25. Dominic
Dominic
By week four, Jenna Pemberton has started leaving traces of herself all over my life.
A second drawer in my closet, claimed with no announcement and organized with terrifying efficiency.
Her lipstick beside my sink. A pack of my razors is allowed to live at her apartment because apparently mine are “superior and the space was underutilized, anyway.” Roz convinced her to attend a Sunday brunch and folded her in so completely that last weekend, a four-year-old spent two hours calling me “Aunt Jenna’s husband,” which is the best title I have ever held.
Dustin texts her before he texts me now. Seven fifteen every morning, meme delivery—you can set your watch to it. When I complained, my own brother sent me a thumbs-down and a picture of a bored cat.
Jenna is everywhere. In my house. In my phone. In the family group chat where we’re all learning to sign, and she’s across the dinner table practicing with me almost every night.
I’ve never been happier in my life.
“This isn’t some sort of surprise party where we walk in and there’s a massive banner and a thousand people, right?
” Jenna asks, holding a bakery box in her hands as we ascend in the private elevator that opens directly into Bennett and Layla’s penthouse.
It’s Saturday night and we’ve been invited over for tacos along with the rest of the group.
It’s the first group gathering we’ve had since news of our marriage broke, and the first since Bennett and Layla’s wedding.
“They wouldn’t do that. I mean, I would definitely do that, but our friends would not.
This is just good food and friends,” I say, shifting the box out of her hands and pressing a kiss to the side of her head.
“If at any time it stops being that, I promise to take you straight home and make you feel better by going down on you until I get a cramp in my tongue.”
“You’re going to give yourself a cramp in your tongue? That’s your sales pitch?” Jenna asks, but she’s fighting a smile.
“I like to suffer for my art,” I say, and her smile wins, taking over her mouth.
She looks up at me. “I’m holding you to that. If things get weird, there will be a post-action debrief and assigned improvement objectives.”
“Are you threatening to performance review my oral skills?”
The elevator pings. “That would be inappropriate to discuss in front of our hosts. Also: yes.”
The doors part and the sound of a party at full burn spills out: music, laughter, someone (Layla, obviously) cackling at maximum amplitude. The kind of social furnace Jenna would normally circle without ever stepping into the heat. I squeeze her hand as we step into the space.
“Look who finally arrived,” Layla booms, materializing in black pants and a powder-pink blouse.
Audrey and Serena flank her, both holding matching tequila sodas.
The taco bar is visible through the open-plan kitchen, and somewhere in the distance, Bennett and Caleb are conducting what looks like a brisk review of microbrew options.
Logan is standing by the stereo system going through a stack of old vinyl.
I used to know this penthouse when it was gray.
Bennett’s museum years—glass and order, furniture squared to the skyline, a home like a term sheet.
Now Layla’s canvases hang where the joyless abstracts used to be, and there’s a paint-stained cardigan on the leather couch.
Warmth radiates from every corner—throw pillows with unruly fringe, mismatched plates, a fridge covered in random notes and lists and sarcastic magnets.
It feels like a home before I’ve even made it to the kitchen.
Layla engulfs Jenna in a hug and her arms pin my wife’s at her sides.
Jenna tolerates it, returning the greeting like she’s been pre-briefed on the correct duration and pressure of reciprocal hug units.
Serena and Audrey circle in, taking the box of pastries from me and peeling the lid open.
Logan gives us a distracted wave from the turntable, lifting the needle and setting it down again with a gentle click.
Nora and David arrive right behind us. Michaela, I’m informed, is at a sleepover, and has left behind a notarized list of questions for Jenna and me that Nora administers verbatim over dinner. Question one: Did you know you loved him when he did jazzy Mac, or in spite of it?
“In spite of it,” Jenna says. “Emphatically.”
I clutch my chest. “All I’m hearing is she loved me.”
Jenna rolls her eyes. “Don’t get too cocky, Cruz. I can go back to emphatically hating you.”
I grin and waggle my eyebrows. “I know.”
We all eat and drink, and I continue to watch Jenna navigate the couple-shaped attention, answering questions smoothly instead of deflecting or hiding from them.
The girls drag her into the kitchen while they refill their glasses, and even though she still checks around her to map her exits, her shoulders aren’t as stiff and she seems to be genuinely enjoying herself.
Caleb materializes beside me, two beers already open. “You’re staring,” he says, not looking at what I’m looking at.
