Chapter 17 Cecily
Cecily
I did not expect to still have a husband on Wednesday. Or, I at least expected to be in the process of canceling the whole marriage thing.
Paisley invites me to grab dinner with her after work.
I should've known better.
Klein and Dom sit at a table when we walk in. Dom's back is to the door, but Klein waves at Paisley.
"Smooth," I tell her.
"I wasn't trying to trick you, per se, but I didn't want to give you the chance to invent something pressing to do."
"Like organize my spice drawer?"
"Exactly."
"Scrub behind the toilet."
"Right."
"Clean the soles of my shoes with a toothbrush."
Paisley side-eyes me. "All things you'd rather be doing?"
"Precisely."
"Lucky for you, I have your best interests in mind."
I groan, and she steers me toward the table where the guys are waiting. "You and Dom need to have a heart to heart before you're stuck together, and you're running out of time."
She has a point. Dom turns as we approach. It's the first time I've seen him since I left him in front of Klein and Paisley's house. He looks good, of course, and probably without trying. A light blue shirt. Gray shorts.
"Menace," he booms happily, mouth curving into a slow, wicked smile. "You here to ruin my day?"
My acknowledging nod is clipped, like I can hardly be bothered. "Errand Boy."
"Satan's Errand Boy," he corrects. "You don't know me well enough to shorten my name. Too intimate."
"I will soon, apparently." I stab the papers lying on the table between Klein and Dom. In all-caps bold font it says All About Me. Below that is a list to be filled in, starting with Name. "Did you two rob a kindergarten class?"
Dom and Klein slide over, making space for Paisley and me to sit. I would complain about being forced to sit next to Dom, but what's the point when living a shared life for three weeks looms on the horizon?
Dom sits back against the wall at the far end of the booth, putting as much space as possible between us. "Robbing a kindergarten class was one of my tasks for the day, directly below throwing nails in the street to cause chaos for unsuspecting drivers."
"Hard day's work," I murmur, picking up the laminated menu.
"The Prince of Darkness never rests."
A pink-painted fingernail appears at the top of my menu, tapping to get my attention. Paisley's eyes glow with mirth.
"What?" Her delight makes me suspicious.
"I cannot tell if you two want to rip each other's throats out, or rip each other's clothes off."
Dom and I turn sharply to each other, gazes colliding. I grimace, and his face, well it's hard to say what it's doing. Aside from looking stupidly handsome, which he can't help. It's not as if he chose that face. That hair. Those shoulders.
"The former," Dom confirms, at the same time I say, "The latter."
His eyes widen, and I realize my mistake. "I mean, the former. Obviously." Heat flushes on the back of my neck. I spent a nanosecond thinking about Dom's good looks and got tripped up. That's all.
"Freudian slip," Klein proclaims, smacking his menu on the table.
"It was not," I argue.
"It was not," Dom repeats, providing backup in my assertion that I am against getting him naked. How gallant of him.
"Cecily loathes me," he reminds Klein.
Hmm, ok. Pretty sure he's teasing me, but I'll go with it. "Yep," I say with finality.
For the record, neither of the beautiful people sitting across the booth from me show any signs of believing us. Doubt rides in the lifted corners of Klein's half-smile, and dubiousness sits squarely in Paisley's eyes.
"Moving on," I say, like it's a command.
The server shows up, takes our food and drink order, and hightails it away. Maybe she spotted the childish printouts on the table and took them for the harbinger of absurdity that they are.
Klein and Paisley turn to each other. She leans her head against the back of the upholstered booth, and he lays his hand on her thigh. They spend a few moments exchanging details about their day. She smiles softly while he speaks. He asks her questions about our lunch meeting with a new account.
Maybe it's the intimacy of their moment, or the glimpse into their private little world, but there's a pinch in my chest. Longing, I think. What would it be like to have a person my heart and soul settles into?
"I'm happy for them," Dom says in a low voice.
"They're annoying," I respond, lowering my voice to match his. Annoyingly amazing.
"Without question," he agrees. His forearms balance on the edge of the table, fingers intertwined.
We aren't looking at each other, but our chins tip toward the shared space between us. Questions burn in my mind, and I choose the one most pertinent to our current situation.
"Why are you making me stay married to you until the road trip is over?"
"Two reasons," he says, accepting the soda water the server slides in front of him. I've ordered the same, our fingers brushing as we reach for a lime wedge from the ramekin placed on the table.
The incidental touch shouldn't mean anything, but it does. Brief but warm, and I know, I just know, Dom let his hand linger an extra second. Almost certainly to aggravate me.
"What are those two reasons?" I finish squeezing the lime in my drink and bring the glass to my mouth. I'm not thirsty, but I need something to do. He's sitting too close for us to talk face to face.
"For one, it irritates you, and I've found I'm partial to irritating you."
"Thanks for that," I say dryly. "What's your second reason?"
He takes a deep drink of his water, ice gathering as he nearly finishes it. His Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. Then he turns to me, and now I'm looking into unfairly blue eyes. Dark like denim in this warm-lit restaurant. "That is for me to know."
My gaze narrows. For the life of me, I cannot understand this man.
He said all those awful things about me, but now he's voluntarily throwing us together for three weeks?
We need to get to the bottom of all this, and I'm done waiting for the right time and place.
If the past five days are any indication, it's never going to arrive.
So, here we go. "Why go to the trouble when I'm annoying, and I have the worst laugh, and I yammer on and on?
Don't you want to pull a Van Gogh and cut off your ear? "
Dominic's eyebrows tug together so quickly it's like they were threaded and cinched. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't even think about gaslighting me," I warn, pointer finger suspended between us. "I heard you on the phone in the hall at Obstinate Daughter."
The tip of his tongue pokes at the corner of his mouth while he pretends to work through everything I've said.
Across from us, Paisley and Klein discuss wedding details. They are either truly in their own world, or giving us space to hash out this long-standing grudge.
"Cecily," Dom says through clenched teeth. "I am going to need you to walk me through it all like I'm an idiot. Because I truly, from the bottom of my heart, do not understand."
To his credit, he looks genuine. Could he really fake the confusion? The discomposure?
I huff an aggrieved sigh. "I came to find you, to ask if you wanted another drink. You were in the hall, and I overheard your phone conversation. I didn't make all that up, Dominic. You said those things about me."
Dom spends a few seconds quiet, letting what I've said sink in. Then he laughs.
My stomach muscles clench. "In case you're wondering, this is exactly how you earned the nickname I gave you."
"I'm not laughing because this is funny, Cecily. I'm laughing because it's preposterous."
Then Dominic Bellinger, my husband for the next month unless I can get him to stop being enamored with irritating me, nudges my knee with his. Twice.
"Stop," I snap.
"Please get up."
"Why?"
"Because I said please."
"You don't get what you want because you say please. Cecily, run over that group of baby ducks, please."
"Brood." He nudges me again, harder this time.
"Huh?"
"A group of baby ducks is called a brood. Now, please get up." He says it through tight lips. Is he going to be sick?
I hustle up, lest I become a human barf bag. Dominic stands, looks down at our confused dinner mates, and announces, "We'll be back. Maybe."
Before I can say another word, he threads his fingers through mine and marches me out of the restaurant.