Chapter 20
TWENTY
Trey visibly backed down, but something in his expression said he wasn’t all right with Dom’s decision. “Okay, I’m sorry I brought it up,” Trey said.
Dominic stared at him, not believing the words. He’d just laid his soul bare to Trey, told him his worst secrets, and Trey was judging how he chose to handle his shit? “You think I’m a coward, don’t you?”
“What?”
“For not playing my violin at Unbound. You think I’m a coward.”
“I did not say that, Dom. Don’t infer what I’m thinking.”
“But you think I should.”
“Yes, I do, but it’s not my decision. It’s yours.”
“Yes it is, thank you very much.” He was being hard on Trey, trying to regain the balance to their relationship, because all he felt like in that moment was a total mess.
He hated what had happened to him, and he hated how far he’d fallen because it.
Old feelings of failure were trying to bubble up and swallow him whole.
“I said I’m sorry.”
Dom grunted. Trey didn’t sound totally sorry, and that made it all worse.
It also didn’t help that he’d drunk that stupid beer with his anxiety pill, because everything was getting a little fuzzy around the edges, and maybe this wasn’t such a big deal after all.
Except Trey’s suggestion about Unbound was stuck beneath his skin now, like an invisible sliver of glass that ached when he pressed on it.
“Dom, I’m sorry. It was a careless thing to say.”
“I didn’t play my violin for six years onstage because of that bastard.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know. You don’t know how scared I was before I got up there at Off Beat. You don’t know how many times I almost went to other open mikes, and then chickened out.”
Trey’s face pinched. “You had to go when you were ready.”
“No shit.”
The hurt on Trey’s face should have made Dom back down. Trey didn’t deserve his anger, but he was also the only convenient target for his growing frustration.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” Trey asked. “Because I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”
Dom stood and stalked a few feet away. He braced one hand on the rough bark of an oak tree, his back to Trey.
He didn’t understand what was happening, either.
He wasn’t really mad at Trey. He was mad at himself.
Trey was right in that Unbound was the perfect stage to exorcise that final demon, but Dom was too fucking scared.
Scared of the demon, scared of being too nervous, scared of fucking up in front of tens of thousands of people.
He couldn’t take that risk. Not when a recording contract was within XYZ’s grasp.
“Dom?”
“Can I have a minute, please?”
Something behind him rustled, and when Trey spoke, his voice was closer.
“I may not know exactly how you’re feeling right now, but I know fear.
I got in a car and drove for two and a half hours, by myself, sometimes in rush hour, to come and see you.
I almost threw up more times than I can count getting here. ”
Dom glared over his shoulder. “I didn’t ask you to.”
Shock and pain flashed across Trey’s face, almost instantly melting into hardness.
Regret squeezed Dom’s chest. Trey had said a metaphorical fuck-you to his worst fear to see Dom, and Dom was practically pushing him away, and why?
Dom was scared. Scared and angry and maybe a little bit high, and those things together obliterated his brain-to-mouth censor.
“You’re right, you didn’t,” Trey snapped. “I thought we were in a good place, Dom. Why are you pissed at me again?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me. Make me understand what this is.”
Dom was so turned around and emotionally drained that he didn’t have the energy to try and unpack his thoughts.
He didn’t have the energy to take care of Trey and make things okay again.
Dom hadn’t thought about the abuse in such detail in years, and reliving it had been an exercise in extreme control.
He’d refused to lose it in front of Trey, and now all he wanted to do was crawl into bed where it was safe to fall apart, and maybe that was selfish, but he’d earned the right to be fucking selfish.
“Can you just go? Please?” Dom asked.
Trey glanced over his shoulder, as if Dom had spoken to someone else. “Go where?”
“Anywhere but here. I need time alone, okay?”
A riot of emotions passed across Trey’s face—surprise, anger, regret—until he seemed to settle on resigned. “Fine. I get it. You get mad at me and it’s easier to pull away and keep your distance than to actually talk to me.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me it’s not. You did the same damned thing after that guy at Unbound harassed us. You pushed me away, but I was the one dumb enough to come groveling back. I won’t do it a second time.”
“I’m not asking you to grovel, just to give me some fucking space to think.”
Trey crossed his arms, his expression stormy.
“Is this how it will always be with us? You don’t want to deal with something, so you take a break to think, and you leave me twisting in the wind?
