Page 27 of Enzo (Redcars #1)

TWENTY-SEVEN

Robbie

I woke up warm, in my own bed, but I didn’t open my eyes straight away as I remembered everything from last night. The story Enzo had told me, all the pieces he’d handed over. What he’d done. What he’d lost. What he still carried. He said I was strong. That I was brave. I hadn’t believed him—not at first. I wasn’t like the others at Redcars. I wasn’t hardened, or clever with tools, or sure of myself. I still flinched sometimes at shadows, at memories that felt too close. I’d cried in front of him so many times, but he’d looked at me as if none of that made me weak. He’d held my hand while he told me about the blood on his. And he’d still called me strong.

And now, in the quiet, I tried to let myself believe him because he didn’t say those words lightly. He saw something in me—in my trying, in my staying—that maybe I hadn’t known was there.

Maybe I could be strong. Not the way the others were—but in my own way. For surviving. For still wanting.

Because I wanted Enzo, and I needed to be not quite so broken and ugly before I could do that.

Today, Doc was coming to the garage with his Monte Carlo. He was hard, unapproachable, rude, and apart from a love of cars, and his sideline in under-the-table medical care, I knew nothing about him. Today, I needed him. I didn’t have money to pay him, but I could do a weekly payment. I was nervous when it got closer to eleven a.m., and the rumble of his Monte Carlo entering the garage pulled me from pretending to work. After exiting the car and exchanging nods with Enzo and Jamie, I waved him over. He glanced behind with an expression of hope I wasn’t waving at him, and then sighed.

“What?” he said as he approached me.

I shifted on my feet, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “Can we talk?”

Doc scanned me from head to toe, cataloging everything I wasn’t saying. “You can’t afford me.”

“I can pay you.”

“With what? Buttons?”

I thought about the money I’d hidden away from John, that I could access if I needed, but said nothing.

His mouth pressed into a tight line, then he exhaled. “Ten minutes and it’s coming off my bill for the car.”

“Okay.” It wasn’t up to me to agree that, and I hoped I could arrange something with Logan—I’d rather owe money to him than to Doc.

Heat rushed up my neck. “Can we talk in here?” I asked, pointing at my room.

His brows lifted, but he gave a curt nod. “Clock’s ticking.”

He hovered at the threshold, waiting. I had never had people in here. It was my space, my walls, my safety. The idea of letting someone inside, and closing the door felt foreign—too much, too exposed. But this was private. I needed privacy for this, despite how this made me feel. “Can you come in?”

“Jesus Christ, this is a shoebox,” he muttered, eyes sweeping the room with an expression as though he’d smelled something rotten. His lip curled, disdain dripping from him.

My heart hammered. I could feel the walls pressing in, my hesitation curling around me like smoke. I hadn’t thought this through. What if saying it out loud made it real? What if I panicked when the door shut and needed to run? “Can you try shutting the door?”

“You never let people inside,” Doc’s frown deepened, his attention sharpening. “Enzo will kill me.”

I went to the door and called over to Enzo, “Doc is inside with me!” Enzo started to come over, but I tugged Doc inside and shut the door, trying not to freak the hell out at someone being inside with me.

“I need to have sex?” I blurted, too loud in the quiet space.

Doc stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. His mouth opened, then closed again. “What the actual fuck, kid?” he said, voice sharp with disbelief. “Jesus…” He scrubbed a hand down his face, horrified and stunned. “I’m not fucking you?”

“Not with you! I mean I wanted to be able to have sex. Can I? Will it hurt? Will I freak out? Will I ruin it?”

“The fuck?” Doc snapped his expression hard. “I’m not a fucking therapist, kid.”

That pushed me over the edge. I shoved him hard and caught him unaware so he ended up stumbling to my bed and landing on his ass. He was up again snarling but I held out a hand. “I’m not a fucking kid, and I’m fucking paying you for this shit!” God, where had that come from?

“Jesus! Who do you want to fuck?”

“No one.”

His gaze grew calculating. “So not Enzo then?”

