Chapter 12 Dom
DOM
I hadn’t planned to sit.
But when she’d asked me to stay, something in me folded, not out of guilt or duty. This wasn’t about owing her. It was about…her. And the way her voice cracked just enough to prove she didn’t want to need this.
So I sat. Right at the edge of the bed.
And I thought about it, her request. I’d been running it through every angle. My idiot heart said it meant something while my pragmatic brain filed it under adrenaline, trauma, and proximity. A body reaching for another because being alone was worse.
She shifted, still half-propped on the pillows. I helped her ease down, careful with her shoulder. She didn’t say thank you; she didn’t need to. The way she melted into the sheets was enough.
“Good night, Autumn,” I murmured.
“Night, Dom. Thank you for everything.”
Ah, she said it anyway.
“You bet.”
She was asleep by the time I finished adjusting the corner of the blanket. Her breath went soft in a way that said something had finally stopped hurting.
Lulu, ever the opportunist, climbed up, claimed the sliver of space at Autumn’s side, and pressed close, her chin tucked on her thigh.
I stayed but didn’t lie down. I just kept watch, one hand resting on my knee, the other rubbing inches from Autumn’s shoulder. Close, but not quite touching.
“You’re lucky to have her,” I muttered to Lulu.
The image from the trail stayed with me—her grit, her fire, the intensity in her eyes. In that moment, I wasn’t just some guy who happened to show up.
“And by the way,” I whispered to my canine companion, “how’d you end up with those ears? You part fennec fox or did someone stretch you out in the wash?”
Lulu looked offended.
“All right, all right,” I relented. “You’re a dog. Nothing else. Case closed.”
I leaned back just a little, enough to ease the pressure on my spine. Autumn didn’t stir.
She was still out.
I glanced at Lulu. She was watching me through one cracked eye.
“You’re not gonna repeat this, are you?” I asked her in a whisper.
The mutt didn’t respond, obviously, which I took as consent.
“She’s got guts. More than most people I know. I mean, look at her.” My voice dropped, almost reverent. “She got speared, dislocated her shoulder, and still managed to sass me on that slope.”
Lulu gave a little sigh and tucked her snout closer to Autumn.
“Lucky for her,” I murmured, “I didn’t mind difficult cases.”
I scratched at my jaw.
“Thing is…” I glanced at Autumn again. She was breathing serenely, still not listening. “She deserves someone who doesn’t come with a filing cabinet of no-strings flings and emotional negligence.”
Lulu huffed. Hard to tell if it was agreement or judgment.
“She could have any guy she wanted. Some golden boy with a trust fund and a six-pack. Not some has-been attorney who talks to dogs like they’re licensed therapists.”
“Dom…”
Shit! She was awake.
“You need something?” I asked, already rising.
“Water,” she murmured, trying to sit up. Her eyes were half-lidded but tracking me. Just enough to make me wonder how long she’d been listening.
I filled a glass from the bathroom sink and crouched beside her, holding it out. She wrapped both hands around it. That kind of grip came from experience, from knowing what it meant to go without.
Her hands shook. I closed mine around hers, steadying them as I murmured, “Easy.”
A few strands of hair clung to her mouth, but I brushed them away. Her lashes fluttered, her lips still at the rim of the glass as she finished the water.
When she let go, I took it from her hands.
“You want more?”
She shook her head, so I set the glass on the sink and stood beside her bed.
“You’re still here,” she said.
“Yeah. You want me to go? Turn the lights off?”
“You can go. It’s not fair of me to keep you here. It must’ve been boring as hell. You’ve got better things to do than sit with some meek little doll.”
“You’re not a doll,” I countered.
I’d met the type who weren’t, women who came sharp-edged and loud, proud to prove they didn’t break easy.
But Autumn was tough tough. The kind who didn’t posture, who gritted her teeth through real pain, hauled herself out of hell, and still found room to laugh about it.
She didn’t announce it; she just lived it.
I added, “And you’re not meek. I know what that looks like.”
I’d seen it. Hell, I’d lived under it.
Weakness was calling your own wife soft because she cried when you hit her, and never once praising your kid, even when that kid fought like hell to be better than you.
“Hey,” she whispered, her fingers grazing mine. “I didn’t know asking for water would get you so upset.”
“Upset? No. No.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, already half-asleep again.
She was something. But me? I wasn’t her kind of something. I was the asterisk. The fine print in a dating app bio. And I still remember her cracking that “father-daughter” joke over our matching I Buffaloberry Hill T-shirts.
My gaze dropped to her hand, slack against the edge of the blanket. It was close enough to reach. To hold. To want.
But I didn’t move.
Instead, I rose quietly, brushing off the ache.
Lulu stirred, lifting her head toward me.
“Shh. Stay with her.”
And she did.
While I slipped out, I told myself it was the right call.
Even if it felt nothing like it.