Chapter 6
SIX
Someone banging on his bedroom door woke Dom from a sound sleep. He grumbled, then tugged the blanket over his head. He didn’t want to wake up, not yet. Reality sucked too much.
The old door creaked open. “Baby, it’s past noon,” his mom said.
He grunted.
The bed moved as she sat next to him like she used to when he was sick as a child.
He wasn’t sick, but he ached all over and his head felt stuffy.
After the performance last night, he’d texted his mom that he wanted to come home for the weekend, instead of going back to the apartment he shared with Lincoln.
He needed space from the band, and he’d dragged his exhausted ass into his childhood home at two thirty in the morning, then collapsed in his old bedroom.
A high-pitched female voice screeched something downstairs.
Dom sat up and blinked bleary eyes at his mom. “Starr okay?”
“She’s having a moment. Your father’s with her.”
“Okay.”
His youngest sister, Starr, was sixteen and autistic.
Dominic would never forget the day his parents brought her home.
She was five, he was twelve, and at first she’d scared him.
She yelled for no reason, clapped her hands a lot, and she wouldn’t look anyone in the eye.
But thanks to a lot of love, patience, and special teachers, Starr was in public high school with the best grades in her class.
“What happened?” Mom asked. She ran a hand through his hair, which was probably sticking out in a dozen directions. “You boys have a bad time at the beach?”
“No, everything with the band is great. Every performance went well, and we made some connections.”
“Then what’s got you up here sleeping the day away?”
He rubbed crusties out of his eyes, then pulled his knees up to his chest. Memories of Trey and their time together made his chest ache. “I took my violin down there with me.”
Mom’s eyebrows lifted. “To the beach?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure why, but I did, and there was this club that had an open-mike night on Thursday. XYZ wasn’t booked for anything, so I signed up to play.”
“What did you play?”
He held her gaze, crazy proud to say the next words. “I played my violin, Mom. In front of at least a hundred people.”
Her wide smile was worth every single one of the painful butterflies he’d suffered while waiting to go on that night. “Baby, I am so damned proud of you. I know that wasn’t an easy decision. Was Lincoln with you?”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone. I needed to do it on my own.”
She pulled him into a warm hug, the big kind that only moms could really give. He hugged her back, because he needed this. It was why he’d come home. His mom always understood.
“I love you so much, Dominic, and I am so proud. You faced down one of your biggest nightmares when you got up on that stage.”
“I’m proud of me too.”
She leaned back, her wide brown eyes searching his face. “But that’s not what’s got you twisted up inside, is it? Something else happened.”
“I met someone.” He’d come out to his parents at fourteen, and in all of the years since, he’d never said any variation of those words before. He’d never had time for a boyfriend, and the first guy he really wanted now hated him.
Dom laid the entire story on her, sparing her the details of their sexual encounters, and focusing mostly on the music. On how easy it was to be with Trey, and how Trey made him feel good. Whole. Undamaged. Everything up through last night’s standoff in the green room, and Trey’s parting shots.
“Why does it feel like I got dumped on my ass, when we weren’t even a couple?” Dom asked.
“It sounds like you really connected with this boy. Those kinds of connections are rare.”
“Did you feel like that with Dad?”
“I did. We met at freshman orientation in college, and the first time I spoke to him I remember thinking this is a guy I could marry. I saw myself with him ten years down the road, with a family and a good life. Sure, there have been fights and disagreements, but if you love someone enough you overcome it.”
Dom didn’t love Trey. No one fell in love in twenty-four hours. But he had strong feelings for him, and those feelings were still there. He remembered every sound and every smell, every little detail about being with Trey.
“I hate that he’s mad at me,” Dom said. “But I made a fool out of myself, didn’t I? Pretending we had a chance when I knew all along it was going to fall apart.”
“That doesn’t make you a fool. It makes you human. You felt a connection to this boy, and you wanted to keep it alive.”
“Fat lot of good it did me.”
A slender shape bounced into his room and leapt onto the foot of the bed. Roxy knee-walked to the headboard and flopped around to sit next to him. “Good, you’re awake. I thought you were going to sleep all day like a vampire.”
“Had a late night.” He slung an arm across his sister’s shoulders. “What kind of trouble are you getting into?”
“Hey, my troublemaking days are behind me, pretty boy.”
“So you say.”
“Shut up.” She shoved him with no real strength behind it.
Roxy had been adopted into the family when she was ten, after bouncing around in a series of bad foster homes.