“I’m married to her. I’m allowed.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He tips his chin toward where Layla has Jenna by the elbow now, steering her toward the couch. “She’s good at this. Better than I expected.”
“Better?”
“She used to leave rooms when the personal questions started.” He takes a long pull from his bottle. “Now she’s answering questions about jazzy Mac.”
I feel the grin happen before I can stop it. “She hated that video.”
“Everyone hated that video. You looked like a cruise director having a medical event.”
“I looked confident.”
“You looked like you were being electrocuted through jazz hands.”
Across the room, Jenna is drinking wine and reading through Michaela’s list of questions with her brow furrowed. Layla points to the paper and says something that makes her laugh, head tipped back, hand rising to cover her mouth like the sound surprised her.
Glorious.
Caleb follows my line of sight. “Tokyo still the winning bet?”
“Obviously.”
“Logan had February. He’s bitter.”
“Logan’s always bitter. It’s his resting state.”
Bennett appears with a platter of carnitas, setting it on the counter near us. He looks at me, then at Jenna across the room, then back at me with the kind of assessment that used to make me nervous in business school.
“She’s different,” he says.
“We’re all different. You used to color-code your socks.”
“I mean she’s different with you.” He arranges the limes in a neat arc. “She’s not bracing.”
I open my mouth to argue that Jenna is always bracing, that her entire personality is a series of carefully calibrated defenses, but then I watch her settle onto the couch between Audrey and Nora and I see what Bennett sees.
Her shoulders aren’t squared to military specification.
Her laugh comes out unmeasured, too loud, and she doesn’t immediately modulate it.
She’s forgetting to be careful.
Caleb produces a betting spreadsheet from his jacket pocket with a flourish.
“OK, people—the winning wager, ‘Tokyo, you absolute cowards,’ pays out tonight; Venmo is open.” The room erupts and I watch my wife absorb the knowledge that her friends had eleven hundred dollars riding on her happiness.
I prepare myself for the brace. But instead, I see it . . . loosen.
“You bet on us?” she asks, laughing.
“We bet on everyone, Jenna. It’s how we process affection.” Caleb pockets his phone. “I have never been prouder of two people.”
“I want ten percent,” I say.
“You were the asset, Dom. Assets don’t collect.”
Then Layla clears the table and tells us all to gather around—which is when she produces the battered red box.
“Oh no,” David says.
“Bennett tells me you boys had to retire this game after college because you didn’t want to risk the group’s future over a hostile draw-four incident,” Layla announces, fanning a deck of Uno cards across the table.
“To be fair,” David says, “Uno destroyed this group’s first and only book club, two Fourth of Julys, and almost ruined Michaela’s christening. I’m actually surprised Bennett still has the deck. Didn’t we agree it was cursed?”
“I think you decided it was cursed,” Bennett says, lifting a brow. “Logan and I simply stopped speaking for a calendar month.”
“Six weeks,” Logan corrects, and then looks directly at me. “That last Draw Four was unconscionable, Dominic.”
“A man does what he must,” I say, squeezing Jenna’s knee under the table as I take my seat. “And you never forget who showed you the dark side.”
“Is this a normal thing?” Jenna asks, quietly. She’s positioned herself between me and Audrey.
“Here’s the thing about Uno,” I say. “It only seems like a children’s game until entropy itself is on the line.”
“My grandmother plays Uno.”
“Then your grandmother harbors a reservoir of suppressed rage, Jenna. The game reveals the truth about people.”
She looks at the battered, clearly pre-loved deck in Layla’s hands, then back at me. “I’m guessing it gets competitive?”
I can’t contain the laugh that bursts out of my chest. “Competitive is an understatement, sweetheart. Uno for this group is a blood sport.”
Layla raps the table. “House rules: any wild card stacked with a draw card becomes retroactive,” she says, gesturing grandly at the table. “No mercy for spouses. Draw until you play. Standard Uno, but with teeth.”
“Absolutely not,” Logan says, already shuffling the deck with a mathematician’s precision. “Retroactive stacking is an abomination.”
“My house, my rules.” Layla grins, leaning into Bennett who kisses the side of her head in a clear “we’re in this together” message.
Jenna’s eyebrows climb higher by the second. “Draw until you play?”
“Means you can’t just take one card and pass your turn. You could be fishing all night,” Audrey explains with the serene calm of a practiced assassin.