Chapter 21
I have never had so many unflattering things to say about this man, but it occurs to me now that the back of his head looks stupid, and his hands look dumb on the steering wheel of his truck, and he’s mean.
“You’re mean!” I shout over the rain and the wind, thumping my hand against the cab window again. “You are a mean person!”
My would-be tirade dies when my wet hair gets blown into my mouth, and I swipe at my face, spitting and blowing raspberries like a very bad beatboxer. The only saving grace of the moment is that no one is there to witness it.
The truck rumbles down First and then turns onto a residential road, one with gorgeous trees and small homes; it’s the kind of neighborhood you’d see in a movie from the nineties. Nostalgic and reminiscent, even in the dark and the pouring rain.
Because of my current predicament and mood, I refuse to be charmed. I am dressed in silky pajamas, my hair plastered to my head and face, and I am cold. The man driving this vehicle clearly never loved me. In fact, I think he might be a sociopath.
“You’re psycho!” I shout at him. I curl into a ball, my arms around my knees to block as much of the wind as possible.
I’m pretty sure he can’t hear anything I’m saying, but I keep yelling anyway.
“I’m psycho too, for loving you back then!
This is cruel and unusual and I will put your face on a dartboard—”
But I break off when the truck begins to slow in front of a small house, eventually rolling to a stop. It’s a cute place, from what I can see through my half-closed, rain-splattered eyes. If the situation were vastly different, I’d be interested in taking a closer look.
When Dom opens the driver’s door, a light in the cab blinks on, and he gets out of the truck. Then he saunters—yes, SAUNTERS—to the side and looks down at where I’m still curled up in the bed.
“I know for a fact you’re terrible at darts,” he yells over the storm.
My jaw drops. It snaps shut again when rain starts to blow into my mouth.
He smirks and then makes his way to the back of the truck, unlatching the door and beckoning for me to get out.
My annoyance and stubbornness urge me to stay exactly where I am, but survival instincts say otherwise. I scurry toward him, preparing myself mentally to unfold my body and walk barefoot when I hop down—
But that moment never comes. The ridges of the metal bed dig painfully into my knees as I crawl, and then suddenly he’s holding me, hoisting me up.
It is worth noting, by the way, that this process is neither gentle nor romantic. There’s a good deal of airborne manhandling that occurs, and I may as well be a bag of flour cradled in his arms.
I will never admit that I prefer this to walking myself, simply because I am so, so cold.
He ducks his head closer so I can hear him. “Still worried I’m going to drop you?” he breathes down to me as he strides around the truck and then up the driveway.
“What if I get hypothermia?” I say through shivers. “Did you ever think of that?”
I feel rather than hear his snort of laughter, because the rain is still torrential.
I turn my head to protect what I can of my face, but the rest of my body flops with every step he takes.
He tromps all the way up the driveway and then into a yard of some kind; thirty seconds later he comes to a halt and swings me to my feet without warning.
I yelp, but his hand is already at the small of my back, pushing me forward through a door as he opens it.
I stumble helplessly over a threshold and feel relief rush over me at once. I’m inside at last. The air is still, the rain loud on the roof overhead. Dominic bumps into me as he comes in behind and then closes the door, officially sealing out the storm.
And based on the familiar scent of wood shavings, I think I know where I am.
“Dom,” I say, my voice shaky from my continued shivers but also from triumph. “Is this your shed?” I glance around, but I can’t see much by the light of the windows. “Are you going to let me live in your shed after all?”
His voice emerges from the darkness behind me, firm with warning. “Only temporarily, and only because sleeping in a hardware shop is pathetic, Berkeley. Okay? That’s the only reason.” I hear a shuffling sound, and then a light pops on overhead.
Dominic strides over to a large cabinet against the wall while I peer at my surroundings; there are some metal shelves on one side, not unlike those at Berk’s, and on the other side is a long, ancient-looking couch and a mini fridge.
Toward the back of the shop are some work benches, a saw, and a pegboard wall full of tools.
Comfort and fond memories rush back to me at the sight, and the indescribable sense of home I always get when I’m reminded of my dad. He was always safe for me in a way Alvina never has been.
It’s a feeling, I realize, that Dominic has always given me too. Even after all this time; even when we broke up.
By the time he returns to me, my lips are curled into a smile. He raises one questioning brow and holds up a threadbare towel.
