12. Emma
All I wanted was to torture Dom just a little bit by wearing the shirt I stole out of the back seat of his truck. And maybe to go for tacos after work.
After accomplishing the first, I decide that I should get to reward myself for a job well done and eat the tacos that I want and deserve after depriving myself all week in an attempt to get ready for the academy.
What I don’t plan on is sliding into Kennedy’s usual booth at Lucy’s and having six women join me within five minutes.
Kennedy and Parker, along with Violet and Alta and Alta’s other daughter Alicia, and Bee. Oh, and Nox pops out from behind his mother at the last second. So my quiet afternoon of tacos and torture turns into my own personal hell.
Not only that, but we won’t all fit in the booth and no one seems to notice it except for me. Parker, who runs Lucy’s, has a whole other table brought over for us, and everything turns into a party. All before I ever get to say a word.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask loudly when Kennedy plops down next to me, pushing me into the booth and eliminating any chance for me to escape.
“Linc called.” She shrugs. “And I guess Remy called Parker. The guys are getting together at Dom’s house, so we’re having girls’ night.” She stares at my chest, which makes me realize that everyone sees whose shirt I have on, and I flush.
“It’s not what you think,” I stammer. “Seriously.”
I should have just gone home and gone to bed instead of trying to enjoy the victory.
“Sure, it’s not,” Vi offers from across the table. “I steal random guys’ shirts all the time, and it doesn’t mean anything.” Her words are comforting, except that she is being completely sarcastic. That, mixed with the rolled eyes, has the adults cackling in laughter.
“Mom,” Nox announces loudly. “Before you guys all get adult drinks, Bee and I need our usual.”
“I don’t have a usual,” Bee corrects him shyly. “I’ve never been here.”
Gasps from around the table draw the attention away from me, as Bee becomes the focal point. Usually, I’d feel bad and try to protect her, but since Bee’s been staying with the Ortiz family, she’s flourished.
Enough that she doesn’t cower from the attention. In fact, Bee has really come to enjoy being the center of attention. And honestly, she deserves it.
“We’re family,” Nox informs her. “That means we get usuals. Mom makes sure that we always get a special drink and we always get food. That’s what family means. No one gets left behind or goes hungry.”
“That’s not what the saying is,” Parker tells her son. “But close enough. He’s right, Bee. You get your favorite drink and food.”
“What’s yours?” She stares at Nox like he’s the most important person in the world, and my heart isn’t the only one around the table that starts to melt with the way he handles her.
Like we don’t even exist, he turns his body so she has his full attention. And it’s not even my overly romantic imagination at work. It’s the adorable way Nox makes sure Bee knows she has options.
“Shirley Temples,” Nox whispers loudly. “They’re soda with fruit and some special cherry flavors in them. You’ll love it.” He turns to his mother, all business. “We’ll have two of my usual. And whatever Bee wants to eat, two of those. That way she doesn’t have to eat it alone.”
I have to hide my laughter and shock, because Nox doesn’t deviate. The kid has food that he eats, no matter what. Tacos. But the fact that he is willing to change it for Bee is huge. Without anyone having to tell him what to do or how to treat her, Nox puts Bee at ease.
Then he proceeds to read the menu to Bee, stopping only when she asks him a quiet question about something.
“It’s shocking how grown-up they are,” Kennedy murmurs next to me.
“When you’re forced to grow up before your time, you get an old soul,” I tell her. “For Nox, he grew up in Danny’s shadow, the hero’s son. Bee? She had to grow up before she ever learned to walk. She’s the strongest little girl I know.”
“Me too,” Kennedy answers. “You’re not off the hook, you know.” She changes the subject while everyone else is distracted. “What’s going on with you and Dom? You stole his shirt, but you’re not doing the dirty.”
I take a deep breath and wave her off when our waiter comes by to take drink and food orders. When he leaves and we are back in the midst of too many conversations at once, I tell her everything that happened, down to me stealing a detective’s truck.
She laughs. “I don’t get it. Why would he take you home and then just talk at you? Why didn’t you get naked?”
“Because he’s Dom,” Alice Ortiz says loudly from the other side of the table, and I’m embarrassed that she’s eavesdropping and even more so that she’s got something to add.
I flush, realizing that it’s not just her, that everyone is listening to us, and I completely missed it.
“What’s that mean?” Kennedy doesn’t suffer from the same embarrassment I do. “Isn’t he the one who Linc ended up accidentally teabagging during a football thing?”
