Chapter Thirty-Four
Dominic
I rolled my luggage to the door and retrieved my keys and wallet from the counter before slipping my aviators over my eyes. I looked around my house and hoped that when I came back, I was a changed man. I hoped that I would better accept that sometimes we couldn’t have it both ways, just like I’d told Maria.
I shoved my wallet and keys into my pocket and opened the door to find all of Maria’s sisters—and I did mean all of them, even Jade—rushing toward me like there was a fire up their asses. What the hell was going on?
“Shit,” Bianca yelled. “My purse is stuck in the door.” Um, okay.
Ignoring her, they all continued pushing me back into my house. “Ohmigod, were you leaving now?” Perla asked, eyeing my luggage. Uhh, that was kind of the exactly what I was doing.
I removed my aviators and put them in my shirt.
“You can’t leave. Not yet,” Allie said, blowing a hair that fell by her lips away from them. “You need to see this.” She waved a big ass binder in my face with both hands.
I cocked a brow and studied each of them. “What?” What could they possibly have to show me?
Bianca stepped inside my house to stand next to her sisters. They were barricading me in. “Listen, Deluca, you can do whatever you want. You can leave and go to Italy, but you have to have all the facts before you get on that plane, and we don’t see you for another six weeks.”
I crossed my arms. “Fine, I’ll bite. What is it?”
Allie continued holding on to the binder for dear life—what was in that thing?—as her eyes connected with mine, and she said, “On more than one occasion you’ve given me advice, Dom, and for the most part, I don’t listen because I’m, well, me. But I hope to hell you’re not like me and that you do listen when I tell you that you will regret getting on that plane if you don’t look at what’s in here.”
I peered down at the binder. It was white and unmarked with no hint as to what was inside. One glance at my watch, and I knew I didn’t have time for this. “I’m going to miss my flight,” I said, trying to leave with some semblance of dignity. Confessing your feelings and not getting the response you were looking for was not exactly something that promoted self-esteem.
Allie shook her head and basically shoved the binder at me. “Look before you leave.” She narrowed her eyes when I didn’t move to uncross my arms and take it from her. “So help me God, Dominic Deluca, I will fly to Italy if I have to and pester your ass.”
I wasn’t sure I was up for their antics. Not today. “Why isn’t Maria here herself? Because we all know that if you want me to see that thing so badly, then whatever is in there has to do with Maria, which means she told you all that I love her.”
Bianca rolled her eyes. “I called that one years ago.”
“It was pretty obvious,” Allie added.
Jade shrugged. “Even I saw it,” she inserted.
I groaned, uncrossing my arms. “So, you all saw it. Why didn’t you say anything to her?”
“It wasn’t for us to say,” Perla answered for all of them.
“Plus, you two are weird, so we couldn’t be sure. There was no use in stirring up trouble for no reason,” Allie said, giving me a lopsided smile.
Meanwhile, I seemed to remember them having no trouble poking us, individually and together, about our bond.
“So how about it? Will you take the binder and see for yourself the kind of mistake you’d be making if you get on that plane?” Allie pushed.
I nodded and took the binder she held out for me. “You want me to read this whole thing? Then I’ll definitely miss my flight.” No question about it.
“So miss it!” Bianca shouted, throwing her head back dramatically. “Seriously, have you been listening? We’re going to leave you with the binder. Just read it. The pages that you’ll be most interested in seeing are tabbed.”
My finger scanned over the yellow tabs sticking out of the pages. “Okay,” I finally gave in. “I’ll read it.”
“Thank you,” Allie said, heaving a sigh. “Other than that, how have you been? Gina did the cutest thing the other day.”
I laughed, because how could I not? This family was unlike anything else. “Just go,” I replied, gesturing toward the door.
I turned to sit down and see what they were making a fuss about. “This better be good,” I said, looking down at the binder.
Great. Fantastic. I was talking to an inanimate object.
I shook my head, unbelieving how messed up things had become. “The tabbed pages,” I spoke to myself, opening the binder and turning to the first one.
Wow, this wasn’t just any binder. It was the dummy copy of the issue Maria had been working on—she’d told me about it very briefly. I took a second and let my eyes roam over the page, the layout. I knew I had to read the article, but I wanted to look through all of it. If this spread was any indication, then Maria knocked it out of the park, just like I knew she would.