His parents had seen her as a challenge, in a way.
She cussed at everyone, in English and Spanish, she didn’t trust anyone, and she hit other kids at school.
After she’d been kicked out of two public middle schools, his parents had put a then-twelve-year-old Roxy into a Beyond Scared Straight–style program, and after eight hours in a prison, she’d started turning it all around.
Now she was leaving home in August to study engineering at Florida State.
“How many broken hearts are you leaving behind?” Dom asked.
Roxy shrugged. “I don’t know. Two or three.”
He laughed. Dom had made it his business to tell every guy who’d sniffed around his little sister that if they didn’t treat her like a lady, he’d shove his size-thirteen boot up their ass. So far the threats seemed to be working out.
She wasn’t pregnant in high school like all of Trey’s sisters.
Where had that thought come from?
“So what are you doing home?” Roxy asked. “You have a fight with the new guy or something?”
“No, the band is fine. Just needed to be around you guys for a while.”
“Yeah, right, and here I can’t wait to get away.”
“Hey,” Mom said.
“You know what I mean.” Roxy nudged at Mom’s hip with her foot. “Like freedom from parents and stuff. On my own.”
Dom snorted. “Yeah, that’ll last until you realize cafeteria food and takeout is no match for Mom’s cooking.”
“She already promised to mail me cookies every week.”
“Then you’ll definitely put on the freshman fifteen.”
“Shut up.” She shoved him again.
He tickled her until she screeched and ran out of the room yelling for their dad to protect her from evil big brothers.
God, he’d missed his family. They were only a thirty-minute drive from his apartment in the city, but he didn’t visit nearly often enough.
Mom glanced at the open door, then leaned closer. “So when you were playing your violin onstage the other night, did it bring anything up? Emotionally, I mean.”
Dom knew what she was asking about without saying it.
The whole family knew. “Not like I thought it would. I mean, I was super nervous, sure, but as soon as I walked out on that stage, it felt right. I know it took me a long time to get there, and the association might never go away. That’s all part of the recovery process, right? ”
“Yes, it is.” She blinked hard, her eyes shiny. “I always hoped you’d play for people again. You’re magic with that violin.”
“Trey said something similar.”
“And he’s right. He has no idea how strong and special you are. And if he wants to stay mad at you, that’s his loss.”
“Yeah.” Easier said than believed.
“You hungry? I was going to throw some burgers on the grill for lunch.”
His stomach gave an appreciative rumble at the mention of food. “Definitely. Gonna jump in the shower first.”
She kissed his cheek. “See you downstairs.”
Dom rolled out of bed, still aching all over. He checked his phone, uninspired by the text from Lincoln, linking him to a review of last night’s performance. He’d read it later. Nothing from Trey, which didn’t surprise him.
He typed: I really want to talk to you.
Send.
I miss you.
He hesitated before sending that one. Trey might delete them, but he had to try.
He wasn’t ready to let Trey go.
Spending the afternoon with his parents and sisters helped settle the part of Dom that was still shaken up over Trey. They ate lunch outside, then moved into the dining room to play board games. Dom was about to lose everything on his next turn in Monopoly when his phone rang.
Trey.
“Sorry, I gotta take this.” Dom fled the kitchen for the backyard before answering. “Hey.”
“Hi. Is this a bad time?” Trey didn’t sound angry, at least. He kind of sounded . . . tired.
“Not at all. I’m glad you called.”
“I’m not really sure why I did.”
Ouch. “Trey, I am really sorry I didn’t tell you who I was with yesterday.
I mean, I didn’t figure it out until you started talking about Fading Daze and Unbound, and then I was scared you’d kick me out if I said something, and I like you way too much for having just met you.
I wanted to keep spending time with you. ”
Trey let out an audible sigh. “I believe you. I’m glad that’s why, too. You didn’t seem like an intentionally malicious person, taking advantage so you could laugh about it with your friends later.”
“Never.” Dom’s temper rose. “I’m not that guy. None of my friends know about you and me.”
“Why not? Ashamed?”
“Fuck no. What we have is too special for them to try and pick apart.” Dom stared at the new blooms on his dad’s favorite white rosebush and thought of Trey’s daisy tattoo. “I don’t want us to be over.”
Trey was silent for a while, but he hadn’t hung up. Dom could hear faint music in the background. “I’m sorry I insulted you guys last night,” he finally said. “Well, mostly you.”
“You were angry, I get it.”