by Quinn Ward
“It absolutely is,” he confirmed.
“I can pay you rent,” I quickly added, not wanting him to think I expected free room and board. “I can’t afford much since I’m still paying for my place in New York, but I’m sure I can help out.”
Freddie brushed the hair away from my face, and I leaned into his touch when he didn’t lower his hand. “I don’t need your money, Peter.”
“I want to help you,” I insisted. While I hated many of the beliefs Papa tried to instill in his family, I held firm to never letting anyone else carry me through life.
“I don’t want your money,” he repeated, this time firmer and through gritted teeth. I worried he was upset with me, but then he leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead. It was nothing, but it was everything all at the same time. “You said earlier you liked taking care of people. If you really want to help out, having a second adult around the house would be far more valuable than money.”
“What? Like I could be your manny?”
Freddie’s nose wrinkled at my retort. “First of all, don’t ever use that word in my presence. It’s weird, like someone decided that nanny was too feminine so they tried–and failed–to make it more masculine.”
“Then what would I be?” I asked as I slowly rubbed the small of his back.
“You’d be more like a house-elf,” he quipped and we both started laughing. “You know, except you’d be allowed clothes, at least when Sophia’s awake. And I promise to treat you with respect at all times.”
Freddie might’ve been teasing, but he didn’t realize he’d touched on a fantasy I’d long forgotten. It wasn’t long after I’d moved to New York that a model friend of mine started talking about the “arrangement” he had with an older, wealthy fashion designer. Whenever he wasn’t on assignments, he stayed at the designer’s home, tending to whatever chores were left for him in the morning. In return, he was rewarded, both in material possessions and sheet-burning sex. I’d never thought it was something that I’d pursue, but we weren’t that far off from my fantasy already. I sucked in a ragged breath and decided to test the waters.
“And what would you do if I slacked off on my chores?” I asked playfully, grinding my stiffening erection against him. He wasn’t hard, necessarily, but he was definitely perking up to the idea. “Would you… punish me?”
“Oh fuck,” Freddie moaned. He buried his face against my neck. “You can’t say shit like that when we’re not alone.”
“Why’s that?” I goaded, shoving my hand between our bodies to stroke him. “You thinking about all the ways you could punish me? Have you ever done that before?”
“Nuh uh,” he grunted, canting his hips, chasing my touch as I pulled away.
“Is it something you’ve thought about doing?” His only response was a muffled moan against my shoulder. I knew it wouldn’t take much to get him off at that point, but I’d much rather show him how torturously sweet anticipation could be. Freddie struck me as the type of man who’d, until this point, viewed sex as a perfunctory act. For as long as I was here, I planned to show him how it could also be hours of blissful entertainment, even when he was at work and I was at home.
“Tonight,” I promised him. “After Sophia’s in bed and I take Maria home, we’ll spend some time together.”
“Please tell me that’s a euphemism for I’ll finally get to see you in nothing but those lace underwear,” he pleaded.
“That can probably be accomplished. Anything else you want?”
“Wanna taste you.” His response surprised me, but that was definitely a request I’d happily accommodate. “Want everything with you.”
“There’s no rush,” I responded. Maria’s excessively loud conversation with Sophia warned us it was time to put a lid on the sexual tension for a bit. It would’ve been so easy for me to follow Freddie into his room and give him the show he’d asked for as we got ready for the day, but that’d lead to a lot of nothing getting done before he had to go to work.
Shopping took longer than expected, which left Freddie beyond grumpy and nearing unbearably irritable. It was a good thing Maria and I had followed him to the mall because he had to take Sophia to his mom’s house and rush to work.
“I’ll put these in my car and take them into the house,” I told him as we followed him and Sophia, who most definitely needed a nap no matter how much she insisted she was too old for them, to his car. “Oh, and I suppose I’ll need a key to get in. Unless you’d rather I meet you when you get done with work. I’m sure I can find something to do until then.”
Maria elbowed me in the ribs. “You’re rambling. He knows you only do that when you’re nervous.”
That might be true, but how in the hell did she know that? Did she really remember that much about me from before I left home?
Freddie chuckled as he helped Sophia into her booster seat. I tossed Maria the keys to my car, giving us a few seconds of semi-privacy. “She’s right, you know. But don’t worry, I sort of like that you’re nervous. At least I’m not the only one.”
He took a key off his ring and handed it to me. “If I had an issue with you being at the house when I’m not there, I wouldn’t have invited you to stay. Go. Make yourself at home.”
“Is there anything you’d like me to do while you’re at work?” I asked, a playful lilt to my tone that he picked up on.
Freddie narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “You’re going to fucking kill me.”
“Only in the best ways possible,” I promised. Freddie leaned in as if he was about to kiss me, then jerked away when he remembered we were out in public, he wasn’t out, and his kid was in the back seat watching us. Or at least I assumed those were his thoughts given the way his gaze darted around like he was looking for anyone he knew in the vicinity and the flush of his cheeks when he spotted Sophia watching us, giggling.
“I’ve… gotta go.” He opened the door of his car and paused. “If you need anything else, let me know.”
