Chapter 19
Dominic
“Dom!” Alex’s voice cuts through the party noise, and I turn to find him weaving through the crowd with a drink in each hand and vampire fangs in his mouth. “I’ve been looking for you for ten minutes. This place is a madhouse.”
He’s not wrong. Emma’s transformed the house into full haunted mansion territory, purple and orange lights strung across every surface, fake cobwebs drooping from the ceiling in artistic cascades, a fog machine in the corner pumping mist across the floor like we’re in a low-budget horror movie.
Half the town is packed in here, bumping into each other and spilling drinks and complimenting each other’s costumes with the kind of enthusiasm that only happens when the punch has been spiked for at least an hour.
Apparently Halloween is Emma’s favorite holiday, and there was no way she was skipping it just because she’d just recently had a baby.
Clara’s finally old enough for visitors, though Emma and Theo have her tucked away upstairs snoozing in the nursery with a family friend keeping watch.
Not that it stops either of them from disappearing up the stairs every twenty minutes just to look at her.
“Here.” Alex hands me one of the drinks and pulls me into a hug, clapping my back hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Congrats again on New York, man. I know I already texted you like forty times, but seriously. That fight was incredible to watch. Roman looked like a damn machine out there.”
“Thanks.” I take a sip of whatever he handed me. Cider, spiked. “Roman did all the real work though.”
“Modest as always.” Alex laughs. “How was the city though? You liked it?”
“It was good. I liked it more than I expected.”
“Yeah?” He gives me a look I don’t love, the one he and Jack perfected as kids right before they did something that got all five of us grounded. “Anything else interesting happen while you were out there? Anyone interesting?”
“I visited Dad’s old gym,” I say, deliberately misunderstanding him. “The one on the Lower East Side.”
That knocks the scheming right off his face. “Wait, seriously? You didn’t tell me you were going to do that.”
“It was kind of last minute.”
“How was it?” His voice is softer now.
“It was a lot.” I take another drink of the cider rather than elaborate, and Alex watches me for a second, then nods. He knows when to push and when to leave it alone. It’s one of the reasons he’s easier to talk to than Calvin, who’d want to sit down and process feelings about it for an hour.
“I AM SPEED!” Chloe goes zipping past in a tiny dragon costume, a friend hot on her heels, Gus and Laila chasing after them, both in hot dog outfits, tongue outs, and tails flying.
Alex laughs and watches her go. “I should go check on the food situation,” he says, glancing toward the kitchen.
“Go mingle. Eat something. Talk to a human being who isn’t related to you.
I know that’s challenging for you, but I believe in your ability to make small talk for at least five minutes without scaring anyone off. ”
“Your faith in me is touching.”
He disappears into the crowd, crooked fangs and all, and I scan the room for somewhere to be that doesn’t require excessive socializing.
I spot Maren at one of the high-top tables near the food spread, which seems like a safe option.
She’s got one hand resting on the visible swell of her belly and the other holding a meringue ghost that she’s been nibbling on, a small mountain of crumpled napkins piled around her plate like she’s been stationed there for a while.
“Hey,” I say, dropping into the chair across from Maren. “I forgot to ask the other day when I saw you and Calvin, how’s your second trimester going?”
“Terrible, thanks for asking,” Maren says cheerfully, taking a bite of her meringue ghost. “Better than the first, but the nausea hasn’t fully gotten the memo that it’s supposed to be gone by now.
” She grins at me. “However, the baby’s healthy and everything looks great, so I’m choosing to focus on that and ignore the fact that my body has been staging a full rebellion against me. ”
“Wow, that sounds terrible,” I say with a laugh, not entirely sure if laughing is the right call, but she seems jovial enough about the whole thing.
“It’s terrible and amazing at the same time.
My body is literally growing a whole human being, which is insane when you think about it,” Maren says, rubbing her belly.
“But I am sadly not one of those glowing pregnant women like I would have hoped. More of a pale, nauseous, permanently exhausted situation. On the plus side, I feel like I’m living in a five-star hotel with how much Calvin is waiting on me hand and foot, so there’s that.
” She takes another bite of meringue. “Here’s hoping the third trimester is kinder to me, though I doubt it. ”
“I’ll, uh, keep my fingers crossed for you,” I say. I shift in my chair and rub the back of my neck. “Look, I’m not great at this stuff. But I want you to know that I’m here. For both of you. Whatever you need. I hope you know that.”
