Chapter 27
Dominic hadn’t said anything in almost three minutes.
And if he was still breathing, I couldn’t tell.
Eventually, the silence became awkward enough to make me wave my hand in front of his face. “Hello? What’s happening?”
Was it his software? Was it stuck?
“Dom?”
Before I could start snapping my fingers or poking his cheek, the doorbell chimed. I wasn’t sure who it could possibly have been, but they couldn’t have had worse timing if they tried. So I opted to ignore them.
“Alice. Open up. I know you’re home,” a familiar, static-infused masculine voice demanded from the other side of the door, and my soul almost left my body.
Knock knock knock.
That was ultimately what snapped Dominic out of his trance… sort of. He came back to himself, sort of, and started to breathe again, sort of. “Is that…”
I grabbed his arm, adrenaline pounding into my veins. “Hide,” I hissed.
“We’re not done.”
“Now! He has my lock code and no conceptual understanding of boundaries. Go.”
Thankfully, he listened, and I had the foresight to slip his untouched breakfast into the fridge and double-check to make sure he hadn’t actually taken his shoes off before running to the closest mirror.
My eyes were puffy, cheeks discolored, and there was a certain wateriness to my face as a whole, but it would be fine.
I could just say I was sick. With something super contagious. So, as nice as it was to see him, he probably shouldn’t come in.
Knock knock knock. “I can hear you shuffling around in there, you clunky little turnip.”
Damn him and his supersonic hearing aids. Adrien really hadn’t thought that gift through.
“Coming! One sec!” I threw the door open with a big, fat, nothing-to-see-here smile on my face. “Gampy! What, uh, I didn’t realize you were—”
My sloppy greeting was cut short when the big, gray blob on his left shoulder raised to its full height, shrieked, and catapulted itself toward my face, claws-first, in what could only be interpreted as a hostile act of unwarranted physical aggression.
“Maxwell!” I screeched, swatting at the air and stumbling backward. “Getoffmeyoulittleshit!”
Gampy tsk’d as his African gray parrot stopped flapping its giant wings, landed on the crown of my head, and folded forward, digging his claws into my hair and scalp for support. Next thing I knew, I was huffing and glaring right into his upside down, beady little eye.
It lasted all of three seconds. He’d underestimated how much he weighed and overestimated how much support he could get out of two clawfuls of my tangled hair.
He fell forward like an idiot, recovering just in time to grab a hold of my T-shirt and climb back up until his beak was practically pressed to my nose.
Then his wings spanned, his claws dug into the fabric covering my chest, and he shouted in my face. “GOOD MORNING, BEAUTIFUL BOY.”
My cheek spasmed. “Don’t be cute. You almost took out my eye.”
“YOU SHUT UP!”
“Bitch, excuse me?”
He nipped at my forehead and let out an alarming squawk-cackle sound. “Bad boy, Maxi. You want a mango treat?” Then he got to work, trying to preen my eyebrows.
“We told you he missed you,” Gampy said.
I tried to pull my head back an inch and was reprimanded by a whole lot of fluffed feathers and one very loud, very annoyed squawk.
A long, resigned breath slipped out of my chest. This was going to be an all-day thing. We could be hit with a tsunami, and he’d still be there, clinging onto my shirt and staring at me threateningly with his soulless little eye while I blindly attempted to swim us to safety.
Spitting out a rogue feather that had found its way into my mouth, I used my outstretched hands to guide my way to the fridge so I could fish out a strawberry and use it to bribe the little menace up onto my shoulder.
Meanwhile—and instead of helping—Gampy had started monologuing about how he was driven here, at the brittle age of sixty-seven (he was well into his eighties), by my parents, who wouldn’t stop weeping over “losing” their only daughter, because why else would I “only” call them once per week.
Apparently, it didn’t help that Adrien “only” called them twice a week, and “only” flew out to see them every three months. And “what was even the point of having children when they were just going to abandon you?”
“So I told them to shut up and just have another baby.”
My armpits clenched. “You what?!”
“They were very taken with the idea, which is why I’m here. Remember the first time Adrien brought Ria home?” He shuddered, shoving the door closed with the rubber end of his walking cane. “It’s that, but worse.”
“Oh my god, Robert!”
“Yes, I’m aware that’s not how surrogacy works, but I wasn’t going to be the one to point out your mother’s age. You can see how I had no choice but to get on the jet. What’s for breakfast? I’m famished.”
I, on the other hand, was never going to be able to keep anything down ever again. “There’s a lovely little diner down the street named You Should’ve Called First, I’m Busy. Maybe try there? I have an appointment to get to.”
The one saving grace was that he didn’t have any bags with him, so he was either staying at our flagship hotel or with Ria and Adrien.
“Oh, yeah? What kind of appointment?” He strode into the living room, looking around. My entire upper body was now in one big knot.
I’d seen Dominic slip down the hallway toward the bedrooms, but I had no idea which door he’d chosen.