There was nothing—and I meant nothing—in this world that Maria couldn’t do. She just needed someone to remind her, and I’d never minded signing up for the job.
Before I sounded even more like a schmuck, I decided to do as asked and read the damn feature.
How to Uncomplicate Friends with Benefits
By Maria Morelli, Editor-in-Chief
I’ve been doing the friends-with-benefits thing for a little over three years, and it’s more difficult than navigating a stick. The car, you guys, get your heads out of the gutter. It’s no surprise sex makes you feel good. It makes you feel empowered and confident. It makes you feel sexy. But it’s more than that, especially when it’s with someone who knows you better than you know yourself. Then those feelings are all over the place. You tell yourself it’s just sex. You make yourself think there’s no way you could have real feelings for him. You remind yourself of the rules. Of which, by the way, you need plenty.
So how can we uncomplicate it? Well, by its very nature, friends with benefits is an arrangement that’s not meant to last forever. But, as people, it’s in our nature to fall into routines, especially those that are hard to break.
I hadn’t thought about that at the time I suggested my best friend and I become FWB. We’d just had sex—great sex—by the way. No, amazing sex. Oh, forget it, it was fantastic sex. The point is, right out of the gate, emotions, or at the very least hormones, were involved. We were horny, we were fresh off a high from being satisfied, and we started something that became bigger than either of us could’ve ever imagined at the time. It’s not a bad deal, I’ll tell you. But it’s not without its complications.
And in truth, I have no idea how to uncomplicate FWB. I’m not sure it can even be done. For me, it has proven to be as complicated as a trigonometry problem.
See, one thing I learned is that the line between friends and lovers is even finer than that of love and hate. You can’t keep them distinct. No, not even with rules. Why? Rules don’t preclude emotions. Emotions! Get! Involved!
In all fairness, he caught feelings before I did, or at the very least before I was smart enough to recognize I did. But, the point is, it happened. To both of us. Did I tell him about my feelings, though? No, of course not. Why would I? Yeah, stupid girl walking.
So what happened exactly? Well, he confessed his feelings first. I was caught off guard. Scared, really. Scared to lose my best friend if I said the wrong thing. Scared to even consider the prospect that I, too, may have broken the no emotions rule and fallen for him. Scared that he would soon come to realize he’d made a mistake. So I said nothing. Well, I said “oh.” Frankly, it was almost as bad as saying “thank you.”
Then, of course, being the good guy he is, he gave me another chance to speak my truth. And still, nothing. But in all fairness, I was fighting hard against my feelings. So hard I wasn’t even sure how I felt.
Until I realized this complicated web we’d tangled left me alone and without the one person I wanted to spend all my days with. The thing is, I really don’t think you can uncomplicate FWB. What you can do, though, is uncomplicate your feelings by being honest about what you’re feeling and speak your truth.
If I would’ve done that after we’d had sex during a chess game (long story), then maybe my life wouldn’t be the mess it is today. Now he’s gone and all I have to hold on to is the memory of the way he looked at me when he said he loves me. There will never be anything in this world that will ever compare to the way I feel when I think about that moment. I don’t believe anyone will ever love me as much as this man loves me. Now I know what you’re thinking—it’s not too late. But it is. For me, it is. He’s about to move to Europe for a job, a job that I know he’s destined for, and I can’t stop him. So here I’ll be, broken because I’ll have to live my days without him—no turning back—and let go of the love I do, in fact, feel for this man.
So would I do it all over again if I had the chance? Yes. Even knowing how thin that line is, how complicated it is, I’d do it again in a heartbeat. But maybe I’d tell him just how much I do love him. How I can’t fathom the idea of taking one more breath without him in my life, so we can skip right past the messy part and get to the good part.
Fuck, Maria. You love me.
She laid it all out there for her readers.
I read the last two paragraphs again. She fucking loved me.
Why didn’t she tell me? How could she think I’d ever sacrifice her for a job? The job didn’t mean shit to me. Not compared to her.
I scrubbed my hand over my face and closed the binder.
My phone rang, and I assumed it was Jeff since I wasn’t on the plane, but he’d have to wait.
I needed to go to Maria. I had to see her. To hear her say it to my face, to tell me in person—she loved me.