34. 34
I smile as the door shuts, but the moment I hear the lock snick into place, my expression drops. Moving quietly just in case Parker hasn’t moved away from the door, I press the truck’s lock button careful to only hit it once and not let the alarm beep, and gently set his truck keys by the column so he’ll see them, but they’re hidden from the street.
Tears threaten, but I keep them in, pretending like I’m back in House of Desire and Parker is just on a date with one of the other girls. That there’s a camera on me and I don’t want it to catch me crying. Pulling out my phone, I scroll down and tap on the name I know will always pick up.
Always come get me.
“Dom,” I say, choking back tears. “Will you come get me?”
Outside of Parker’s neighborhood is a well-lit gas station. Instead of having Dom come to Parker’s, I walk to the station, dropping a pin for him to find me once I’m there. The sound of his car’s engine reaches me before I even see him. As the blue antique muscle car pulls in, his first purchase when he signed with the Thunderhawks, heads turn.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” I say, climbing into the front seat.
“I’ll have you know you interrupted a thrilling night of online Scrabble with Dad and buttered noodles for dinner.”
“You are a ninety-two-year-old grandpa, trapped in a twenty-something’s body.”
“Twenty-something?”
“My mind is too preoccupied to remember your birthday right now.”
My seat belt clicks as I fasten it. He pulls us out of the gas station, going slowly so he doesn’t scrape the bottom of the car.
“Who were you with? Why did they leave you at the gas station? Did you forget how old they were, too?”
I lean back against my seat, staring up at the cream-colored ceiling above me.
“They didn’t leave me at the gas station.”
“Then how did you get here?” he asks, refusing to look at me, giving me privacy in case I’m going to cry. Our unspoken agreement all through life. We can cry with each other, without fear of being made fun of, and the other will not watch. The first time a guy stood me up for the winter dance in eighth grade, Dom sat in my closet to give me privacy while I cried and he told me jokes through the door to try to make me feel better.
“I was with Parker. ”
“I’ll kill him,” he says with no heat behind it. He knows I’d never let him fulfill the promise.
“His ex-wife showed up, Dom.”
I know I shocked him by the complete and utter lack of any response. No sharp intake of breath. No laughing. No questions.
Nothing but the sound of the road and someone honking to our left.
A few tears escape as a flash of anger at the universe heats my insides. I feel like Parker and I have fought to get to this moment, without cameras and production assistants and a schedule, where we can try to give this relationship a chance. And the second we have a date, the best date of my life, the other shoe drops. My heart is breaking, worried this is going to end and I’ll never get to feel Parker’s lips on mine ever again.
When I can barely stand the silence anymore, I smack Dom’s arm.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“I just dropped a bomb and you didn’t say anything.”
“What do you want me to say?” he asks, looking over at me as we pull up at a stoplight, the red glow falling on his face.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” I sigh. Maybe if he starts, I’ll be able to figure out what to say. How I feel.
“I’m actually not really thinking anything.”
“Not a single thought?” The light turns green and we continue on to my house.
“I didn’t realize he had an ex-wife. How do you feel about that?” He keeps his tone placid and nonjudgmental.
“I don’t mind. We all have pasts. His just involves a previous marriage,” I say. And it’s true. I don’t mind he was married before. But I guess I never expected that past to show up on the doorstep .
On our first date.
“What’s wrong then? And don’t lie and say nothing. I know you better than that.”
“I’m pretty much trying to figure out if I’m still going to have a boyfriend after tonight.”
“He’s your boyfriend? But he’s back at his house with his ex-wife? And you’re okay with that?”
“TBD on the boyfriend thing, but until I’m told otherwise, yes. It’s new. Tonight was our first date being together. And yes, he’s with her. In fact, I told him to talk to her. They have a history, not that I have any idea what that history is, and I could tell how torn he was on wanting me to stay and needing to talk to her. I made the decision for him.”
Saying it out loud makes me feel like I made the worst mistake of my life.
“That’s pretty damn understanding of you.”
“If you had an ex show up on your doorstep finally ready to talk, wouldn’t you want to take the opportunity?” I ask him. A part of me is really torn. Do I like that I’m not with Parker? No. I wish I could be there for him during this. But they need time to work through whatever happened, so Parker can finally have closure.
“I guess so, depending on the circumstances around the breakup.”
We ride in silence for a while. I turn up the radio when my favorite song comes on, singing softly under my breath.
“What if I lose him?” I whisper when the song is over, putting voice to my biggest fear.
“If you lose him to his ex-wife, then I don’t really think you ever had him to begin with. ”
We pull into my driveway and Dom shuts off the car, but neither of us get out. If I needed to sit here for two hours, he’d sit here for every moment.
And only complain when he got hungry.
“What do you want?” he asks, turning to look at me.
“I want him.”
“Then just make sure he knows that you want him, even if you have to take some time and space.”
I nod and undo my seatbelt and open the door. “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”
“Make sure to leave me a five-star review on Uber,” he says, turning over the engine.
My footsteps feel slow and leaden, but eventually I make it inside the house, Dominic waiting until I close my front door before he leaves, just as Dad taught him.
A shower sounds amazing and without waiting another second, I make my way into my bathroom. The pale-yellow room usually makes me happy. White tile goes halfway up the wall. At first, I hated how everything was original to the house built in the 1960s, but as I’ve lived here, the style has grown on me.
I reach past my white shower curtain with various colored flowers. Giving the hot water tap a quarter turn, I count to ten, and then continue turning, the water immediately steaming. Adding some cool, I find the perfect temperature. The water runs for a moment as I strip out of my clothes.
Stepping into the water, I think about what Dom said, and I realize he’s right. If Parker wants to go back to his ex-wife, then there’s nothing I can do about that. Nothing I would want to do .
I want Parker to be happy and if that’s with her, then all I can do is remove myself from the picture.