Chapter 21 #2
I point toward the back of the shop where the bathroom is located, and he shrugs, a little smirk tugging at his lips.
He takes his sweet time finding new clothes to wear, and I have to wonder if a simple cabinet search really causes all that muscle movement in a man’s back.
It’s just...
Here’s the thing. There’s a certain kind of muscular that maintains a perfect balance, and Dom walks that line beautifully.
He’s not bodybuilder muscular. He’s not even gym muscular.
He’s hard work muscular. The kind that comes from years of applied labor; the kind that made lifting me into his arms seem as easy as breathing.
I grit my teeth and sit down on the couch while Dominic continues to search.
“I refuse to look at you any more,” I tell him, “so you may as well hurry.”
“I assure you, I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean,” he says in an easy voice. “Found it.” He holds up a bundle of clothes, and I roll my eyes as he and his shirtless self weave between the workbenches and table saw and then disappear out of sight, into the bathroom.
I don’t know why I have to force myself not to smile or laugh.
I settle on one end of the couch while he’s gone, staring aimlessly around as I wait. When Dom returns, looking much better in a dry t-shirt and sweatpants, he sits at the other end, leaving a cushion’s length of space between us.
He glances at me, the laughter gone from his eyes. It’s been replaced by something more serious, and my heart sinks.
I guess it’s time to talk.
“Did you mean what you said?” Dom says finally. “That we should let them date?”
No need to specify who they are.
“I—” I begin, but I break off. Because it’s complicated, as things with Alvina always are.
Do I want her to date Dom’s dad? No. Definitely not. It’s viscerally wrong.
But…
She actually seems happy. Can I really be selfish and take that away from her?
“Selfish?” Dom says when I ask this question. His eyes have widened, his brows furrowed, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “In what universe is it selfish to try to stop a train wreck?”
He’s most likely correct. History and experience suggest their relationship won’t go well. And yet…
“But what if it’s not a train wreck?” I find myself saying, a note of pathetic pleading in my voice.
“People don’t change, Reese!” The words burst out of him, and I startle as they sink in, daggers to my heart.
“People can change,” I bite back. My nails dig into my palms as I clench my hands, a prick of pain to quell the rising tide in my chest, the dam that will burst if I let it. “Of course people can change. People change all the time.”
I have to believe people can change.
I blink my lids rapidly as I turn my head, looking away and trying to banish the burning in my eyes.
“Fine,” Dominic says from the other end of the couch.
“Let’s assume people can change.” A hollow laugh escapes him.
“Our parents get married and live happily ever after. Picture their wedding, Reese. The dress your mom wears, and they’ll probably get married in the chapel here.
You and I attend the wedding. We’re brother and sister now. ”
The silence after he says this is thick and heavy and horrible. It presses on my chest until I can’t breathe, until tears trickle down my cheeks because I’m useless at trying to stop them.
When Dom speaks again, his voice is blank, no emotion detectable. “And you’re okay with all of this?”
My heart is ripping.
“Reese,” he says when I don’t answer. “I’m going to say it, all right?” A beat of silence, and then—“You know as well as I do that we can never be—be siblings.” He spits the word out, bitter and poisonous. “That’s not going to work. It will never work, and you know it.”
Despite my desire to hide, to run, to retreat to safety, I can’t—because Dom no longer sounds emotionless. My gaze is dragged helplessly to him, over a neutral expression to a pair of eyes that betray what his face conceals.
Pain. Hurt. Disbelief that I could sign off on something that could be so painful for both of us, and with no guaranteed end.
“Dom,” I begin, sighing, but he shakes his head.
“You’re scared of your mom,” he says, and he sounds so tired now.
“She drives you nuts. You don’t want to be like her, and yet that’s where we’re ending up again, Reese.
Trying to have the best of both worlds with no accountability.
Just like throwing out marriage proposals you didn’t mean back then, like it was nothing—”
“Hey,” I say sharply as my ripping heart tears further. What hurts isn’t that he’s saying these things—it’s that most of them are true. “It wasn’t nothing. Maybe it was ill-timed, but I wanted to marry you. I meant it.”
