and then—and only then—I want you to come out in a onesie of your choosing to accept your reward for being a good boy.” His hand on my inner thigh, he hooked it and pulled it over his knee.
His hand held my thigh, pushing in with a thumb and massaging me—it felt too good.
My cock was completely hard, and I pushed down on it with both hands.
“I will,” I said in a tough to swallow gulp.
Over the last two weeks, the room at Daddy’s penthouse had become full.
It made me even more anxious about what I’d do if I had to bring all my things here.
I suppose I had more anxiety about letting go of an escape—something I feel I learned from my mother.
She always fled from city to city with me in tow in a kid, evading past-due rent.
I raced to the bathroom, leaving Daddy with a kiss as he told me to go right to cleaning. I was curious about the gift. We hadn’t really discussed it, but he knew what I needed so well that I knew it was going to be good.
In the en suite of the bedroom, I stripped out of the nice suit, making sure to put it on hangers and zip it up in the garment bags—it was boujie, but something I’d been told to do. Those clothes were probably worth more than anything else I’d ever owned.
“Okay, Isaiah,” I said to myself in the mirror, staring at my naked body with the bracelet still on.
It always stayed on. I rubbed a hand down my torso, feeling the little prickle of hair I needed to shave.
“I think we’ve made it.” The look in my eyes wanted me to cry, and I did.
The tears fell. No sobs, just salty droplets from my eyes, trickling down my cheeks.
“Nobody can see you cry in the shower, Zay.”
The shower had also become full of products.
Daddy had peculiar tastes. He liked to lick and bite my skin, telling me to use certain things so he could taste them on me.
Sometimes I worried I smelled because of it, but he never said I did, just that he wanted different tastes—fruity tastes—which made sense after the chemically deodorant stuff I’d been used to.
The peach scrub was one of my favorites too.
It was nice and a little weird on my ass, especially when I’d freshly shaved.
Nobody really tells you the realities of having to squat in the shower to shave your ass, but luckily my thighs were fine.
I’d blown off steam running track. I got the peach scrub all up in there, giggling at the sensation before rinsing myself off.