Page 7

CHAPTER 7

EDIN

I’ve been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling. My ass aches. My entire body aches as if I were reliving those first days of getting back into hockey practice after six years of not doing anything remotely strenuous.

But the way my ass twinges every time I move… Yeah, that’s the difference.

Filming a scene at Confessions is not usually a big deal. It’s probably not the healthiest way to get off, but as far as details go, I rarely recall any of it. This way, I get the release of an orgasm without having to deal with human interactions and I get paid for it. I’m killing two birds with one stone and not having to deal with the kinds of emotional strings sex usually brings. Plus the added bonus of no pregnancy risk.

Even the few times I’ve bottomed didn’t affect me that much. Yes, I walked away with a bit of a sore ass, but it was… abstract. It was compartmentalized like the entire experience altogether.

This time was different. Whoever this Elijah guy is… he’s trying to undo me. No, he succeeded in undoing me. I can’t stop reliving it over and over again in my head. When I do manage to think of literally anything else, I move and the twinge in my ass reminds me.

He made it real.

My entire body feels out of whack. Like a puzzle piece that’s not sitting quite right. Everything feels shaky. His touch, the way he looked at me, the way he moved inside me… it all haunts me. The way I can feel his phantom touch. How I see his eyes when I close mine. And randomly hear his voice.

“Look at me, Finn.”

He may have been saying my stage name, but I heard my real name. I hear him say Edin in my head, over and over.

I squeeze my eyes closed and grimace when I shift and an all-too-real ache in my ass doesn’t let me forget what I’m trying desperately to shove aside. More than anything, I need to forget. This isn’t the life I’m leading. I don’t do real. The only people real in my life are Dak, Sparrow, and Morgan.

No one else penetrates that wall.

Internally, I cringe at myself. Did I seriously just use penetrate in a sentence like that? Ugh.

There’s a quiet knock on my door and I turn my head. My door is almost always ajar so I can see Morgan’s. I also keep it open so Morgan knows she can come in during the night if she needs to. I don’t ever want her to hesitate if she needs something and I feel like a closed door makes even an eight-year-old think twice about interrupting.

Mo’s peeking her head in with a big smile on her pretty face. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Morning, sunshine.”

“Can we watch cartoons in bed?”

I nod and shift, resolutely trying not to grimace as I make room for my daughter. She climbs up, grabs the remote on the table beside my bed, and hands it to me. Mo settles beside me, snuggling under the covers and to my side as I turn the television on.

I’ve spent very little money on luxuries like subscription services. But I have Disney+ so Mo always has something to entertain her when we’re in line or at games or something that might not keep a child’s attention for long. There’s an hour time limit on her tablet and the TV in her room. Both reset once a day.

She’s clever, so she doesn’t ever turn either of them on first thing in the morning over the weekend. She’ll climb into bed with me instead where she knows there’s no time limit, therefore saving her own screen time for later, should she need it.

Mo once told me her screen time should be banked since she doesn’t use her two hours every day. She should be allowed to binge sometimes.

All her words. I have no doubt that she was coached by one of the guys we live with. Since it was only teasing, I didn’t give anyone a hard time. I don’t actually think Mo cares. She spends some time on electronics, but very little. There are far too many people around her all the time for her to care too much about what’s on TV. Someone is always around to play with.

“Did you sleep good, Daddy?”

I kiss the top of her head. Her uses of ‘Daddy’ come fewer and fewer as she gets older. I want to hang on to these moments for as long as I can. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if this will be the last time we cuddle in the morning. When will be the last time she wants a hug from her father?

I hate that one day she’ll be ‘too old’ for those kinds of things. Especially since I feel like I missed out on so much of her first five years while I struggled with my deteriorating mental health.

Taking a breath, I ignore the way my body feels and answer how she expects me to. “Very well. You?”

“Good. I love my bed.”

I smile. Sometimes I have to wonder if she hated her bed growing up. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t think I bought the worst bed. I provided the best I could afford. Which… maybe that means it was the cheapest and we all know you get what you pay for. Sighing, I press another kiss on her head. “I’m glad.”

“Do you like your bed?”

“Yes. It’s very comfortable.”

Mo nods. “Did you have dreams?”

Yes, but we’re not discussing those. I’m haunted by them enough, so I sure as hell won’t be traumatizing my child with them. “I don’t remember if I dreamed. How about you?”

“Mmm,” she muses. “I think I did, but I don’t really remember. But I think I woke up knowing I dreamed.”

“I know the feeling.”

“We should make a dream machine,” Mo suggests, propping herself up on her arm to look at me. “That way, we can record our dreams and see what we dreamed about.”

“Some dreams we don’t want to remember.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “Oh no. It’ll detect nightmares and erase them.”

Not exactly what I was getting at, but okay. “That’s a great feature.”

“Do you think we can program it to give us a dream we want?”

“Like if you want to dream about unicorns tonight, you can program it to do that?”

Mo nods. “Yeah. Would that be possible?”

I’m always impressed with her language skills. In this last year alone, her vocabulary has expanded incredibly. I imagine it’s because she’s surrounded by four dozen grown men. Which is maybe a little concerning on the surface, but I have no doubt in my mind that she’s thriving.

Mo is happy. She’s smart and learning. She’s getting better at expressing herself and setting boundaries. Her teachers say she’s excelling far beyond what they expect from her and her peers.

If for no other reason at all, this was the best move for us. Removing Mo from that toxic situation was something I should have found the strength to do years earlier. The first time I heard her mother screaming at her for being upset.

Nope. We’re not thinking about that.

“I’m guessing if a dream machine is possible, then it can be programmed,” I answer.

