Page 43 of Tell Me I'm Enough

Nothing.

I feel nothing. Not a boner, not a pulse, not even a spark of lust in my brain.

“Be good,” I tell her in a low, playful tone so that she doesn’t think I’m rejecting her.

“I needyouto be a littlelessgood, Mr. Sinclair,” she teases back.

“Let me finish up this spreadsheet, and then we can get out of here, okay?”

She nods and kisses me again before sliding off my desk, trailing her hand over my chest as she walks away.

I’m off my game. The last couple of days at work have been more stressful than normal. With my dad stopping in a lot this week, it’s been hell. He makes it a pointnotto tear anyone else down but me while he’s here.

It’srealfun.

“These numbers are off.”

“This projection doesn’t make sense.”

“God, Mason, pay attention—this is basic math.”

“Are you this shitty at your school work?”

“I’m not building a multi-million-dollar company for you to just end up running it into the ground, son.”

“There’s no way you’re this stupid.”

“Make sure you turn that shit personality of yours off when you’re talking to clients and work on being the kind of person who can make it around here.”

Every word feels like it’s meant to make me smaller.

And I don’t know why, but Ikeeptrying…Ikeeptrying harder, Ikeeppushing myself to do better…and for what? For his approval that I’ll never get? It definitely can’t be for some praise or love I’m looking for from him. I don’t think I’lleversee that.

Brooke tries to help, tries to tell me ways I could impress him, or tells me how he’s just really stressed with a big deal he’s working on, as if he hasn’t been this way my entire life. But I just let her keep whatever pretty image she has of him. What’s thepoint in spilling to her all the ways he’s made himself feel bigger by stepping on me?

* * *

I’m standing in the break room this morning, talking to one of the brokers, when my dad walks in, shaking hands with him before the guy walks out.

“Straighten up when you talk to people, Mase. You look so unsure of yourself, like you don’t even belong here.”

I shrug him off. “I’m fine.”

“Then why do you always look like you don’t want to be here?”

“Maybe because I don’t,” I say before I can think better of it.

He looks up from the coffee maker. “Excuse me?”

I take a deep breath in, too annoyed by my lack of sleep and exhaustion to even care today.

“You forced me into this. I don’t want to run your firm. I never have. I don’t care about real estate, and you know that.”

“You’re not in a position to decide that. This was built to stay in the family.”

“I’m almost twenty, not twelve. I can make my own decisions.”

He sets down his coffee cup, looking annoyed at me. “Act like you’re an adult then. You’ve been given every opportunity—private schools, the best coaches, the best training camps, the name that has opened up so many doors for you. And still, you act like it’s a curse.”