7. Lina
SEVEN
Lina
I was wrong, earlier, when I thought that watching this Gang DILF be humbled by an old lady was the sexiest thing, because watching Gang DILF load the dishwasher is officially the absolute sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
There were other contenders today, like the time he told me, “but I don’t want you to work,” or when I found him cooking for me and his family, but watching this man take charge of clean up after dinner and then navigate a dishwasher is really doing it for me. This is sad. Pathetic, really. This is what Mike has done to you.
I’m watching the muscles and the veins of his deeply tanned forearms move under the intricate black ink of his tattoos as he rinses a plate and loads it properly, allowing for maximum rinse strength, when I catch the end of something he is asking.
“—top off?”
I stare at him, because yes, absolutely, I will take my top off for him if that’s what he’s asking, but now he’s holding up the wine bottle. Fine, this will do. I hold my glass out and he pours the bottle the fancy way, holding at the bottom of the bottle with his thumb firmly in the indent, and why is this hot, too?
I’m suddenly glad I brought my rabbit, because this is a time of penetrative desperation.
I take a sip of the wine and put it down to dry off the platters he’s handwashing (swoon), hearing Frankie giggling with the others in the living room over some board game.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” Dom asks suddenly, in that gentle, steady way of his.
Goddammit, Lina, will you just put your horny eyes away for like two seconds? “Like what?”
He pauses, rinsing a plate off, and I am learning that he is the type of person who thinks before he speaks, instead of blurting out whatever mansplain-y bullshit retort came to mind like Mike would do. “Like I’m a freak,” he decides eventually, with a small chuckle.
“I’m not looking at you like you’re a freak.”
“You’re doing it right now,” he says.
Since I’m not sure how to change a look I don’t think I have, I do my best to rearrange my face into a different composition. “I don’t think you’re a freak. I… I’m surprised. A lot about you is surprising to me.”
“Which part? The freakily neurotic, boring dad part? Who thinks true happiness is when his daughter decides to help match the socks after the laundry is done?”
I really like this man. “Well… kind of?”
He laughs, and it’s a deep, warm sound, but he gives me the space to continue.
“I… just got out of a long relationship with a man who was kind of like you. Well, at least physically,” I start, waving my hand towards him as if that will clarify. “Tall and tattooed. Sexy,” I decide to add on, delighted at the way he smirks while the tips of his ears get red. “But I’m learning that you couldn’t be more different from him, and that’s surprising to me. You have a job, for starters.”
His eyebrows raise. “The bar sounds real low,” he murmurs.
“Oh man, the bar is underground, Dominic. That’s not even the worst of it. You cook. You clean. You do laundry. You look like you make regular doctor’s appointments?—”
“That… makes me a freak?”
I roll my eyes, but I secretly like when he teases me. “You’re not a freak. You’re the opposite of a freak. You seem to be a really, really good father, for fuck’s sake, and you’ve kept this beautiful, intelligent human alive and thriving for what, five years? You’ve done an amazing job raising her, from what I can see. You’ve put her first. You keep doing these normal, well-adjusted, non-freaky things that I’m not used to.”
He silently passes me another platter to dry. “Why does it matter?” he asks after a few moments.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re saying these things like… like they’re good things. Like they’re good surprises. Like you’re comparing us—me and your ex. Why does it matter?”
I add emotionally adept to my list of things I like about Dominic. “I don’t know. It’s hard not to.”
“Why?” he presses, but I can tell he would back off if I asked him to, and I see why he is an effective parent of a little girl.
I shrug. “Because I’m attracted to you.”
He stiffens.
Frankie takes this moment to run into the kitchen. “I want Tita Georgia and Tita Lina to read me my bedtime chapter, Daddy,” she screams. “No offense,” she tacks on.
He winces. “Inside voice, Frankie.”
“Sorry,” she whispers.
Dominic looks at her a little sadly. “You don’t want me to read to you?”
She rolls her eyes. “You read to me every night. Can I have someone different?”
I can tell he is hurt by this in the slight curve of his shoulders. “Sure, Frankie. You have to ask them if it’s okay, though.”
Frankie turns to me. “Can you read me my bedtime chapter?” she grins.
I look over at Dominic, who has silently resumed his dish washing. “Sure, honey. But can you give your dad a big hug and kiss before we start your bedtime routine?”