I scratched Maxwell’s neck as he stained my shoulder with pink strawberry juice, trying to think of what I could say to excuse myself for at least half the day. “Just spa stuff. It’s a full-day thing. I’m feeling a little under the weather, and sometimes the sauna helps, so…”
He opened the coat closet, stuck his head inside, and looked around. I froze.
That was not normal behavior, even for him.
“Is… everything okay?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Fine.” He shut the door, then meandered to my thick, floor-length curtains… and stabbed one with his cane. “The spa sounds nice. I’m due for a manicure—mind if I join?”
Uh… “I’m already going with a friend.”
“Which friend? Rachel?”
“No, she’s at work.”
“Ria? Jamie?”
“No. They’re also at work. What’s with you?” I asked, my pulse hopping around like a startled rabbit as he shoved open my bathroom door. Maxwell took off the second he heard the shower curtain. Neither I nor the half-eaten strawberry on my floor could compete with bathtime, apparently.
“Does this friend of yours drive a Bugatti, perhaps?” This was asked from the depths of my guest bedroom.
… Shit.
“I, um, don’t think so, no,” I replied calmly. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing.” Something heavy clattered in the room he was investigating. My skin buzzed with my building panic. “Only that it’s a rather specific model. Very rare. Less than fifty produced worldwide.”
My heart was already in full sprint when I spotted Dominic sneaking out of the opposite door, shoes in hand.
What were the chances Gampy’s supersonic hearing aids could pick up socked feet creeping over hardwood?
“And out of the less than fifty units,” my grandfather went on, “only one has ever been spotted in this city. Can you guess who it’s rumored to belong to?”
Fuck me.
My eyes flared at Dominic, my hand jerking for him to move faster. If Gampy saw him, it would be bad. But if Maxwell caught on? There would be hell to pay.
African gray parrots were hyper-perceptive, known for their exceptional memory and emotional intelligence. There was absolutely no way Maxi wouldn’t recognize his most favorite human in the whole human world.
His most favorite human, who had introduced him to his most favorite activity: whistling and dancing along to a carefully curated playlist titled “Aggressive Eminem.”
His most favorite human, whose sudden and unexpected disappearance he’d grieved so deeply that the names “Dominic” and “Rosie” had to be permanently banned in my parents’ house.
Maxwell’s alleged reaction to my physical absence was nothing compared to the way he’d mourned for Dominic.
The house had been haunted by his cries for months after Dominic left.
He wouldn’t play with any of us, wouldn’t talk to us or show any interest in his usual favorite activities—just kept searching and searching and calling out for his best friend.
It had been, to put it mildly, really fucking hard to watch.
Dominic needed to get the hell out of the apartment. Now.
“Gamps, I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but I’m going to need you to trust me on this one. Stay—”
“Dumb Dumb.”
You could hear a pin drop. I swore under my breath, my eyes squeezing shut for a moment.
Dominic was frozen in his tracks, lips flatlined as his expression slowly twisted into the anthropomorphized version of the word “fuck.”
Not six feet behind his rigid, hunched back, Gampy now stood, stock-still, Maxwell perched on his left shoulder.
The parrot rose to his full height and cocked his head. “Dumb Dumb.”
Silence. Nobody moved.
Dominic’s face was white.
Confused by the lack of response, Maxwell gave a soft chirp. “Want a fruit loop? You’re a fruit loop.” His body gave a gentle bob, like he wanted to fly but wasn’t sure yet if it was a good idea.
Gampy said nothing, gaping at Dom’s back like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. I’d stopped breathing altogether.
“Miss you, buddy. Be a good boy.”
I frowned at that. I didn’t think I’d ever heard him say it before.
“Love you, Fruitloop. I’ll miss you, buddy.
Be a good boy.” Maxwell leaned further forward and gave a questioning little hop.
When that didn’t work, the poor thing made a small, heartbroken noise.
It was tipped with a question mark, so confused and unsure, it made my throat feel altogether too tight.
Dominic lasted another five seconds before he cursed, shut his eyes, and slowly turned around. “Come here, Maxi.”
Maxwell took off immediately, while Gampy continued to gawk at Dom like he was an apparition he couldn’t make sense of.
After a long stretch of stunned silence, Dom finally braved a glance away from the bird. “Robert.”
Gampy took one unsteady step forward. Then another. I really thought he was going to cry and throw his arms around Dom; everything about his body language implied that was the intent.
He even raised his arms a few inches… only to then grip his cane with both hands, roll his lips back in a mustached snarl, and whack Dom in the shin.
“ROBERT? ROBERT?! THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY TO ME AFTER EIGHT YEARS OF IGNORING MY CALLS, YOU ROTTEN, UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SCAB?” Whack.
Dominic didn’t put up a fight. He simply attempted to block each blow as he was backed up into a corner while Gampy yelled and whacked.
And yelled and whacked.
And yelled. And whacked.
Until Maxwell—who’d misinterpreted Dominic’s jerky blocking movements as indicators for playtime—got so riled up while flying and bouncing around all the chaos that he pooped on Dom’s head out of sheer excitement.
It slid down to his temple, his cheek, making Gampy finally stop and point at it with winded satisfaction. “And that, you little shit, is what they call karma.”