Chapter 23
Dominic
The sound comes early in the morning, before the sun is even fully visible in the sky.
My eyes flutter open, and I sit up. I’m not used to living with someone else. Despite the house being a sprawling eight thousand square feet, every foreign sound wakes me up.
Recently, Mila rushing to the bathroom at the ass crack of dawn to throw up wakes me.
I invite myself into her room and perch in the doorway of her bathroom.
Mila is sitting on the floor in front of the toilet.
Her hair is in a messy bun, and she’s wearing an oversized t-shirt and black panties.
Neither of which is particularly flattering.
Of course, I think Mila could wear a brown paper bag and look good.
If she wasn’t retching into a toilet, of course.
“Rough night out?” I ask, but she doesn’t startle. She knew I was standing here. I guess she’s used to living alone too.
“I didn’t drink if that’s what you’re implying,” she answers gruffly as she pivots on her ass to sit facing me. Even as she wipes her mouth with the back of her wrist, sweat matting the little hairs framing her face to her forehead, she’s beautiful. Stunning even.
“I’ve seen how Brynn and her little follower’s party. The Blue Olive, right?” I ask, heading over to the sink to grab a washcloth for her.
“And Club One O’ One,” she says, closing her eyes as she leans against the wall.
“Oof,” I shake my head, crouching down to hand her the cold, wet cloth. “We’ve all been there. I’m not here to judge,” I say with a small smile.
Mila’s eyes flash open and she stares at me. “I’m not hungover. It takes alcohol to be hung over. I’m—” she stops. Her face flushes and she throws up again.
“You’re sick,” I say, and she nods. I give her a moment, and then I lean down and scoop her up.
“What are you doing?” she asks, more startled than defiant.
“Taking you back to bed,” I answer, padding over to her bed and laying her down. I pull the covers up over her and go to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. It’s 4:30 in the morning and the stars are still out. I’m tired, but I don’t mind.
“You don’t have to do any of this,” she moans when I come back to the room. “I know I’m kind of disgusting right now.”
“Well, I’m not going to leave you to die in my house,” I tell her. “I’d be responsible. It wouldn’t look good. Bad publicity, you know?” I tease, and she manages an eye-roll. Good to know her sass mouth isn’t gone even when she’s so sick.
“You’re funny,” she says sarcastically as she takes the water glass from me.
“I try,” I shrug, sitting next to her on the bed. I’m in my underwear, but it doesn’t feel sexy. It also doesn’t feel awkward. “Also, you’re not disgusting. You could never be disgusting,” I tell her. I take the water glass from her so she can lie back down. I lay down beside her.
“I’d be careful if I were you,” she says. “I might be contagious.”
“I’ll take my chances,” I say, getting comfortable. A small smile spreads across her perfect lips and her eyes grow heavy. Within moments, she falls into the rhythm of sleep, and I just watch her. Her expression is soft when she sleeps. No sign of sarcasm. No guard up.
I brush the hair from her face, tiny locks that had escaped her bun.
For a moment, all of this feels crazy. This entire situation.
She uprooted her life to play along with it.
Even if I have promised her money, I know well enough that money doesn’t mean everything.
She quit her job. She moved out of her apartment.
As sleep slowly takes me, I wonder what else matters to her.
What else did she give up? I drift off, wanting to know a lot more.
I wake a few hours later to the smell of coffee and a cold bed next to me.
I run my hand through my hair and yawn, blinking a couple times before looking at the clock on the nightstand.
It’s 9:00 AM, later than I usually wake up, even on my days off.
Of course, I don’t usually spend the wee hours of the morning taking care of a sick girl either.
After slipping away to my room to pull on some gray sweatpants, I find Mila in the kitchen. She’s sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee and her phone.
“Feeling better?” I ask.
“For now,” she says, setting her phone down. “Sorry you had to see me like that.”
I grab a mug from the cabinet and fill it with coffee. “I still want to know what went down last night,” I say with a small grin.
“I already told you, I wasn’t drinking,” she says again.
“I know,” I say, taking a seat next to her. “But I can’t imagine a night out with Brynn and the girls was uneventful.”
Mila bites her lip. “It was exactly the way you’d imagine. Drinks–that I didn’t partake in–dancing. It was like I was young again,” she smiles, gripping her coffee mug in her hands.
I laugh. “You are young,” I say.
“I mean, like…before all of this…” she says. I wait because I can tell she’s thinking about telling me more. But when she goes quiet, I realize she’s afraid to say too much.
“You enjoy dancing,” I say, and she looks over at me.
“I do. I was going to go to school for it,” she says.
“What happened?” I ask. I can tell by the way her face changes that the question was far more loaded than you would think.
“Things changed,” she says. “Are you hungry?”
The hard left turn in the conversation tells me one of two things. Either I’m treading in a no-trespassing zone, or her stomach is too empty for dark roast coffee.
“Sure,” I say. “What would you like? I have eggs, sausage, oatmeal, toast, avocados, bacon, cereal.”
“That sounds good,” she says.
“Which part?” I ask.
“All of it,” she says, and I scratch the back of my head.
“Alright. Does this mean you’re feeling better?” I ask.
“Told you it wasn’t a hangover,” she says as she grabs the sourdough bread and walks past me. She smells like strawberries, and that oversized T-shirt actually looks really good on her.
We mash up avocados and spread it on thick cuts of toasted bread. Then we top it with bacon, feta, and balsamic drizzle and take it to the couch.
“God, I love avocado toast,” she says as she takes a generous bite.
“It is strangely good,” I say. “I have to admit I was skeptical.”