She sprints over and jumps on his back, climbing up to his shoulders, kissing him on the back of the head. “I love you, Daddy. You can read to me tomorrow.”
He turns off the sink and dries his hands. He somehow maneuvers her so she is clinging like a monkey to the front of his torso. “I love you,” he says, squeezing her tightly. “If you need anything in the middle of the night, Tita Gloria and Tito Ben are in the room next to yours, okay? And I’ll be in the guest house, not far away at all,” he tells himself more than her.
She hops down and takes me by the hand, dragging me out of the kitchen. “We’re on chapter three of the rat book,” she tells me.
I look back at Dominic one more time, and now he is looking at me like I’m a freak.
* * *
I soon find a book called Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitant in my hands. Georgia takes the first half of a chapter titled Where I Went to See Rats and Who Sent Me There . I take the second half. Frankie asks us some really profound questions, ranging from “Do rats get nervous when people watch them?” to “Why do rats die?” We get her dressed in her jammies, brush her hair out of her braids, get her teeth brushed, and tuck her in.
She makes each of us kiss her forehead before we leave, and she is out before we even get the door closed.
“Frankie has to be the easiest five-year-old I’ve ever met,” Georgia whispers to me on our walk back down the stairs.
“Seriously. We have fifth graders who aren’t as well adjusted as her.”
“She’s more mature than Mike,” Georgia grins, and I shove her off the last step.
We grab our wine glasses off the kitchen counter, top ourselves off, and walk outside.
Everyone but Dominic is lounging on the patio and sipping on wine.
“Did she go down okay?” Gloria asks us.
Georgia climbs into Oliver’s lap. “Yeah, she’s amazing.”
“Out like a light,” I add on.
Ben smiles. “Domy’s doing such a good job with her, isn’t he?”
I hum. “Speaking of which, where is he?”
Oliver points down towards the beach. “He walked down to the water.”
I look and see his tall silhouette lit by the moon. “I’m gonna go tell him Frankie went down okay.”
I walk through the lawn, down the little stone staircase and into the dunes, admiring the way his lean body looks against the dim light of the ocean. His jeans are rolled up to his knees, his feet in the water. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey. Did she?—”
“She went down immediately. Asked some really good rat questions. Brushed her teeth for the full two minutes. Told us to tell you she loves you.”
He nods.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. It’s good for her to form secure relationships with people other than me. That’s half the reason we decided to move above Tita Gloria and Tito Ben. It’s way harder on me than it is for her.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you for reading to her and putting her down,” he adds graciously. “It’s your vacation, too, and I really meant when I said that I didn’t want you to work?—”
“It’s okay. I said it was okay. I was being honest. I promise.”
We stand in silence for a moment, listening to the ocean, feeling the occasional wave on our feet.
“Listen,” he says, angling his body towards me.
I look up at him, at his gorgeous face and his dark eyes reflecting the moonlight, his hair a little messy from the wind.
“What you said in the kitchen.”
Ah.
His normally still body gets fidgety, but only a little. He scratches the back of his head, but he still meets my eyes. “That was nice,” he says gently. “It’s nice to be thought of like that.”
“Like you’re hot as fuck?” I grin shamelessly.
His eyes flick down to my mouth. “Yeah,” he says. “And not like a lame dad. It’s been a long time. And coming from a fucking stunning woman… it’s nice.”
I feel warm everywhere.
“But I want to tell you this now, because you deserve honesty.” Damn . “I can’t?—”
“Can’t fuck me?”
His eyes haven’t moved from my mouth. “Can’t get involved. Because Frankie is my everything, and I spend every moment of my day that I’m not working with her. She deserves all of my free time and attention and energy, and I won’t be able to share that with you, or with anyone or anything else, really.”
I add not afraid to have Difficult Conversations to my list of things I like about Dominic.
“And I’m telling myself this as much as I’m telling you this. Because I’m attracted to you, too, but I need to remind myself that I can’t.”
I fall in love a little at the genuine honesty that spills from this man’s mouth. His gentle, calm kindness. It’s a damn shame.
“Okay,” I say. “I hear you. Thank you for telling me.” I’m surprised again, this time because I’m having a mature, adult conversation with a man. “It’s for the best, probably. Mike really fucked me up, and I need to work on New and Improved Real Life Lina. I want to take care of myself for a little bit.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you. For what it’s worth, you seem like a bad ass bitch who don’t need no man,” he offers.