She grins and lays back down. She’s quiet for several episodes while I doze. The next time she says something, it’s, “Mmm. Do you smell that, Dad?”

There it is. We’re done with Daddy this morning. I sigh. “Yep. Smells like maple syrup.”

“Who do you think is cooking?”

We look at each other and say, “Denny.” Mo giggles.

“Can I go get breakfast?”

“Of course. Get your slippers on.”

Mo nods and scrambles out of bed. I’ve placed one hard rule—okay, more than one, but this one is relevant all the time. She must always wear something with hard soles unless she’s in her own room, my room, our bathroom, or just crossing the hall to one such room.

The guys we live with are all incredibly considerate, respectful, and aware of Mo. But the fact of the matter is, they’re late teens and early twenties. They’re living on their own with a lot of freedom for the first time in their lives. They’re likely not going to take as much care as necessary if they break a glass or whatever.

I know they’d not do anything on purpose. They’d never intentionally hurt my child or each other. But after the first time I saw a rogue piece of metal on the floor where Mo almost stepped on it? Yep, that had to change.

A minute later, I hear Mo’s slippers as she hurries down the hall. Then her feet on the stairs. She calls up, “Dad, Denny’s making French toast and eggs and bacon! Come down and eat. It smells sooo good!”

I grin. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

I don’t move for several minutes. Is the ache in my body enough that it warrants some ibuprofen, or am I being ridiculous? Maybe I’m feeling it more than I would normally because the entire experience unsettled me. I’m being dramatic, right?

Sighing, I push myself up and flick off the television. I’m already wearing bed pants since I know that at any given moment, my daughter could come screaming into my room from a nightmare, so I throw on a shirt and my own slippers before heading downstairs.

Mo isn’t wrong. The closer I get to the kitchen, the more delicious aromas fill the air. My mouth is salivating as my feet hit the landing.

“Help yourself, man,” Denny says.

I clap him on the back on the way by and grab a plate to fill with food. There are half a dozen guys already sitting at the table with Mo, all of them talking to her like she’s just one of the guys. It always makes me feel warm and sappy to see it. You’d think with this many guys around, there’d be some pushback about having to take consideration for a kid. But I couldn’t ask for a better group of people.

Pulling out a chair across from Mo, I sit and then grimace. Yep, sitting on hard wood is uncomfortable right now. Sighing, I take a bite and try to adjust. Have I ever been this uncomfortable after being fucked?

“Daddy?”

I look up to meet my daughter’s eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

Frowning, I ask, “No. Why?”

“You’re making faces like you have a boo-boo.”

Several of the guys look at me expectantly. First, I love that we’re still calling things boo-boos. It’s fucking cute. Second, great. Now I have a lot of attention. “Just bruised my tailbone during practice. Nothing to worry about.”

Mo immediately gets irritated. “Mikky pushed you into the boards hard. He does that a lot. I told Coach that, too.”

I lick my lips, ignoring the way my frat mates are looking at me. Knowing I didn’t bruise my ass by being shoved into the boards.

“It’s just a bruise,” I tell Mo. “No need to be concerned.”

Thankfully, how you’re able to hurt your tailbone—or maybe where the tailbone is even located—isn’t something Mo is aware of because she’d have called me out with a lot of questions. As it is, the smirks I’m getting from the guys around us have literally everyone else convinced that’s not the case.

Whatever. Tell my $4,000 that it’s not worth it. I’ll deal with the ache for a few days to be able to put some more cash into my bank account. To pay my kid’s aftercare bill for the next few months right now and not have to see another bill for a while. I can save up to buy my baby some presents. Buy some extra food for the house since everyone is always buying food for Mo.

It’s fine. I’m not upset about this development at all. Elijah has shaken me a little, but it’s not a big deal. I’ll live. It’s over with. I’ll probably never see him again.

Besides, I’m not nearly so traumatized that I didn’t schedule another threefer day next weekend. Since I generally go once a week to make sure we have money for the week, I figure this way I don’t have to worry about trying to squeeze in work around everything else during the week. Dak will watch Mo for the day while I take care of bringing home some money.

He knows what I do, and there’s no judgment there. After all, sex games are how Dak met Sparrow. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

When Denny’s done cooking, me, Mo, and a few of the guys help clean up breakfast. Not everyone eats with us, but several do. That means we go through a lot of dishes and a lot of food. We have a very large kitchen—as comes with a huge house—and thankfully, there are two dishwashers in the kitchen and one in the butler’s pantry.

Seriously, the house is really fucking cool. It’s an old Victorian mansion. With the help of the alumni and a lot of fundraising parties and shit, we’re able to keep it authentic and modern. Everyone pools resources and works together to make sure that wear and tear is minimal or corrected before it causes permanent damage.

Just as we’re finishing, my phone rings. My stomach drops when I pull it out and see the unassigned number there. I know it’s my mother. She calls often, using different phone numbers, trying to catch me off guard, so I’ll pick up.

The last time I answered, I went into a tailspin, a downward spiral that was… ugly. Thankfully, that was two years ago and Dak was there. Sparrow took Morgan out of the house while Dak helped me… I don’t know what he did, but thank fuck he did.

Shaking my head, I decline the call and block the number. Honestly, I need to change my number. That’ll fix this issue. It would take her a lot longer to get in touch that way.

Not right now, though. This is the number that the school has, that agents have, that everything having to do with Mo has. I don’t want to take a chance that I miss something important. Since I didn’t change my number years ago, it’s just going to have to wait. I can deal with blocking a phone number every month or so.

No big deal.

“Who wants to play hide and seek?” Mo calls.

I grin when half a dozen guys volunteer. Yep, I can definitely deal with blocking a phone number if it means my child is happy. It’s the least of my worries.