Mila stops chewing, her eyes wide. “You haven’t had avocado toast before?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“Never?” she asks.
“Never,” I answer, taking another bite. “It’s good.”
“My dad loved avocado toast,” she says, licking the balsamic drizzle off her finger. “He loved avocado anything. He used to grow his own.”
“He grew avocados?” I ask.
“He had two trees in our backyard,” she answers.
“Where did you grow up?” I ask.
“Outside of Anaheim,” she says.
“Home of the Angels,” I smile.
“We used to go to games,” she says, and my jaw nearly drops.
“You like baseball?” I ask.
“I do,” she says with a smile, taking another bite. I’m loving this. Getting to know her is so intriguing. This woman has been right here under my nose for months, and I didn’t know anything about her. Until now.
“My dad likes baseball too. He watches every game. Not at the field, though. Just on TV,” I say.
“He never took you to a game?” she asks.
“Nope. No avocado toast and no baseball games,” I say. “Pathetic, I know.”
“Why not? If you don’t mind my asking.”
I take in a breath. This is marching into forbidden territory of my own. And yet, I feel like I can talk to her about it, which is odd. I never feel like I can talk about it. I don’t even like thinking about it.
“When I was seven, my mom died. It was…sudden. Awful. And after that, everything changed. While I just wanted to sit in my room and cry, my dad turned hard. He said we just had to move on. It’s like thinking about her hurt too much, so he just pretended like she never existed.”
“That’s terrible,” she says so softly I almost don’t hear it.
“Yeah. Well, as you can imagine, I didn’t grow up going to a lot of baseball games or celebrating birthdays or pretty much anything kids do.”
“I understand,” she says, and I look at her.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she answers. “My parents died when I was a junior in high school. Car accident.”
“Jesus,” I say, shocked.
“Kind of just knocked my world off its axis, you know?” she says with a sad smile.
“Is that why you didn’t go to school?” I ask.
“Berkeley,” she says, picking a piece of cheese off her toast, and I stop.
“You wanted to go to Berkeley?” I ask.
“I was accepted to Berkeley. For dance. I was on my way to graduate high school early, but everything changed after the accident,” she answers.
“What happened?” I ask brokenly.
“I had a dance recital. In Santa Ana. I was already at the theater, and they were going to drive there after work. When they were on their way to the theater, someone ran a red light, and that was it.”
“My God,” I say. I don’t know what else to say.
She takes a deep breath and lets it out.
It’s like she’s told this story a hundred times and she’s just gotten used to it.
“After that, my life went from a smooth path to a bumpy dirt road, you know? I had to deal with all their legal stuff. Finances and things like that. And as it turned out, they were in a lot of debt. They were upside down on the house and by the end, everything just kind of broke even.”
“And left you with nothing,” I say.
“Yep. I don’t blame them for any of it though. I’m sure they were forking money left and right into my college fund. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t enough, and I couldn’t bring myself to go.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, but Mila just smiles. I’m starting to notice how many times she chooses to smile instead of cry.
“I guess that’s why last night was kind of nice,” she says. “It reminded me of my life before all of that.”
“I get that,” I say, setting our plates on the coffee table and settling back into the couch. Mila tucks her legs under herself and pulls a throw blanket over us, leaning close to me. “But Brynn?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“The two of you just seem very different, that’s all,” I tell her, and Mila turns towards me. Either the avocado toast has given her a second wind, or she’s on her way to a speedy recovery from whatever was ailing her less than twelve hours ago.
“Actually, those are the kinds of girls I used to hang out with in high school,” she says.
“The mean girls?” I ask.
“We weren’t always mean. Not to everyone. Not really,” she says. I snort, shaking my head. Mila swats me playfully. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because I can’t believe that you were a bully in high school,” I tell her.
“I wasn’t a bully. I was just popular,” she says.
“Popular kids were usually the bullies,” I say.
“You weren’t popular?” She asks, and I shake my head. “Oh, come on. I have a hard time believing that!”
“Well, believe it. Until I was in college, I was actually kind of an outcast,” I tell her, and she giggles.
“Be serious,” she says, leaning into me.
“I am being serious,” I tell her with a smile, mostly because the way she is melting into me has me feeling a bit jumbled. “I wasn’t cool. Trust me. The school bullies reminded me of that daily.”
“You were bullied?” She asks, pulling away to look at me.
“A lot,” I say. “At school and at home.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, her smile gone.
“I’m not. It motivated me. I focused on my grades.
Was top of my class. Started working out.
Even joined the wrestling team. Then one day in college during a fraternity party, I stumbled into a basement boxing ring, a little makeshift thing.
It was illegal and shady, and I was hooked.
I kind of became two people: a business major by day and a low-key bare-knuckle boxer by night. ”
“That’s a lot,” she says with a tiny smile returning.
“It was. But you know what I wasn’t?” I ask and she waits for the answer. “Bullied anymore,” I say, smiling at her. Our lips are close enough that if I wanted to, I could kiss her.
“I can’t imagine anyone picking on you,” she says softly. I can feel her breath on my skin.
“Oh, they did. Relentlessly. I was smaller back then,” I say, playing with a lock of hair that has liberated itself from her bun.
“You? Small?” she teases.
“Scrawny even,” I say, and she giggles. “Luckily, I went through a growth spurt.”
“Luckily,” she echoes.
“I can’t imagine you being mean and popular,” I say. “Even if you have been hanging out with Brynn.”
“That was before,” she says, her voice a velvety whisper.
“And what comes after?” I ask.
And our mouths connect.