“Thanks,” I grin. “Working on it.”
I take this time to use my toe to draw a literal line in the sand, separating us.
He looks down, laughing, teeth flashing in the moonlight. “Nice.”
“Here’s to us being real adults and communicating and not acting impulsively on our baser sexual impulses,” I say cheerfully, actually quite proud of myself.
We both stare as the ocean washes the line away, wave by wave.
“Is this real-life foreshadowing?” he asks, a smile in his voice.
“It’s giving Final Destination .”
“Like we’re going to drown in the ocean?”
“Like we’re going to bang on the beach.”
His laugh is loud and genuine.
“Just kidding. Too sandy.”
I feel him glancing down at me, his smile reflecting the cool, calm energy of the moon.
* * *
I wake up to the sun shining in my face, my rabbit pal laying on the pillow next to me. I’m so grateful for his services and for my forethought.
I’m also very grateful for the en suite bathrooms that each of our rooms has, and I give my rabbit pal a well-deserved bath.
I throw on my bathing suit and Chill Beach Girl attire and walk out of my room quietly, not wanting to wake Dominic, knowing I’m an early riser. I look to my right, however, and the door to his room is wide open.
His bed is made. The room is spotless.
I walk into the common area. The living room is tidied up, throw pillows back in the corners, blanket refolded and artfully draped on the arm of the couch. The wine glasses we were using last night are clean and on the drying rack in the kitchen.
Riding on a cloud of disbelief, I walk back to the hallway and walk into his room. There isn’t a suitcase or article of clothing in sight. Looking around, I sneak over to the dresser in the corner, opening a drawer. His clothes are neatly folded and put away.
I stand there, horny at the sight of his socks on the left side and boxer briefs on the right side, folded into nice little squares.
Because I am extremely respectful, I gently close the drawer, walk out of the room, and walk out the front door of the house, instead of taking a pair of his clean, folded underwear and stuffing it in my own mouth as I get my rabbit pal dirty again.
* * *
His five-year-old daughter is in the kitchen of the main house, still in her jammies, slicing mangos using one of those plastic Montessori knives for kids.
Her eyes are furrowed in concentration as she deftly navigates the child-safe machete, demonstrating fine motor skills well beyond her five years of age. Maybe there is an early focus on knife skills in gang families.
“Morning,” I tell the kitchen.
Her father is also still in his jammies, looking scrumptious, hair mussed from sleep, barefoot in a pair of black athletic shorts and a faded black t-shirt, pouring what looks like pancake batter into a giant griddle.
“Morning,” he and his daughter chime.
“Coffee?” he asks me, in a delicious voice still scratchy with sleep. I nod. “We just brewed this pot, and there are mugs in the cabinet right above.”
“How do you take your coffee?” Frankie asks me.
“Just milk,” I say, and she gently places the knife down, hops down from the step stool, and runs to the fridge. “Thanks, angel,” I tell her, while I pour myself a cup.
“How’d everyone sleep?” I ask.
“Great,” Frankie says, hopping back up onto the step stool.
“Good,” murmurs Dominic.
Like a true leader, Frankie begins to delegate. “Can you start chopping the strawberries?” Frankie implores. “I’m running a little behind,” she says, while taking the plastic knife and dedicating a singular focus into precise cuts.
“Please,” her dad reminds her.
“Please,” she nods.
“Of course,” I answer, and I weave in and out between her and Dominic, digging out a knife and bowls and berries and serving spoons in a content morning silence. Dominic briefly smiles down at me as I squat down to find a cutting board in the cabinet below him, and I resist the urge to rest my hand on his back as I stand up and move away.
“ Hala ,” Gloria reprimands, as she and Ben walk into the kitchen, and we all freeze as if we’ve been caught doing something very wrong. “I thought I told you I was doing all the cooking.”
“We were up already, Lola,” Frankie tells her. “And I was starving.”
“Next time, come and get me, not your father,” Gloria tells her.
“He was already here when I woke up.”
Gloria glares at Dominic, who holds his hands up. Some pancake batter flies off the end of the spatula he’s holding. Ben hip checks him away from the stove, taking the spatula from his hand.