I haven’t exactly had a lot of experience with this stuff and have never been that interested in kids myself. Never saw it in the cards for me, though I enjoy being an uncle well enough.
She smiles at me, reaching over and squeezing my hand. “I know, Dom. Calvin does too.”
I sit with her for a while, the party buzzing around us.
Maren’s always been easy company. She doesn’t need you to fill silences.
We watch Calvin and Alex kneel on either side of Chloe, helping her angle the fog machine so it billows underneath her dragon wings while she roars at everyone who walks past. Calvin catches Maren’s eye across the room and blows her a kiss before returning to uncle duties.
“Oh my God!” she gasps suddenly, grabbing my arm hard enough to make me flinch.
“What? What?” I’m half out of my chair, adrenaline spiking. “Is it the baby?”
She swats at me with her free hand. “No, it’s Jayson and Margo!”
She points through the crowd and I follow her finger to the front door, where Jayson, the longtime cook at The Black Lantern, walks in with a pretty dark-haired woman beside him.
Both of them are dressed in matching vampire costumes.
They’re holding hands and looking at each other with the kind of moon-eyed expression that suggests they’ve been together long enough to wear matching outfits unironically.
“Oh, yeah, Jayson and... Margo?” I settle back into my chair, my heart rate returning to normal. “You scared the hell out of me. I thought something was wrong.”
“Something is very right,” Maren corrects me, practically vibrating with excitement. “This is major, Dom. Major developments.”
“They’re together I take it?” I ask. “And this is a good thing?”
Maren nods enthusiastically. “Yes. Okay, so you know Jayson, right? I mean he is genuinely the sweetest person alive, and truly, he’s one of the girls, you know? Down for gossip, always a safe person, gives incredible advice. Just the best.”
I nod, half listening, half still trying to figure out why Margo’s face keeps tugging at something in my memory. Something from a long time ago.
“And Margo is a vet tech at the animal clinic on Harbor Street,” Maren continues.
“We see her whenever we take Laila in, like last month when Laila ate my scarf. Don’t ask.
Anyway, Margo is so wonderful that we even started hiking together.
She’s just the coolest, very grounded, loves animals obviously.
And I set her and Jayson up.” She pauses for dramatic effect, waiting for my reaction.
I give her a blank look because I genuinely don’t know what reaction she’s expecting.
“They are in love, Dom.” She says this like she’s announcing a royal wedding. “Like, serious love. Moving in together love. I made this happen.”
She looks supremely pleased with herself, and I laugh because her excitement is contagious despite my general disinterest in other people’s love lives. “Wow. I had no idea you were such a matchmaker.”
“Well, I’ve been known to dabble,” she says smugly. “I mean, I helped push Lark and Jack together, so you could say my success rate is impeccable. Two for two. Undefeated.”
“You should start a business,” I say dryly.
“Don’t tempt me.” She waves her meringue at me. “I’ve got a gift, Dom. An eye for these things. A sixth sense.”
She gives me a look that makes me wonder if she knows more than she’s letting on about Brooke, but thankfully she turns her attention back to Jayson and Margo, who’ve just spotted her and are heading our way with matching smiles.
As they get closer, I get a better look at Margo and the nagging familiarity sharpens into something concrete.
Miller. The name surfaces before I can even place why.
“Miller,” I say, half to myself. “Danny Miller.”
Maren tilts her head. “Her older brother, yeah. You know him?”
“That’s how I know her. I went to school with her older brother Danny.” She used to sit in the corner doing homework while Danny and I trained. “He and I did boxing together at Dark River High. We weren’t close, but we ran in the same circles and got along well enough.”
“Small town,” Maren says, shrugging like this explains everything, which in Dark River it usually does. “Everyone’s connected to everyone.”
“Hey, Maren!” Jayson calls out as they reach the table, and Margo pulls Maren into a careful hug, clearly mindful of the pregnant belly, squeezing her tight before stepping back to look at her.
“You look amazing,” Margo says. “That pregnancy glow everyone talks about? You’ve got it.”
“I look like a tired raccoon and we both know it, but I love you for lying.” Maren beams at her anyway. “This party is incredible though, right? You’d think it was professionally done.”
“Emma’s got skills.” Margo glances around at the decorations with appreciation. “The fog machine alone is amazing.”