Chapter 30 Sloane #2
My lips curve into a real smile as I listen to them talk over each other, telling me something about a new dress Mal bought for Mama that she refuses to wear.
After setting me up with Ash, Mal has been on a matchmaking spree, and Mama is her latest victim.
She’s been nagging her about updating her wardrobe, so she can attract some “sexy granddaddies.” Mal’s words, not mine.
“Just let her see it, Mama!” Mal is saying now. “I’m telling you that you look amazing. Step back a little.”
Mama huffs but backs away from the screen. “I don’t care what neither one of you say. I’m not wearing this little slip of nothing anywhere.”
The camera flips around, and Mama comes into view. Her slender curves are wrapped in a strapless black dress that hits around her knee and hugs every inch of her. My eyes stretch wide and my eyebrows nearly hit my hairline.
“Wow,” I breathe. “Where have you been hiding all of that body, woman?”
“In clothes, where it belongs!” Mama hisses, trying to pull the fabric down her legs and getting annoyed when it reveals more of her cleavage.
Mal flips the camera back around, and I can see her fighting back a laugh. Her amber eyes are shining with amused tears. She’s getting a kick out of this, but I know it’s only a matter of time before Mama starts getting snappy and sends her, and that sexy little dress, packing.
“I think you look incredible!” Mal says as Mama comes back into the screen. “We might have to take you out on the town the next time Ash lets Sloane out of the house.”
Two things happen the moment Ash’s name comes through the speakers: my heart drops into the pit of my stomach as I watch a hint of sadness move across Mama’s face, and the sound of glass breaking pierces the air around me. One makes me jump out of my skin, while the other breaks my heart in two.
I haven’t mentioned dating to Mama since the first time Mal blabbed about it—mainly because Ash and I were done before we started and there’s no real way to tell my mother-in-law I’m sleeping with her son’s best friend—and she’s clearly caught off guard by it being brought up again.
My panicked gaze finds Dom’s apologetic one, making sure he’s okay before flying back to the screen to see if the two women on the phone heard what just happened on my end.
Four amber eyes look back at me—two of them attempting to disguise the sadness shimmering in their irises while the other pair dances with amusement.
“Oh, shit,” Mal whispers. “Is he there right now? So, that’s why you missed work today!”
Mama shakes her head, looking disappointed with her daughter. “Mallory Pearl! That’s none of your business.”
“I—”
Fuck, what do I say? There’s no way I can tell them Ash is here.
It’s one thing to let Mal think he’s the reason why I’ve been unavailable lately, but it’s a completely different thing to insinuate it while Dom is standing right there.
Things are already weird enough between us, and the thought of lying about us makes me feel sick to my stomach.
What’s the alternative? Telling them it’s not Ash, but Dom, standing in your kitchen right now? Yeah, that’ll go over really well. Look at how devastated Mama is! If she ever finds out about you and Dom, she’ll be outraged.
And I’ll deserve it. Every angry look and harsh word. Every second she’ll spend wondering how I could ever claim to love her son when it took nothing but a few orgasms and cuddles for me to fall in love with his best friend. Because I am in love with him. But no one, not even Dom, can ever know.
“You don’t have to finish that sentence, but you can tell me all about it when you buy me lunch tomorrow. Okay, love you! Bye!”
Mal ends the call in a rush, and both of their faces disappear before I can say anything more. I drop the phone on the table and rub my eyes with the heel of my hands. Suddenly, everything hurts. My eyes, my head, my heart. The weight of all of the lies—spoken and unspoken—crushes me like boulders.
I don’t hear Dom move, but I feel the moment he comes up behind me.
That familiar tingle of awareness zipping down my spine just seconds before his hands go to my shoulders and start massaging them gently.
Working the knots out of my muscles with firm swirls and presses that make tears prick in my eyes.
I force them back down. We don’t have a lot of time left together, and I don’t want to spend any more of it crying over things I can’t change.
“Are you okay?”
I pull in a deep, calming breath. “Yes. I’m just not okay with lying to them like that. It feels gross to deceive someone you care about on purpose.”
Dom sighs. “I know exactly what you mean.”
The words shock me, but I don’t know why.
He cares about Mama and Mal as much as I do.
They’ve been his family for a lifetime—the people who protected him from his abusive father when his mom couldn’t and the ones who comforted him when she died—so it shouldn’t surprise me to hear lying to them is taking a toll on him too.
And actually, I don’t think it does surprise me. It just breaks my fucking heart. Because I love him and this is the first time I’ve felt like he’s more anxious to get out of this relationship than I am.
So what if he is? You can’t be angry with him for sticking to the terms you both agreed on.
Unfortunately, the voice in my head is right.
Dom and I made a deal, and my sudden realization about the depth of my feelings for him doesn’t change it.
We’ve got four weeks left together, and even though the thought of letting him go feels impossible right now, at least I won’t have to keep lying to the people I love. Funny how that now includes him.
“Guess it’s a good thing we only have to do it for a few more weeks then.”
His fingers stop moving, frozen over the knots in my shoulders that have come back in full force.
It hurts to even mention the little time we have left together.
Since our first dinner when I set the date, we haven’t discussed it much.
I guess neither one of us wanted to ruin a good thing with talk of it ending, but now I see why we’ve been avoiding it.
I reach behind me, lacing my fingers through his. Dom squeezes my hand lightly before pulling away. “I should finish cleaning up this mess from dinner.”
The line of his shoulders is stiff with tension as he makes his way back to the sink. He takes his time washing the pan he cooked the fish in, scrubbing it from top to bottom with a painstaking thoroughness that tells me everything I need to know about his mood right now.
If I had to guess, the muscle in his jaw is jumping like crazy again. Indicating that his mood has gone from bad to worse. I stare a hole in his back as I try to figure out what to say or do, but after five minutes of listening to him scrub my pan within an inch of its life, I’ve had enough.
I slide out of my seat. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Dom gives me a half grunt, half nod, but he doesn’t turn around or make a joke about helping me get dirty before I clean myself off like he usually does.
Anxiety and worry swirl in my gut as I climb the stairs.
They stick to me like a second skin, refusing to be moved by the scalding hot water, the suds running down my body in the shower, or the shampoo and conditioner I scrub into my scalp even though I never wash my hair at night.
By the time I finish detangling my curls with my fingers, the bathroom is covered in steam, and the glass of my shower is just foggy enough to distort the large frame leaning against the vanity, watching me.
I cut the water and step out, giving Dom a full view of my soaking wet body.
It’s not a new sight for him, but his eyes still turn molten as they study me.
I can’t help but smile to myself as I dry off and put my hair in a wet bun that’s going to be a mess to deal with in the morning.
I saunter past him and throw him a saucy look. “Like what you see, Mr. Alexander?”
He arches a dark brow, looking more like himself than he has all night as he follows me into the bedroom and settles himself on the edge of the bed. “Always, angel.”
“Well, are you going to do anything about it, or are you just going to sit there and stare at me?”
He crosses his arms and runs a thumb over his bottom lip. A gesture I’ve become intimately familiar with. One that I know means he’s trying to decide exactly how he wants me.
Because with me and him, it’s never a question of if.