“Everyone except for Frankie—please have your coffee outside on the patio right now,” Gloria announces to the two people it applies to.
Gloria takes the knife from my hand, and Dom and I shuffle outside.
We sit on two lounge chairs next to one another, facing the ocean, sipping our coffee. It’s a gorgeous morning, just a few clouds in the sky, still cool from the night.
“I thought I was an early riser, but you got me beat.”
I see his broad shoulders shrug from the corner of my eye. “Frankie has woken up at six o’clock in the morning every single day of her life since I sleep-trained her at four months old. It’s a five-year habit for me now.”
I hum.
“I like it, though,” he adds on. “It gives me a lot of time with her before she goes to school, or before I start work. That time in the morning, that calm. It’s a good way to start the day.” He looks at his watch. “I have a call in an hour, and I’ll have had a whole morning with Frankie already.”
“How are you working this week?” I demand to know how one conducts gang meetings or torture over video conference.
“Most, if not all of my work is remote.”
“What about jobs that require more of a… physical presence?” I ask, because I can very stealthily inquire about torture.
He frowns. “What is it do you think I do?”
“You’re a business operator. You… take care of business.” I waggle my eyebrows at him.
“Why are you doing that?” he asks, eyes boring through me in that way parents do. “Why do I feel like we’re not on the same page right now?”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, looking back at the house. “You can be honest with me. I can keep an eye out for Frankie at school, if one of your rivals catches wind of where she goes.”
He sits up and turns his body to face me entirely, but he remains silent, his dark eyes laser-ing into the side of my face.
I make the mistake of looking over. He stares at me with those thick eyelashes, waiting patiently.
“Okay,” I whisper-yell, “I know you’re in a gang. I can keep a secret, though. It’s safe with me.”
“ What? ”
“It’s okay, Dom! I won’t tell?—”
“A gang ? Like a murder and drugs gang? Or like an a capella gang?”
I frown. “What’s an a capella gang?”
“A group of people who sing without instruments.”
“Sing people… to death?”
“What about me screams ‘gang’ to you?!” he continues, incredulous. “Is it my side-hustle as the president of the Parent Teacher Organization ? The grocery lists? My electric car ?”
I gesture frantically down his body. “I don’t know! The hair! The tattoos! You only wear black! And you said someone owed you five hundred grand the other day and couldn’t pay up!”
Dom rubs his face with his hands. His shoulders are shaking, and I can see he is cracking the fuck up through his fingers. In fact, he seems very close to dissolving into hysterical laughter and losing it completely. “I desperately need a haircut. I just don’t have the time. The tattoos are indigenous tribal tattoos. From the Philippines, from where my parents are from. I got them because it’s a dying art. I only wear black because it’s easier than being stylish. And what you overheard on the phone was a cash flow issue with one of my manufacturing companies. One of our biggest clients delayed payment.”
“Right. One of your ‘clients’ for one of your ‘manufacturing companies’ ‘delayed payment,’” I retort, using an abundance of air quotes with my fingers.
He’s still chuckling, and it’s so lovely to watch his face rest into those well-worn lines, making his entire being glow. “I’m a serial entrepreneur, Lina. I start and build and manage and sell businesses. I never know how to tell people what I do without sounding like a giant douche.”
“Sounds like a snotty rich people thing.”
“Exactly,” he says, grinning and maybe wiping tears from his eyes. “It generally is. Especially in finance, which is one of the industries I operate in.”
“And the torture industry is not one of those industries,” I clarify.
“It’s me, Dominic Flores, Executive Chairman of Torture and Weekly Meal Prep,” he deadpans, then, “Frankie, will you please open your eyes?”
Frankie walks outside, again carrying a giant pile of the most breakable plates, this time with her eyes closed.
We both go to stand, but Dom rests his large, warm hand on my shoulder, gently pushing me back down into the chair. He laughs down at me one last time and goes to help his daughter.
I do not think about the feeling of his hand on my skin.
* * *
Since it’s my first official day of Relaxed Lina, I allow myself to work for only three hours. But I make sure to do it in the sun, on the second floor patio outside the guesthouse living room, with an incredible view of the ocean just past the railing. In my bikini, on a lounger, because I am So Chill. Oh, with a glass of chilled wine for extra Chill Points. And a little cooler with some extra bottles.
