Chapter Eight #2
Dominic followed her into the kitchen, and she caught herself putting some extra effort into swinging her hips without even realizing it. Once she did, however, Erica stopped herself. Don’t look too eager, she told herself.
He took a seat at the card table, and she noticed the way he glanced at her laptop and camera across from him. She had planned to upload the pictures from the festival while she waited for the first coat to dry.
Erica went to the sink to rinse off the brushes that she had set aside to soak. All the while, she was keenly aware of the way he watched her every move. “You must be pretty bored if you wanted to just come over and keep me company. No one needs you to come save them?”
She heard Dominic’s chair creak as if he were shifting his weight. “Honestly, as of right now, I don’t know.” Surprised, Erica looked over her shoulder to see his hands folded behind his head with a pleased grin on his face. “I turned off my phone and left it at the shop.”
Erica paused as the cool tap water ran over the bristles of the brush. “Seriously? What if someone tries to call you?”
“Then they can wait until later.”
A swirl of some strange excitement plumed in her chest at what might come later too. “So, you literally dropped everything to come over?”
Dominic’s eyes blazed with delight. “I did.”
“And you didn’t even ask to help me,” she teased before turning back to the sink. “I totally expected you to.”
“Believe it or not, I’m learning. As much as I want to help, you don’t seem to appreciate it. So, why bother offering?”
Erica visibly winced at the mistake she had made earlier that week when she was so mulish.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just …
” She lifted her hand as if the words were supposed to drop from the ceiling.
They didn’t. “I’ve just done things my own way for so long, and now that there are so many people just lining up to help me, it’s a little weird.
I don’t know how to act. When someone offers to help, my knee-jerk reaction is to tell them off or refuse, but I don’t want to be rude, you know?
So I accept, but … it’s like petting a cat backward.
That’s something my mom used to say a lot.
It just feels awkward and uncomfortable to let people think I’m so … so helpless. I’m not.”
The silence that followed her speech made her turn again as she dried off the brush. Dominic’s head tilted to the side ever so slightly, as if he were studying her. If only he knew that what Erica had admitted was the unabashed, unfiltered truth that she wouldn’t have ever told anyone else.
“You have to let people in at some point,” he finally said, soft and gentle. “And as much as I love the fact that you’re probably the only person in town who doesn’t ask for my help, going through life pushing away well-meaning people isn’t going to win you any medals.”
The man hadn’t been in her house for more than a few minutes, and he was already instructing her on how to live her life. For whatever bizarre reason, she didn’t mind quite as much as she would have last week.
Her lips tightened in a line and her face screwed up as if she’d just stubbed her toe on a piece of furniture. Dominic was completely right, as painful as it was to acknowledge. “I don’t know any other way.”
“You can start by admitting when you need help to those you trust.” His voice dropped to a rather grave, serious level that made her listen closer. “Of course, if everyone uses that rule, then I must be the most trustworthy man on the planet.”
She huffed in disbelief. “You really meant it when you said you were on call like that, huh?”
“I mean everything I say. I don’t sugarcoat anything.”
“Clearly!” she cried, and they shared a good laugh.
As she began to paint where she’d left off on the section of wall between a window and a stretch of cabinetry, Erica thought about what he’d said.
It meant that all his sincerity, all his gallantry up until that time had been perfectly genuine, but so did his admonitions.
Would he keep up that track record if she decided to ask about the golden eyes?
Or maybe she should start with something less … paranormal.
“I wanted to ask you earlier, but you ran off with that guy at the festival. What was with Officer Spradley coming over the other night? Were you in trouble, or did it have to do with your double life as a superhero?”
It was meant in a teasing way, but Erica didn’t even have to look around the corner to feel the change in the air.
It hummed with a tenseness that made her brush still for a second.
As quickly as it came, it passed. Was it that Dominic had such power over the atmosphere in this house?
Just like earlier that day at her table with Madison? Or was it in her head?