He tilted his head, thumbing toward the door, and my stomach turned to lead. Heat crawled up my neck, a full-body flush that burned. It frustrated me that he could see it so clearly—that I wasn’t as subtle as I had imagined.

“No.” My voice was immediate, firm. The word came too fast, too sharp, like a slammed door. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t let him discover the truth because I wasn’t ready to confront it. Enzo’s name surged up my throat, but I swallowed it down. Did I feel safe? More than with anyone else. But did I trust myself? Did I trust my body to want and not panic and shut down?

Doc let the silence stretch, studying me and waiting for me to take it back, to admit what we both already knew.

“Can you get it up?” he asked.

My face went hot, shame curling in my gut. I knew this was just a doctor asking a medical question, but it still felt humiliating, as if every inch of me was under a microscope. “I do… sometimes. But I can’t keep it and get off. Not really. It just… stops… and there’s no… um… end to it.”

“There’s a pill for that?—”

“No.” The word shot out before I could stop it. “Sorry, I don’t want pills. I need agency.” I tilted my chin. “I read about agency and it applies to me.”

“Save me from self-help shit,” Doc grumbled.

“I need my body to work itself, not because of chemical enhancements to force my body to respond.”

“Fuck,” Doc said.

“And sometimes,” I pushed on, ignoring how my voice wobbled, “sometimes I’ve been getting hard, and it doesn’t hurt now.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them. “They had a cage on me. You saw…”

“Yeah, I remember,” Doc muttered, and for a second, something flickered in his eyes—anger, maybe. Probably pity, or maybe he didn’t even care at all. “You’re not dead. That’s what matters.”

I exhaled, pressing my palms to my knees like I could ground myself.

“I have scars,” I murmured. “Inside and out.” My voice dropped to almost nothing. “When I get hard, they’re so obvious. You said I was fucked when you first saw them. The skin stretches… it feels wrong. Like I’m not even in my own body.”

“Jesus,” Doc muttered. “Okay.” He tapped his fingers against his knee as if this whole thing was a waste of his time. “Medically, you’re healed. You’re not in pain? Your junk works?”

“I guess.”

“Then the rest is mental.” He waved a hand like it was simple. “Look, you overthink everything. You want a magic switch to flick everything back to normal, but you’re too stuck in your head.”

“I know,” I muttered.

“Your brain’s gotta get there before your dick does.”

I cringed. “Yeah… okay.”

“I’m not a therapist,” Doc added, shifting in his chair, “but there are ways to, you know… test the waters. Toys.”

“‘Toys’?” I blinked at him, horrified. My voice cracked around the word as though it didn’t belong in my mouth.

“Yeah. Toys,” he said as if we were discussing the weather, not me and the crater in my chest where sex was supposed to live. “Silicone. Rechargeable. Realistic. Or not. Whatever floats your boat. You wanted advice—I’m giving it.”

I was mortified and I swear I was burning up.

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, gaze steady and unflinching. “Look, some people—survivors—fuck. If you’re serious about wanting sex then start with your hands. Then maybe try a plug, small at first. Lube’s your best friend—don’t be shy with it. Then a vibe if you can stand it. Maybe something that looks like a cock. Maybe not. Some people find the shape’s a trigger, so you keep it abstract.”

I squeezed my knees together. I felt as if my brain had short-circuited.

Doc kept going like he hadn’t just detonated a bomb between us. “No goal. Not orgasm. Not penetration. Just… sensation. Can you touch yourself without dissociating? Can you breathe through it? Can you stay present? That’s the test.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. My cheeks were burning.

“I…” I couldn’t get words out. My stomach was in knots. “So… me getting erections now… after everything… that’s normal?”

“Yeah,” Doc grunted. “It’s normal. Your body’s working. Get out of your own way.”

“Okay.”

“We done here?” Doc asked, staring at his watch and probably making a mental note for how much to charge.

“No. Wait.” I had another question that I couldn’t bear to ask the others. “So, I wanted to ask… I mean… how do I even go about maybe hiring someone?”