Assistant principals get summers off, and principals are year-round employees, which is part of the reason I don’t want to go for the principal job. That, and when you’re principal, everything is your decision and your fault. I’d rather do all the grunt work than take all the responsibility and accountability. If something goes wrong at your school, it’s your name and face in the news. Being an AP is lower stakes, less pressure.
But right now, I may as well have the principal spot, considering all the work I’ve done the last six months. That principal paycheck sure would be nice.
The rest of the family just left for a water park, but Dom and I stayed back to work (but I am So Chill while doing it, so it counts for a Relaxed Lina day). I realize it’s probably around lunchtime when I see Dom puttering around the kitchen inside. Navigating the fridge and the cabinets in that gliding, deliberate way of his. We make eye contact through the glass, and I wave. He holds up a bag of chips, pointing to it, mouthing “want some?”
I nod. He brings it and walks through the sliding glass door.
“Hey,” he says, handing me the bag, eyes impressively remaining above my neck.
I gesture towards the door. “You’re letting the air condi—” I start, but he’s already sliding the door shut while raising an eyebrow at me.
“I’m a freak, remember?” he says.
I nod. “How could I forget?”
He waves his hand towards my laptop and stacks of paper resting on the lounge chair by my feet. “This doesn’t look like Relaxing.”
I slam my laptop shut. “I’m done,” I announce.
He eyes me. “How long did you work for?”
“Only three hours. How about you, handsome?” I take a handful of chips and shove them in my mouth.
His mouth twitches. “I’m just taking a lunch break.” He moves to go back inside. “Need anything else?”
I gesture towards my wine and my chips. “I have a well-balanced lunch. Fruit and vegetables. I’ll go in soon to grab a book. But thanks.”
Dom chuckles and opens the door.
Well, Dom chuckles and attempts to open the door.
He whirls towards me with wide eyes.
I heave a sigh. “Awesome.”
“It’s locked.”
“Got that.”
“We’re locked out.”
“I think that’s implied.”
He frantically pats his shorts. “I don’t have my phone. Do you?”
“Nope.”
He starts pacing, alternating between dragging his hands through his hair and jiggling the very locked door, likely making categorized lists about each way his business empires are going to collapse in the next few hours.
I, too, have made a list, but it is titled The Best Things that Could Happen to Me on Vacation , and it only contains one item.
Trapped half-naked on a small patio with sexy Gang DILF and a cooler full of wine.
“I have a meeting in half an hour,” he tells me, as I watch him malfunction.
“Not anymore, you don’t.”
“Not helping.” He peeks over the railing, judging how far up we are on the second floor.
“You definitely won’t be able to take that meeting from the back of an ambulance,” I inform him.
“Fuck.” He continues his pacing.
“Aren’t you in charge, anyway? You can be a no show to a meeting and not owe anyone an explanation.”
“It’s still not ideal.”
“There’s nothing you can do about it right now. We just have to wait for them to get back from the water park.”
“When did they leave?”
I shrug. “Less than an hour ago.”
He slowly slumps down to the ground.
I reach into the cooler and pass him the bottle of wine, prefacing his impending refusal by saying, “We’re going to be here for a few hours. Might as well.”
Dom stares at the bottle for a few moments before reaching over and taking a swig.
* * *
“Spare Sock Subscription. Every month, we send you a replacement for that one sock that disappeared in the dryer.”
Dom sits on the ground of the patio with his back to the railing. He nods, taking another swig straight from the bottle. “Twenty thousand dollars and a sixty percent stake in the company.”
“Wow, generous. You must be a Missing Sock Conspiracy Theorist. Your turn.”
“The Breakup Bar,” he says. “You have to be single to enter. No happy couples allowed.”
I grin. “Plus, you get a free shot if you delete an old text thread on the spot. Fifty thousand dollars and twenty percent stake.”
He thinks for another moment. “Karaoke and Cry. A karaoke bar where every song is sad.”
I snicker. “And you can only order whiskey or red wine,” I add on. “I’m in. Thirty thousand. But why are these getting so depressing? We need some positivity.”
Dom thinks again. “Personal Hype Squad,” he says with a grin.
I laugh out loud.
“A team of strangers follows you around, clapping and cheering and hyping you up at random moments.”