“How could you have meant it?” Dom says. He pushes himself off the couch, his shoulders tense as he puts his hands on his hips.
I watch him rise, watch him turn away from me and take some deep breaths. Then he faces me again.
“We’d only known each other a few months, Reese. That’s not enough time to—to know someone well enough,” he says, shaking his head. “Or to love them well enough. You didn’t think it through at all—you couldn’t have. It was a whim.”
“I thought it through,” I snap. “I loved you.”
“I thought you did,” he says quietly. “I genuinely thought you did—until you said we should get married. And then it felt like you cared so little you were willing to throw out marriage as a Band-Aid, knowing it wouldn’t work and diving in anyway.”
“I loved you,” I say as the accusation pierces. “And you loved me; don’t pretend you didn’t.”
His eyes jump to mine, and something electric passes between us—not painful but tauntingly bright with possibility, especially given the wounds we’re digging into tonight.
I didn’t expect this conversation to happen here, or now. I knew it would probably come up at some point. But I wasn’t prepared, and I don’t think Dom was either.
We stare at each other for a moment, and then he blinks and looks away, taking a step back. He runs one hand over his face.
“I shouldn’t have lost my temper. Or brought the proposal up,” he adds, the words stiff. “Sorry.”
I deflate. “It’s fine. You’re not—” I break off, trying to figure out the words I want. “You’re not wrong. About a lot of it.”
“I know things aren’t black and white with Alvina,” he says grudgingly.
“They’re not,” I admit. “But it’s true that you shouldn’t have to deal with her mess.”
He returns to the couch, sitting at the other end once more and staring ahead in silence. He’s waiting for me, I know; waiting for me to decide what I want to do.
He’ll stay there until I make a choice. He probably won’t even say anything else. But he won’t leave, because he feels as much as I do that we need some sort of agreement between us if we want to move forward—as friends, or acquaintances, or as people who simply exist in the same town.
The minutes stretch on as I put myself through Olympic-level mental gymnastics, asking myself questions and listening for answers.
“All I know,” I finally say, “is that I don’t want them to date. I don’t want them to get married.”
I don’t want to be your sister, I add in my head.
He looks slowly at me, raising one brow. “That will mean your mom’s heart might get broken. If she really likes my dad, she might be hurt.”
I swallow and admit the searing truth to myself, just once: that even though she may love the people in her life, Alvina will never love anyone more than she loves herself.
“I know,” I say hoarsely.
Dom gives a decisive nod, although nothing shows on his face. He stands up again and gestures to the couch he’s vacated. “What we’re doing isn’t working,” he says without looking at me; he’s already heading for the door. “We’ll figure out a new plan tomorrow.”
“So…” I begin, clearing my throat hopefully. “I can stay here?”
He stops with his hand on the door and turns around, blinking at me. “Why wouldn’t you? Did you want to stay at the hardware store?”
“I—no,” I say, my cheeks heating. “I—since we argued…” I fade into silence.
Dom shakes his head and looks at me with something unpleasantly like pity. “It’s disturbing to me how conditional you think love really is.”
It’s one final blow to my heart, and I don’t think he even realizes how much it hurts. He just leans down and picks up my duffle bag.
“Here,” he says. He tosses the bag toward me, harder and higher than necessary, and although I snatch it from the air, it finds my hands sideways.
I discover too late that the bag’s not zipped. My phone falls out, clunking loudly on my head and then to the floor, followed by the bra I wish I were wearing—
—And then, in slow motion, out tumbles my little cardboard box full of mementos from my time with Dom.
The contents fall like they’ve been waiting for this moment; the ticket stubs flutter like flower petals, the wrapped candy clicks and rustles in a pleasant way.
And the hat? The hat somehow defies all laws of physics and chance. It tumbles and rolls until it comes to a stop—
Right at Dominic’s feet.
For a brief second, even the rain overhead seems to quiet.
Horror rises in my chest, horror and mortification, as I watch the situation unfold. Dom is staring down at the hat now, his brow furrowing, and when he bends down to pick it up, I move.