“What—”

“Not just anyone,” I hurried to add. “Not someone forced into it. I mean someone who’s there because they want to be, someone who cares about what they’re doing. Someone who might be… patient. Experienced. Like a high-class escort, I guess.”

“Jesus Christ,” Doc muttered, staring at me as if I’d suggested something obscene. “Are you serious?”

“I mean… yeah.” My voice wobbled, but I forced myself to stay firm. “I don’t want… mistakes. I want to be sure I know what I’m doing.”

“Christ.” Doc shook his head and laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “Look, Robbie, that’s… fuck this.” He stood, grabbing his keys off the table. “I’m out of here.”

“Wait!” I grabbed Doc’s arm, desperation clawing at my throat. “Just… listen. You help people, right? People who need it? Well, maybe some guy out there is the opposite of me. Maybe they need… I don’t know, tenderness and shit. Maybe they’re looking for a way to find control too. Maybe… maybe I just need someone who knows what they’re doing.” My face burned. My throat felt raw. And all I could think was that I’d proved everyone right. I was a mess. A fucking embarrassment. A kid, just like Doc said. Having this attraction to Enzo—it fucking terrified me. I’d never felt this before. Never dated. Never made love. Never lived the same way as others. And yet, here I was, wanting to be perfect for Enzo, wanting something unnamed and unknown, and it scared the hell out of me.

“You’re talking yourself in circles,” Doc muttered again.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I want to stay hard, have sex, have an orgasm. Because Enzo should get the best of me, not the broken pieces.”

“Enzo,” Doc stared at me, eyes like flint. Then he said, voice low and cutting, “You think hiring someone to fuck you is gonna fix your head?”

“I don’t know,” I said, almost choking on it.

Doc cursed, loud and raw, then shoved to his feet and threw the door open. “Enzo!”

“No! Wait!” I shouted.

Doc shook me off. “Fuck this stupid kid before he fucks someone else!”

Rage ripped out of me like a scream I couldn’t contain. I launched at him, fists flying, scratching, biting, hitting every bit of him I could reach. “You bastard! You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to talk about me like that?—”

Arms wrapped around my middle—strong, unrelenting. Enzo. He dragged me back, my feet kicking, me still reaching for Doc. My nails had torn red lines down Doc’s neck and he wiped at them, smearing blood and looking almost satisfied.

“Let me go!” I yelled, writhing in Enzo’s hold. “Let me go, let me go?—!”

“What the fuck?” Rio’s voice cut through the air like a whip, sharp and livid. He stormed across the garage, his face thundercloud-dark. “What the actual fuck was that?”

Doc turned, already defensive, but Rio didn’t give him the chance. He grabbed Doc’s arm and yanked, spun him halfway around—and then punched him. A clean hit to the jaw that sent Doc stumbling back a step, blinking as if he hadn’t seen it coming and then he chuckled. Low and rough, not amused but almost impressed.

“Damn, baby.”

Rio took another step forward. “Don’t fucking call me that! You think you get a pass? Get the fuck out. Now.”

Doc rubbed his jaw, still smirking, but he raised his hands. “I’m going. Jesus.” He glanced over his shoulder, gaze flicking toward me and Enzo. “You all take this shit way too seriously.”

“Try me again,” Rio growled. “See what happens.”

Doc backed out slowly, step by step, as if waiting for someone to stop him or call him back. No one did.

Right before he crossed the threshold, he turned with one last jab. “Don’t even think about fucking with my car, Rio.”

Rio didn’t even blink. “Don’t push me, asshole.”

Doc’s smirk faded a little as he stepped into the sunlight and disappeared down the drive.

For a second, the silence felt like a vacuum. My breathing was ragged, my fists still shaking, my body half pressed into Enzo’s chest. No one moved. No one spoke.

And then Rio exhaled hard, shaking out the hand he’d used to punch Doc. “Shit,” he muttered. “I think I broke my knuckle.”

Jamie grunted. “Worth it.”

And I stood there, shaking, humiliated. My fists still clenched, but now it wasn’t anger, it was to stop the trembling. I could feel Enzo behind me, his chest rising and falling fast against my back, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t move.

I didn’t know if I wanted him to.