I give Dom a standing ovation. “ Look at you! Relaxing so well! ” I shout a little too loudly.
One bottle down.
* * *
“Well, this is how we die,” I tell him, taking a swig from the bottle. I’ve long since given up on my wine glass.
“We’re in a fully stocked estate, and my family will be home in a few hours to let us out.”
“Yeah, but what if something happens?”
He raises an eyebrow.
“What if society collapses while we’re here and then we have to repopulate the planet?” This wouldn’t be so bad, actually.
The corner of Dom’s mouth twitches, his ears turning red. “The door is glass. If it comes to that, we break it, and then we’re in a fully stocked estate. Also, my daughter’s out there, so I’d appreciate refraining from any and all apocalyptic talk.”
I snort and pass him the bottle. “I think it’s important to be prepared for worst-case scenarios.”
He smirks, taking another sip. “So your worst-case scenario is being stuck with me?”
“No, my worst-case scenario is being stuck with you and not being able to make out. So… this.”
He tries to hide his smile and fails.
Two bottles down.
* * *
“Breakup Movers,” I say. “A moving company that specializes in breakups. We pack your stuff and move it out of your shared living space, throw away their hoodie for you, and blast empowering music.” I think about Mike. “We can also pack and move your ex’s shit out of your living space. And throw their favorite hoodie away.” I turn my head towards him, where he’s also laying on the ground next to me, his feet also propped up on the railing.
“Ten thousand dollars and fifty percent stake in the company,” he decides.
“Thanks, Mark Cuban.” I think again. “Ghosted and Roasted. A coffee shop where baristas do a dramatic reading of your old texts from people who ghosted you, then make you a custom roast based on your pain level.”
“Eh,” he says. “I’m out.”
“Fair.”
“Ex-Box,” he says, with a smile in his voice, filled with pride for his next fledgling business plan. “A subscription service that sends you mystery items your ex still probably has of yours.”
I cackle. “Fifty thousand and thirty percent stake.” I sit up and open the… fourth? Oh boy. The fourth bottle of wine. “Rent-a-Mom. For adults who need someone to nag them about wearing a jacket, remind them to eat their vegetables, and call customer service on their behalf.”
He’s silent.
I look over, and through my wine-addled brain I process that this may have not been the best business pitch, and that I don’t know what happened with Frankie’s mom. If she’s… “Oh shit… Dom?—”
He sits up, takes the bottle from my hand, and takes a deep draw. “It’s okay.”
I’m as mortified as I can be after a bottle and a half of wine. “It’s not. I’m so sorry.”
Dom collapses down on his back again. “I wasn’t totally honest on the beach last night.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m afraid,” he finally murmurs after a long moment. “I’m afraid!” he then proclaims with gusto. I think someone should take it easy on the wine. Two someones. I don’t know though, because I’m really enjoying watching this serious and steady man get silly and loose.
I sit up to look at him. The air wobbles, or maybe I do. I look at him using only one eye. “Of what?”
“It’s not only because of Frankie that I don’t want to get involved. I’m also afraid.”
I keep looking at him.
He takes a deep breath. “I slept with Frankie’s mom once,” he says. “As in, one time. One night. Like?—”
“I know what a one-night stand is, Dom.”
He ignores me. “We met at a bar in Chelsea. I was living in the city at the time. I barely remember it. She was sexy. Loud, bright. Fun. But anyway, nine or ten months later, she buzzed my apartment. She probably remembered where I lived from that one time. I’ll never forget that morning. I was about to head out to the gym. It was a Sunday. She dumped Frankie into my arms.” He pauses again. “She was so small,” he whispers. “Six pounds and change. I had never held a baby in my life before that moment. Her mom threw Frankie’s birth certificate on my coffee table, along with a thing of formula and a pack of diapers. Then she left, and I never saw her again. I didn’t have her phone number or any means of contacting her. I only learned her last name through the birth certificate, but Google never turned up any results. I fucking panicked. I called Tita Gloria.”
This poor man. “Oh shit . That motherfucker,” is all I can come up with.
He laughs without humor. “I think that would technically be me.”
“True. I’ll allow it.” Something’s not checking out, though, knowing Dom’s usual neuroses. “You didn’t use a condom?”
