Chapter 33 #2
Eventually I crane my neck, trying to hear better, until I spot the waiter headed to our table.
He sets a plate in front of me, and I give him a distracted but genuine smile—because people who are mean to the waiter are the worst—before turning my attention back to the other side of the column.
Dom speaks to the server for a second before he whisks off again, leaving us with our food.
I strain my ears. I selectively tune out the soft music. I become very familiar with the swirling marble pattern on this very large column.
But after a second of trying to listen, I turn to Dominic, my shoulders tight in frustration.
“I still can’t hear anything,” I say with a frown.
“Sometimes I catch snippets of their tone, but that’s it.
They could be getting engaged over there.
They could be discussing moving in together. They could be planning their future.”
A future where Dom and I exchange Christmas cards as stepsiblings. I want to vomit.
My eyes fall to the plates on our table, and I brighten. The food portions are small here, which I can accept as a fact of fancy foreign cuisine, but Dominic’s dish seems to be some sort of steak with vegetables.
My stomach rumbles.
I turn my eyes to my own plate, and my rumbling stomach makes a different sound—the sound a confused dog makes when it tilts its head and lifts its little doggy eyebrows.
Leaning closer to the plate, I frown. My food is…
Well, it’s not presently identifiable.
There’s crusty bread that looks amazing, but it’s spread with something tannish brown I’ve never seen before.
I pick up one of the pieces of bread and give the whole thing a few sniffs. A possibility flits into my mind, one I am loath to accept, but one that solidifies when I glance up to see Dom watching me.
The list of French foods I know I wouldn’t recognize on sight runs through my brain. It is short, because I don’t know much about French dining, but it does contain a strong possibility.
“So,” I say to Dom. “This is—” Giving my crusty bread another sniff and catching whiff of something faintly…meaty…my eyes widen, my heart sinking. “This is not escargot. So…foie gras?”
“Fatty goose liver?” Dom says pleasantly, his voice amused. “Why yes. Yes, it is.”
I groan and put the bread back on my plate. The crust is just hard enough to clink against the porcelain dish, which says very promising things about how soft the fluffy inside probably is, but I’m not going to get to taste it.
I do not eat meat in spreadable form. It is a rule I didn’t know I had, but I have learned, right this very moment, that it is a solid no.
I might even prefer Alvina’s offering of dry turkey.
“I did wonder when you ordered,” Dom says, still far too conversational about my food.
“I pointed without looking,” I say miserably. Then I glare at him. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“Because it’s not my job to stop you or weigh in on your restaurant order, Berkeley.”
Ah. Back to Berkeley, I see.
“Besides,” he goes on after a pause, “you seemed so confident when you jabbed randomly at the menu.”
“Was it expensive?” I say, looking around the table, but of course the menus are already gone. “Who’s paying for this?”
“I am,” he says with a smile. Then he slides his plate to the middle of the table and begins dishing a few veggies onto my own, without hesitation and without awkwardness.
I stare at him as something painful but wonderful rises in my chest, a familiar sensation that’s been trying to appear more and more recently.
“Thank you,” I say. “I—”
But I break off at a sound from the other side of the column, and Dominic’s hands stop with a carrot halfway to my plate. Our heads turn at the same time, and I nod in affirmation when Dom raises his brows at me in question.
That’s Alvina; I can hear her for the first time. And she sounds upset. I recognize the tone, even if the words themselves are too garbled to understand.
I motion at Dominic to stay quiet before standing up and inching closer to the column separating our space from our parents’.
Dom scoots his chair out and joins me, and I’m glad not to see anyone watching us when I look around, because we’re acting very weird.
I scoot around to the back of the column, as far as I can go before I no longer fit in the space between the marble and the wall; the heat of Dom’s body is at my back, his hand low on my spine as though to hold me up.
I ignore the jump of my pulse, the way it pounds in my ears, and focus my attention on Alvina and Daryl instead.
For a moment there’s only a low murmur of voices, deep and soothing, which must be Daryl. I recognize when Alvina speaks, because it’s snappish and accompanied by the emphatic clink of silverware. This is followed by the first words I can actually make out:
“I need the ladies’ room. I’ll be back,” my mother says stiffly.
“Vee—” Daryl begins, his voice louder too, but it’s followed by more clinking silverware.
Dom and I both startle at their words, our heads whipping as one toward the Restrooms sign hanging opposite our table.
She’s going to see us. If Alvina gets up to go to the bathroom, she’ll pass right by our table.
“Hide,” I say automatically—as though there’s anywhere to go or anything to do. We’re squashed against the wall as it is. “Hide!”
Dominic points out the obvious immediately. “Where am I supposed to—”
“She’s going to see!”
“There’s physically nowhere to go, Berkeley,” he says, and although he sounds exasperated, I can see the worry on his shadowed face.
The best we can hope for is that Alvina isn’t paying attention. If we both turn to the wall and squeeze in as far as possible, she might not spot us?
No. Of course she will.
So, with only the slightest hesitation, I decide to seize the opportunity presenting itself.
And in my defense—IN MY DEFENSE—I think my actions are very understandable. Dominic is right there and he smells very good and I think I might still be in love with him. So all these factors need to be taken into account when examining what happens next.
“Pretend to kiss me again,” I tell him. My voice is hoarse and somewhat desperate, but when I slide my hands over his chest, they’re steady. “Come on. Duck your head all the way down. Hide us.”
He just stares at me, which is probably wise. I might be insane.
But I go on anyway, my hands now tugging at his shirt of their own accord, pulling him closer as I press my back to the wall. “Come on!”
Dom’s eyes have widened, but it’s not just surprise I see there. He gives his head a dazed shake as my mother and Daryl exchange low words on the other side of the column.
“I can’t,” he says quietly, his voice rough. “I can’t—” A shuddered exhale slips out of him. “I can’t pretend to kiss you again, Reese.”
“Then…kiss me for real.” I swallow, my hands grasping at the fabric of his shirt as though I’ll drown. “Really kiss me.”
Time stops. The rise and fall of his chest stops. Everything except my heart.
Dom wars with himself for a brief second, a battle that plays out in his eyes, before leaning down and pressing a kiss not to my lips but to my forehead. It’s fierce, achingly tender, even possessive, and it’s far too short.
Like a stamp at the post office, stamped on errant packages: return to sender. His lips on my skin do the same—return to Dominic. Then he leans back, looking down at me once more.
“You asked,” he breathes. He ducks his head, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “Don’t regret it.”
And then his lips are on mine.