39. The Signal
The last standard workplace safety video I’d watched yearly at every job I ever worked at seemed to drag on forever. So, instead of learning how to lock out an electrical device I’d never use in the course of my job, I got lost in a tiny defect in the wall beside the TV screen about ten minutes in.
Three years of the life we used to share condensed down into the forty-five minutes it took for the disc to play. But during that time span, I’d come to some major conclusions about me and Dom.
When the movie ended at last, I slid my post-test across the table to the stack of others.
Though not a single chirp from Dom ever came across my phone screen since I texted him last night when I got home, I scrolled through my old messages again, hoping I’d missed one.
Only an empty hallway awaited me when the door opened this time. Still, I checked each direction before entering the crowded lunchtime hallway.
Flashbacks of the awkward teenager hoping some friendly face would come to rescue them made me shrink in on myself as I inched along the outside wall.
I was always seeking some kind of validation I wasn’t still the poor girl in worn-out clothes from the discount store two towns over. But no matter how many credentials followed my name or how big my bank account grew, I never felt successful enough.
Bypassing the cafeteria full of people I didn’t recognize, I escaped to the corner staircase to hide out in my office instead and munch on dried-up old leftovers alone.
Digging my keys out of my pocket along the way, I cringed at the thumps, stomps, and loud voices coming from the floor above me. “Yikes. They must be having a rough day. No wonder he hasn’t called me.”
After I set my bag on my desk, I collapsed into the comfy leather seat. But not two seconds later, knuckles rapped across my doorframe.
God, I wanted it to be Dom standing there smiling back at me so much I closed my eyes for a second to make a wish about it. But only Travis’ meddling ass was wiggling his fingers when I looked up. “We’re going to lunch. You coming?”
My lips rolled out as I shook my head back at him, knowing for sure that today was not the day to test the limits of Dom’s patience if he saw us together. “Nah. I’m good. Thanks.”
Sighing at my pen as I twisted it against my desk, I looked up at him when he ducked down to catch my attention. “Is everything alright, Faith?”
I gave him a quick smile and nodded, but he only cleared his throat and shrugged back at me. “I realize it’s none of my business or anything.” I grew up with this man. After watching him dog girls out through high school, I knew his whole slippery trying-to-win-your-trust routine by heart. “But I was up on the unit earlier, and our favorite doctor is kind of making things unbearable for everyone today.”
“Meh.” My fingers flipped up from the desk to blow him off. Because even if I wanted to discuss my relationship problems, it would never be with him. “Don’t they all?”
A quick laugh to agree made his shoulders jerk forward as he nodded. “Yeah. Doctors can be a bunch of damn spoiled crybabies. Can’t they?” His fingers waved away from the arm they rested on as he shook his head. “I didn’t mean to pry or anything, especially given me and Dom’s history. I just wanted to make sure everything was...” Two fingers wiggled back at me as he sighed. “I wasn’t sure whether you two were hanging out again, but I thought I should check up on you and make sure you’re alright.”
I don’t think any man liked their girlfriends getting too much attention from other guys, and Dom wasn’t any different. Though Travis had always been one he hated a little more than the rest. Sinking back into my chair, I couldn’t help but find out why that was. “What history?”
Turning his chin slightly with that can’t-wait-to-start-some-shit jerk of his eyes, Travis laughed. “Are you kidding?”
My mouth twisted back at him as I shook my head. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Digging his fingernails into his cheek, he flipped them away long enough to say, “The whole fight at the baseball field thing.” Pressing his knuckles on his chin when I just kept shaking my head, he made a popping noise with his tongue. “Knocked me out cold. Ringing any bells for you?”
“Wow.” Country boys drinking beer and duking it out on a warm summer night was as sacred as church on a Sunday morning around here. I’d seen Dom get into about a hundred fights while we dated, but why he kept that one from me did pique my interest a little. “No. I’m fairly certain I would remember something like that.”
Nodding at the floor, he grinned, thinking he’d planted the seed of doubt in me. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to start anything over something that happened twenty-some years ago. I just” — he peeked up at the something dropping on the floor and yelling right above our heads — “thought I should give you a heads up about what you might be walking into today.”
He shrugged as he lifted his chin to someone in the hallway, the smug little sigh in his voice inviting me to betray the one person in my life who would never do the same to me. “He gets like this occasionally, but you probably know that better than anyone. Huh?”
Honestly, it wasn’t the Dom I knew at all.
Sure, he had a short fuse when stressed and aggravated, but who didn’t? From what I recall, he only ever lost his temper when taking up for someone he perceived to be weaker in some way. How could I ever be mad about that? “No. I can’t say I do. It must be all the stress from work or something, because he doesn’t act that way around me.”
His wide eyes bounced around me for a moment, still so surprised I never fell for any of his tactics. Tapping his fingers on the doorway when the silence grew too long, he shot me with his finger gun on the way out. “Anyhow, I’ll talk to you after lunch.”
Since we were sixteen, Dom always seemed to pop up in the nick of time to save me when I got in over my head with something. So, when the little red notification on my computer screen told me he’d put in an order for me to see one of his patients upstairs, I understood that was my signal to rescue him for once.