I glance past him and realize the big wooden cabinet seems to be full of linens and maybe clothes. I don’t get a chance to inspect it, though, because a second later Dom has tossed the towel over my head.
I startle, about to protest, but when a gentle touch begins drying my hair, I freeze.
“What’s with the smile?” Dom says. And although his voice is hoarse, his hands work slowly and softly.
It takes me a second to find words, because this is the last thing I expected to happen. “Uh,” I say distractedly as his touch through the towel moves to the base of my neck, wringing the water out of my hair as he goes. “It smells good in here.”
He hums but doesn’t speak; a minute or two goes by, in fact, and he doesn’t say anything else until he pulls the towel off my head and drapes it around my shoulders.
Then he points to the cabinet against the wall.
“Find something to wear,” he says quietly, his gaze not meeting mine. “Change in the bathroom. I’ll be back.”
I give a wide-eyed nod, speechless once more. I watch as he heads back out the door, a gust of wind rushing in when he opens it and then ceasing when it closes.
I shiver—from the cold, I’m sure, and not for any other reason—and hurry over to the open cabinet.
The sloppy footprints of numb feet follow me as the chill begins to set in, and I stare into the wardrobe for only a second before reaching in and grabbing some clothes.
I find a soft long-sleeved shirt and a pair of athletic shorts and then contemplate digging to see if there’s somehow a spare bra in here.
There is not, of course. So I deem the shirt and shorts good enough and search for the bathroom.
It’s at the very back, through a door located past the work benches, and it’s the tiniest bathroom I’ve ever been in.
I manage to change by contorting slightly, after which I roll up the sleeves of Dom’s shirt and then wring my wet pajamas out over the toilet.
They need to be hung up to dry, but there’s no place in here to do it, so I go back out to find somewhere else.
Dominic has already returned when I emerge from the little bathroom. He’s still drenched himself, leaning against the closed door with his arms folded, looking lost in thought. My duffle is on the floor next to him, I see with relief.
I hang my wet pajamas on the door knob of the bathroom door and then move toward him. His basketball shorts hit just below my knees, the shirt similarly too big, but they’re blissfully comfortable. “Thanks,” I say.
He startles, his gaze swinging to me as he straightens up.
I hold one foot out, wiggling it. “Uh, do you happen to have any socks?”
Dom’s green eyes travel up and down my body, his throat bobbing as he swallows. Then he looks away, takes a deep breath, and gestures to the cabinet. “There should be some in there,” he says in a hoarse voice.
I nod, feeling self-conscious. He seems content to stay where he is, though, so I help myself, searching through the closet until I find a pair of mismatched white socks. I sigh happily when I pull them on, as high up my legs as they’ll go, and then glance at Dom.
He’s still determinedly not looking at me.
“So,” I say into the silence that’s starting to feel a tad uncomfortable.
His eyes jump back to me for only a second before they dart away again, and then he moves to the cabinet. After digging around briefly, he holds up an old bomber jacket and tosses it at me over his shoulder. “Go ahead and put this on.”
I barely catch it. “Oh,” I say in surprise. “That’s okay. I’m actually not—”
“Just put the jacket on, Berkeley.”
I put the jacket on.
I am still braless, after all.
Dom relaxes a bit when he turns around and sees me zipping the jacket up, some of the tension leaking out of his frame. He sighs tiredly and gestures to the couch. “Sit,” he says. “We need to talk.”
Such doom-filled words, normally, and yet all I feel at hearing them is a faint sense of relief. “I agree,” I say with a skeptical nod, “but do you want to change first?”
He glances down at his wet clothes, the trail of water he’s left on the floor, and looks faintly surprised to see how waterlogged he still is.
“Yeah,” he says. “I probably should.”
And then—AND THEN—he begins undressing.
Right there, right in front of me, he removes his sweatshirt, letting it slop to the polished concrete floor.
That’s not so bad, I think. Just one layer. It’s not like he’s getting naked—
But then comes the shirt. It’s plastered to his torso, so much that I can see every muscle. They are plentiful, those muscles, but I do not stare, because I am a lady. I just glance casually instead, a little peek from the corner of my eye while I pretend to scratch my head.
When he begins peeling the shirt off, I give up my charade.
“Dom,” I snap at him.
He emerges from the shirt a second later, messy-haired, and raises one brow at me. “What?” he says innocently.
But I swear there’s laughter in his eyes.