“Just for tonight to hurry the hell up.” One of us had to be the stronger man and walk away, otherwise he wouldn’t get to Marino’s until the middle of the dinner rush. I spun around and walked to my car, waving as he backed out of his stall.
“I hate to tell you, big brother, but you’re screwed.” Maria cackled hysterically as she got into the passenger seat of the car. And I sighed because she was so fucking right. A few times on the drive home, she tried bringing up my attraction to Freddie, and every time I shut her down, not ready to analyze what we were doing or how it could go wrong. When I dropped her off at Papa’s house, she didn’t bother inviting me inside, knowing I’d refuse. I couldn’t deal with him today.
After battling rush hour traffic, I parked in one of the visitor stalls behind Freddie’s townhouse. My nerves were shot because it’d been a long ass time since I’d dealt with that sort of chaos. Back home, I relied on mass transit or walked anywhere I needed to go. As tempting as it was to leave the bags in the trunk and get them later, I knew that’d lead to Freddie and I wasting valuable alone time toting them inside later. Plus, this was a chance for me to prove to him that I was willing to help out around the house to earn my keep.
It took three trips up the stairs and back to get everything into the house. While I’d like to say he was the one who bought far too much for his daughter, I was the one who went overboard. I couldn’t help it; between cute shit I found for Sophia, the essentials for myself, and a few surprises when I split off from the group for a while, there was a lot of shit to carry in.
After putting all the bags in the appropriate bedrooms, I turned on a dance music playlist and got to work, putting all of Sophia’s new clothes on hangers, pausing to debate whether everything needed to be washed before she wore it. I knew parents did that with baby clothes, but decided Freddie couldn’t get mad at me for trying to do something nice and kept going.
Sophia’s room seemed to be the only part of the house that showed any sort of personality. The walls in e
very other room were a light beige with beige carpets and white trim, but her room reminded me of a fairy garden. Spring green walls with a forest mural on one wall and a canopy bed draped in tulle with fairy lights, it was everything you’d expect for a little girl who insisted on being called Tinkerbell.
By the time I was finished, I almost hated to leave. Her room was filled with life and love, and you could almost hear the laughter even though she was at her Nonna’s for the night. Depending on how long I hung around, I might have to see if I could coerce Freddie into at least some pops of color so it looked more like a home than a model unit.
I flopped onto the couch and scrolled through the TV listings, but nothing sounded good. I rummaged through the fridge, but for a cook, Freddie had surprisingly little to eat, so I wound up ordering out and hoping my choices wouldn’t offend his culinary sensibilities. I considered rounding up the dirty laundry throughout the house, but that seemed an invasion of Freddie’s privacy even though I just wanted something to do. And still, it was only eight o’clock.
I hated being alone. If I was back in New York, I’d have pulled on my tightest jeans and fuck-me heels and gone to a club. But I wasn’t, and no way was I braving traffic again just to have a drink.
I laughed when I found myself on hands and knees a while later, scrubbing the floors. I could’ve used the mop, but there was so little tile in the kitchen it seemed a waste to drag out the bucket. Scrubbing floors like I was Cinderella and happier than I’d been in a long fucking time. It was a strange new reality, one I could easily get used to.
7
Freddie
Sweat rolled down the center of my back as I wrestled with the backup prep cooler. Of course our main line cooler broke down tonight when I had somewhere to be besides Mama’s house to pick up Sophia.
“Mother fucker,” I cursed as the corner of the cooler jammed into my hip.
“Everything cool back there?” Tony hollered. He’d given me a wide berth since he overheard one of the cooks telling me we had a massive issue.
“Just fucking peachy,” I yelled back. I was hot, smelly, and I couldn’t wait to get home and see what the kaleidoscope of bruising looked like. “This would go a lot faster if I wasn’t trying to move this damn thing on my own.”
Tony untied his apron and rolled his sleeves as he pushed past the busboy who was finishing his side work for the night. He took the other end of the cooler, steering as we rolled it down the line. “When are you going to tell Frankie to get you a new cooler instead of making service calls every damn month?”
“When he quits freaking the fuck out that we’re going to go broke if we spend any money,” I shot back. “I’m supposed to be the tight ass of the family, not him.”
“Then grow a set and tell him you need the damn money. One of these times, you’re going to throw out your back trying to move this cooler around while we’re waiting for parts to come in.”
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” I promised. Tony was right; it was time to update some of the equipment.
“You’re not heading out with us?” he asked, hopping onto the stainless steel table. “Mama said she wasn’t coming in tonight because she had Sophia, so you can’t use the kid as an excuse.”
“Not making excuses, but I do have to get home.” I don’t know why I was reluctant to tell Tony that Peter was at the house waiting for me. My brothers had always asked what happened between us, but I’d never told. I couldn’t lie to them and I sure as hell couldn’t tell them the truth, so deflecting had always been the safer option.
“Come on, if you skip out, I’m going to think you have a hot date,” Tony teased.
“What makes you think that?” I asked, suddenly far more interested in organizing the backup cooler so it was ready for morning.