Because I can’t handle that, Dom. If we’re going to have a relationship, we need to figure out the bad stuff together, not apart. ”
Dom’s stretched-out patience snapped. “Fine, stay in the yard if you want. I’m going inside.”
He walked away from Trey, allowing anger to fuel each step. He didn’t stop until he was safely behind his bedroom door—which hadn’t had a lock on it since his suicide attempt, and the sight of the smooth knob made his eyes prickle.
Every moment of that decision was clear in his mind.
Already crying by the time he’d reached his room, his heart breaking for a teen he’d never even met having to deal with Mr. Chambers.
Not a part of him hadn’t hurt, inside and out.
His stomach had ached like it had the morning after in that hotel room.
He’d gone straight to the dresser and found the little white tablets.
Dry-swallowed as many as he could before he started choking.
Waiting to fall asleep so it would all be over.
He’d shut himself off from his parents and siblings, from his friends and classmates, and it had ended with him in the hospital’s psychiatric unit.
He’s shut himself off like he was doing with Trey.
Refusing to talk. Holding it in. Silence was his default mode, and he didn’t want to be that guy anymore.
He was a better man when he was with Trey.
Trey had only ever been honest with Dom, while Dom had lied on their first date.
A lie of omission was still a lie, and Trey forgave him. Embraced him.
“I’m an asshole,” he said to the shadows in his room.
His phone beeped with a text.
Bye Dom. C U at Unbound.
Dom’s stomach flipped. He raced back downstairs, and nearly mowed his mother down in the foyer. “Did Trey come inside?”
She blinked puffy eyes at him. “He came in to thank us for our hospitality, but then he left. Honey, did you two have a fight?” Mama Bear came to life in her. “He didn’t leave on account of what happened with Chambers, did he? Because I’ll find that boy and tan his hide if—”
“No, Mom, this wasn’t his fault, it was mine.” Dom checked the street, but he didn’t see Trey in any of the cars. No Maryland license plates.
Mom met him at the front door and wrapped him into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
“I did it. I told him everything, and I felt so naked that all I wanted was to be alone, and that was the wrong thing because it pushed him away. I pushed him away. Again. Why did I do that?”
“Because you don’t like to show other people when you’re in pain. You never have. You’d rather take care of us than the other way around.”
Dom let out a long, deep breath. His mother knew him better than anyone. “Could have used that pep talk ten minutes ago.”
She rubbed his back, then let him go. “Make it right, honey. He came all the way up here because he cares about you. I can see it in his eyes.”
“I almost threw up more times than I can count getting here.”
Dom tried to call Trey, but it went to voice mail.
“Babe, I am so sorry I walked away from you. It was stupid and wrong, and I just . . . I’m sorry.
Please call me back.” He very nearly tacked on the words “I love you” but his mother was right there, and Dom didn’t want Trey to think he was being manipulative.
The first time he said the words, they would be in person, not in a message.
He texted too: So so so so sorry. Stupid to walk away. Please call me. Don’t want to lose you.
Dom didn’t think he could stand that.
He stayed overnight with his parents, too emotionally wrung-out to drive into the city and face down Lincoln.
His face would give it away. He also didn’t sleep much.
Trey kept silent, sending no texts or voice mails.
Not a word, and Dom didn’t blame him. It did keep him up for hours worrying and hating on himself for being such a douche.
Plus every time he shut his eyes, he saw Joseph Chambers.
The man’s face and body and hands were etched into Dom’s brain.
Every touch to show him where to place his fingers on the strings, every press to shift his posture.
The faint scent of his cologne. Memories of the man haunted him until dawn, when it seemed okay to get up and brew a pot of coffee.
Dad was already downstairs drinking a mug and pretending to read the morning paper. Dom knew he was spaced out because he didn’t react to Dom’s entrance at first. It took Dom opening a cupboard for a mug to shake Dad out of his stupor.
“Morning,” Dad said.
“Yeah, hey.” Dom didn’t drink a lot of coffee but he’d need the caffeine today. He didn’t work so maybe he could take a nap later. He stirred a bunch of sugar into the dark brew.
Dad like his coffee strong enough that it could stand up and walk away.
Dom liked his coffee in the form of a vanilla latte with extra whipped cream.
“Rough night?” Dad asked.