“All I need is the cape and I’ll be set.” The jovial tone seemed so conflicting with the vibes he’d just blasted in the kitchen.
Erica continued painting over the yellow wall, her strokes a little slower this time. “Kind of weird that the police are coming to you for help. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
“He’s a friend of the family.”
“You sure know a lot of people.”
While she leaned down to dip the paintbrush in the can on the floor, she caught him staring, but didn’t mind the smoldering look in his eyes. “Not as many as you’d think.”
Erica straightened and continued the paint job she didn’t feel quite so committed to anymore. “What exactly does everyone come to you for? Like, is it just for therapy or …”
She turned and Dominic was suddenly there beside her, holding the paint can by a few fingers.
He managed to get up from the table and move across the kitchen to pick up the paint, all without making a sound.
Did his lightness of foot have anything to do with those golden eyes that were hidden away right now?
She would have jumped out of her skin if his stare didn’t keep her stitched together.
“I really don’t want to talk about being a superhero right now.” The warm way he spoke, and the begging look in his eyes would have gotten him anything from her that night.
Erica dipped her brush in the paint can he held and swallowed hard. “Okay. What do you want to talk about then?”
“What made you pick this shade of green?”
For a moment, Erica had to remind herself that she was, indeed, painting her kitchen a bright, emerald green. She shrugged. “I figured it would look good with the raw wood of the cabinets.”
He nodded in agreement. “It would. I think my bedroom walls are close to that color.”
Erica felt her face go hot, thinking about what his bedroom might look like. Did he have a king-sized bed big enough to roll around on? Did he have antique furniture passed down from his ancestors? Was he a neat person, or did he have clothes hanging over the footboard?
After he wordlessly asked permission to set the paint can on the counter, he asked, “What do you do when you’re not snapping pictures? There must be a lot of time between sessions.”
Erica dipped the brush again and began edging the backsplash in the new paint.
The hem of her shirt slid up to show a patch of skin as she reached and slid the brush with careful precision along the taped countertop.
“If I was in Decatur, I’d probably spend time with my friends or my … my mom. Here, I can’t.”
Dominic crossed his arms, and she heard the faint pop of wood as he leaned against the counter. “You could always go to visit them.”
“It’s a long drive to Decatur. I’d have to make a day of it, and getting my friends together is harder than herding cats sometimes. Everyone has their own schedules.”
“Any boyfriend back home?”
At that, her hand became less steady. “No. No boyfriend.”
“Then you can go see your mom.”
Erica’s hand jerked and some paint smeared over the painter’s tape and straight onto the countertop.
She cursed under her breath and looked about for a rag to clean up the mess.
Dominic snatched it up near the oven and handed it to her before she had the chance to scramble in that direction.
Once the blob of paint was wiped away, Erica took a deep breath and hated that she’d have to answer him aloud.
It was inevitable, but she didn’t want to think or talk about it that night.
Not when there was so much promise for better conversation.
“My mom died last year. It was a really aggressive cancer. The end was really quick. I know they said they tried to make her comfortable, but I think it was more painful than she let on.”
She wasn’t sure why she went into that much detail, so much detail that her throat threatened to close on her and force her into silence. But it came tumbling out, bidden by the kind of inexplicable security she felt with Dominic in the room.
A hush fell over the kitchen, and it was as if Dominic wasn’t even there.
He didn’t move, didn’t utter a word, and she refused to meet his stare.
Somehow, it unnerved her. Everyone else gave their condolences right away, but he didn’t.
Did he instinctively know that she didn’t want his sympathy, just like she didn’t want his help?
She tried to cover up the storm of emotion in her chest by taking up the brush and beginning again, this time with more forceful strokes across the space between the counter and upper cabinets.
“Sounds like we have a lot in common,” he finally said, tone calm. “My dad died eight months ago. That’s when I took over the shop.”
Erica glanced up and before she could say anything, his own confession spilled out onto the kitchen floor.