He winces. “No. I was drunk, and she said she was on birth control. I really fucked up. It was just that one time, too. I’m… well, I was , normally really diligent about protection.” He shakes his head, some self-loathing in his eyes. “But anyway. After Frankie’s mom came Viv. We were really serious. I made sure she was okay with Frankie before getting really serious. She was. Until she wasn’t. And she was pretty involved. Until she wasn’t.”
“Uh oh,” I whisper.
He nods. “I bought her a fucking ring.”
“Oh shit.”
“Viv told me she didn’t sign up to be Frankie’s mom a few weeks after I bought that fucking ring.”
“That fucking motherfucker,” I cry.
“ Right? ” Dom half-shouts. “And I’m not the motherfucker in this situation because she didn’t wanna be Frankie’s mom!” We’re no longer making sense. “I can’t hold it against her though. It was a lot. It is a lot. I know it’s a lot to ask of someone. Of a partner.”
The back of my neck prickles. “Yeah, but she still sucks,” I tell him anyway. I will always be on his team.
He finally turns his head to look at me, squinting with one eye in a familiar way. “Thanks for the support, Hype Squad.”
“Should’ve invested in Breakup Movers and Ex-Box early.” I plop down next to him again, the tops of our heads inches apart. “But in all seriousness, I get it.”
He nods, and I feel the hair from the top of his head brush mine. “I’m afraid,” he murmurs again. “For me, and for Frankie.”
“Well, it’s… this wouldn’t be… is not that serious,” I tell him. I just wanna suck your dick , I don’t tell him. Hoo boy. Probably time to take it easy on the wine.
Dom hums.
“I wish you didn’t tell me this while I’m sloshed on Sauv Blanc!” I can’t help but yell. “I’m having a hard time coming up with comforting things to say!”
“That would be a good pitch. Twenty-four-seven breakup hotline.”
“Sucks for them, you’re still hot as fuck!” I declare. “Honey, they did you a favor! You were carrying that whole relationship anyway—your uh… your back doesn’t… shouldn’t...”
“As long as you don’t work as a call operator, one hundred thousand dollars.”
We’re silent for a bit.
“I’m having fun,” Dom says suddenly. “This is better than therapy. It felt good to say that to someone other than my therapist.”
“You should drink more,” I say very unhelpfully.
“I honestly can’t remember the last time I got drunk.”
I stand up for another ovation, but tilt over a bit this time. “ Look at you! Relaxing so well! ”
* * *
“ Yes! ” I sit up with a shout. I lie down again just as quickly. Because of the splitting headache that spikes through my brain. The wood of the deck again cuts into my scalp.
I pause, briefly, to consider the metaphorical implications of my first reaction—when faced with a potential threat—being an unwavering, resounding, “Yes!”
“Huh?” Dom mumbles somewhere next to me, voice like sandpaper.
“What are you… What the fuck happened?” Oliver says from beyond us.
I open one eye. Oliver is standing in the now open sliding door. He looks amused.
Georgia walks up behind him. “This patio looks like a post-battle battlefield.”
“Littered with corpses,” Oliver adds on.
Georgia indicates to the empty wine bottles with her chin. “Discarded weapons.”
Dom slowly sits up next to me, an imprint from the wood on the deck firmly carved into his cheek.
“Actually, you look like a bunch of teenagers who threw a party while their parents were out of town.”
“That is kind of what happened,” I manage to say. I have to pee. So badly. I slowly sit up to do so.
“We were locked out and had nothing else to do,” Dom rasps. “How’s Frankie?”
“Eating dinner. Want me to tell her you’ll see her tomorrow?”
“Please,” he mutters at Oliver, before extending a hand to help me up. “I’m going straight to bed.”
Oliver and Georgia chuckle and walk out.
Dom disappears into the house. I make my way to the bathroom and pee gallons of processed wine with an apology to my liver. I open the door to find Dom holding a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen, because it seems he is perpetually in dad-mode, even after two bottles of wine.
“Here,” he croaks, and I could kiss him if it weren’t for the line drawn in the sand and the imminent vomit threat.
“Thanks.” I swallow three and chug the water on the way to my bedroom.
“Lina,” he calls, from outside his room. I look over. “That was fun, even if I want to die.”
“Look at you!” I say with half a smile. “Relaxing so well!”