“Because you can’t look me in the eye, for one thing,” Tony pointed out. “Plus, normally you’re willing to come out for at least one drink when Mama keeps Soph overnight.”
“Yeah, well I have shit to do at home,” I said. It wasn’t technically a lie because I’d been thinking all night about the things I wanted to do to and with Peter.
“Does this have anything to do with a certain buddy being back in town?” Tony was a perceptive little shit. “Why not invite him out? He could probably use a stiff drink or twelve after dealing with the old man. I swear, Silvio was glaring daggers at Peter through the entire funeral. I get that shit’s been rocky for them since he moved away, but I wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d stood up in front of everyone and publicly disowned his kid. Is it really that much of a crime that he didn’t want to come back to run the bakery?”
Even a week ago, I’d have thought it was, but now, I knew the issues between father and son ran much deeper, and there was nothing Peter could do to make his father see he was a good man, other than denying who he was at the core. And that was a shame because I happened to like the man I was beginning to know.
“That’s between them,” I said, hoping it was abundantly clear that the topic of Peter’s dysfunctional family was off limits. “And yes, it does have to do with him. If you must know, he’s coming over to the house so we can try to bury the hatchet.” Among other things…
“Cool. Well, if you guys want to join us later, you know where to find us,” Tony told me. “Calvin’s out of town, which means Frankie’s crashing at our place.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
I was momentarily disoriented when I got home from work and there was a light shining in the living room. That’s what happened when I slept for shit and then had the night from hell. When the light at the front door turned on as I walked up the steps, I couldn’t help but smile. Even when Angela still lived here, it was rare that I came home to anything other than darkness, both literal and emotionally.
Peter stilled when I paused at the threshold, leaning in to give him a peck on the cheek. “I like having you here when I get home.”
“Is it wrong if I say I like being here?” he admitted as he followed me into the laundry room. I started stripping my rank chef whites like I did every other night, not thinking about the fact that I had company. “Fuck, you do that every night and you might never get rid of me.”
The playful threat held a trace of promise. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—think like that. This was a temporary arrangement until Peter got tired of following me around the house picking up after me. I paused, inhaling the scent of lemon cleaner. “You cleaned?”
“Yeah.” He stepped around me and started loading the rest of my uniforms into the washing machine. “I needed something to keep me busy. I tried watching TV, but I kept zoning out. Too much time to think.”
“Come here,” I said, tugging him away from the dirty laundry. I’d been so caught up in what we were doing, I hadn’t thought about how hard it might be for him, not getting to say goodbye to his mama. I imagined it’d be even harder once he found out how she’d found strength after he left and wasn’t the doormat he’d always worried she’d become. “Do you want to talk?”
Peter placed a hand over my heart and his head on my shoulder. “No, I’ll be fine. It’s going to take time, and it’s a hell of a lot better knowing you’re here than if I was sitting back at Papa’s house or on the road back to New York.”
“I’m here for whatever you need,” I promised him. “Even after you have to go home, I don’t want to lose touch again. You can call me anytime.”
“I’d like that.” I released him and Peter went back to filling the washer. I left him to it, realizing this was his way of coping. It felt selfish to let him handle my household chores, but by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard him quietly humming a tune I remembered from his childhood.
I heard the bathroom door open as I rinsed shampoo out of my hair. The water was scalding hot, just the way I liked it, and my aching back was finally starting to relax.
“Need any help in there?” I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not, so I didn’t respon
d. Plus, I wasn’t sure I was ready for us to jump straight to shower sex. I wanted to take my time with Peter and let things build naturally. But that was ridiculous, because slow and natural was what you did when you were with someone you were trying to build a relationship with, and I wasn’t. I couldn’t. “Relax, I was joking. Kind of. Unless you were about to tell me to get my ass in there and scrub your back, in which case I meant what I said.”
I laughed, loving how flustered Peter got when he was out of his element. It was reassuring to know this wasn’t a common arrangement for him either.
“Let me finish up and then we’ll see what happens,” I told him, hoping he’d take the hint and leave me with a bit of privacy. I wasn’t out of shape, but I also didn’t have the physique I had when I was participating in sports every season. If he saw me and his attraction waned, I wasn’t sure what that’d do to my fragile ego.
“Have you eaten?” I wiped the condensation off the shower door, ready to point out what a silly question that was since I worked in a restaurant, but then my stomach rumbled. Oh yeah, I hadn’t, because right about the time I was going to make myself something, the damn cooler died. “I’ll take that as a no. You finish up in here and get into something comfy. I’ll meet you in the living room.”
“Yes, sir,” I responded playfully.
“That’s my line.” My dick perked up just thinking about him calling me sir. Not something I was into, but this was a whole new world. Was it possible what I craved with women would differ from what I craved from a man?
The door shut behind Peter, leaving me alone to my thoughts yet again. I was beginning to understand why he had such an aversion to too much time with nothing to do.
I quickly dried off and noticed a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts neatly folded on the toilet seat. He was going to spoil me with all these little gestures.