Page 21 of His Gift
“What does what mean?” Enzo asked, relaxing back into his seat.
“Someone like me,” I said, praying I didn’t sound like an insecure fool, but almost certain I did.
Enzo dragged his eyes away from the amazing scenery and stared at me for a second. “Someone nice and upstanding and, and, and moral.”
Moral. The word hit me in all the wrong ways, like it was a failing. Which was exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to mean.
“Moral?” I asked, sending him a quick, wry look before turning onto the main road that would take us to the highway.
Enzo laughed. “Okay, maybe that makes you sound like a buttoned-up seminary candidate or something.”
“I’m not,” I said, stealing another peek at him before focusing on the road like I should.
“What, moral?” Enzo asked. He was teasing me.
“No,” I said, forcing myself to loosen up a little. “A seminary candidate. I mean, I thought about it when I was in high school, but then it was made abundantly clear to me that I would go to college, major in business, get an MBA, and take over the family business someday.”
Enzo gaped at me. “But you wanted to be a priest?”
“Not really,” I said, pinching my face. “I was just a kid. You know how people are about what they want to be when they grow up while they’re still in high school.”
“Yeah,” Enzo said. The note of sadness in his voice made me peek at him again. He’d lost his cheeky grin and now stared out the window.
“What did you want to be when you grew up?” I asked, because I just couldn’t help myself.
I knew it was a touchy subject when Enzo shrugged and said, “I dunno. Something in business, maybe. I always used to tellmyself that I would figure it out in college, but then college never happened.”
“It didn’t?”
He shook his head, and it felt to me like he had to drag the answer, “Nope,” out of himself.
“Why not?”
God, Shawn. Way to stick your foot in your mouth by asking questions he clearly doesn’t want to answer.
Enzo heaved a small sigh then said, “My papa got sick. Cancer.”
I immediately remembered what Caden had told me about Enzo and felt like a jerk for bringing it up.
Enzo went on. “He fought it as long as he could. I became his primary caretaker, and when Dad, who was a deadbeat anyhow, and my brother Jeff ditched us because we were, and I quote, ‘too boring’, I had to scramble to make enough money to keep the apartment and pay for the premiums for his care. Don’t ever get cancer, by the way,” he added sullenly. “It’s expensive.”
I flushed hot. Even if I did get sick, which I wasn’t planning to do, I had the absolute best health insurance money could buy through work, and even if I had to pay out of pocket, I’d be fine.
“Health insurance in this country is so broken,” I said, hoping he would see that I wanted to be in solidarity with him.
I wanted a lot more than that. We drove farther and farther away from Kincade Slopes, but my feelings of ownership and responsibility for Enzo continued. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was mine somehow, mine to take care of and to love. We’d only had about twelve hours together, but I’d learned things about myself that I would have run away from under other circumstances.
I wanted to learn more. The freedom Enzo had allowed me had loosened something in me, and now I wanted more of it. I wanted to test my limits and see how open and instinctual Icould be in bed. But not with any old omega. I wanted to explore myself and my boundaries with Enzo and with nobody else, but I wanted to explore them fully.
“So let me ask you something,” Enzo said when the silence in the car had gone on too long.
“Okay.”
Enzo faced me with a curious look and said, “Why would you cut short a perfectly fine scene that you had to have made plans for at the drop of a hat because your brother called about some venue for something?”
Oh boy. I guess it was only fair for Enzo to ask the loaded questions when I’d just done the same for him.
“It’s complicated,” I said.