Parker chortles, laughing so loud that I think she is about to piss herself. “Oh God yes. It was the funniest thing in the world. They all ended up in a pile because of a tackle, and Linc didn’t wear underwear, and I swear what got me through labor and delivery with our baby was remembering Linc shout, ‘There’s air on my balls!’ and hearing Dom say back, as cool as could be, ‘Hey, Linc, why in the absolute fuck do I feel your balls on my hand?’ and I almost died. Best. Memory. Ever. But, I mean, technically that’s not teabagging. Teabagging would have been something gross and on purpose. This was just… hilariously accidental.”
Parker claps her hands on the table, laughing even more.
“Yep,” Alice says once Parker quiets down. “Mama can tell you. Dom’s like that. He doesn’t talk very much, but when he does… there’s a reason.”
“He’s a thinker,” Alta adds. “I don’t know where he gets it from. Must be from his father because it wasn’t me.” She pats Alice’s arm. “Ask my daughters. They know. They suffer from the same affliction. Say everything that pops into our mind, no matter how much trouble it gets us in.”
The way Alta says it, mixed with the pitiful looks that she gives both Vi and Alice, only makes Parker laugh harder.
“I’m dying.” She wheezes. “Someone call my husband.”
“That’s okay,” Kennedy says with a smile, eyeing the entire group that’s now watching the interaction. “Did you know that Emma strapped flasks to the inside of her thighs during Parker and Remy’s wedding?”
There are tears streaming down Parker’s cheeks at that, and I want to curl into a ball and die. “She threw up her dress and offered everyone booze, and I thought Dom was gonna have a heart attack. He almost choked on his tongue.”
If there was a hole in the floor that could swallow me up, I would have gladly jumped into it with eyes wide-open at that point.
“I hate you all,” I tell them honestly. “Except for Bee and Nox, you guys all suck.”
“I love you too,” Kennedy says with a smile. “But seriously. It’s clear that Dom has a thing for you.”
“He’s her training officer.” Parker sounds way more somber than she had a few minutes before, but she is still out of breath. “Dom would never do anything to jeopardize her education or training, or to get fired.”
“You know what?” Alta says suddenly. “Let’s get our food to go. A fire sounds amazing.” She turns to Alice. “Call your father. Tell him to go to Dom’s.” Her eyes twinkle when she looks at me over the table. “He can carry me home from there.”
That’s how I find myself driving in a convoy across town ten minutes later with enough takeout to feed an army.
Even if I want to go home, at that point I can’t. Both Kennedy and Vi are crowded into my car.
And if anyone wants to question it, I’ll point them in Alta’s direction.
“I love this song!” Kennedy claps her hands along to the song we can barely hear coming from the speakers. “Turn it up.” Before I can, she reaches over and does it herself, but I know she is just trying to be annoying, so I don’t say a thing.
“I just wanted to get tacos and go home,” I whine. “Now we’re going to a fire. This is my last real free weekend. Next week is going to suck while I get ready to go to the academy, and then I’ll be packing all next weekend. I just want to sleep forever.”
“No.” Vi sticks her head through the opening between our seats. “You don’t want to sleep. You want Dom to pull his head out of his ass and do other things with you over the weekend. And into next week.”
She has a point, so I don’t correct her.
But as we pull up Dom’s drive, with the sun going down, my heart starts to race. He’s already made it perfectly clear that he won’t do anything. I know I’m playing with fire, risking being embarrassed in front of everyone just by showing up. So when we park and the others get out of my car, I reach into my duffel bag in the back seat and grab a different shirt, changing quickly before I follow them.
“Chicken.” Kennedy snorts.
I force a smile. “And proud of it.” But when she links her arm through my trembling one, I know she is being as supportive as she can.
When we step around the house, there is a massive fire that takes up a huge cement pit about a hundred yards away. “Holy shit.”
I’ve been to bonfires before. I’ve been to parties in the middle of the night that we didn’t want our parents to find out about. I’ve done a lot of crazy and fun things in my life, but I’ve never seen something quite as amazing as what is currently happening. There are ice chests everywhere and a grill smoking closer to the house. A dozen or more chairs surround the fire at a safe distance, with a group of men hanging around, just talking. A few are throwing a football between them.
But when we arrive, they all sort of pause and then go with the flow.
My brother spots Kennedy and swoops her into his arms, planting a firm kiss on her forehead. “Hey, Kennedy. I didn’t think you were gonna come.”
Kennedy bites him on the neck and then swats him when he won’t put her down. “Lemme go. Alta decided that she wanted to have everyone together. And she made sure there’s more food.”
“Shit,” Linc mutters. “She’s gonna beat me with her flip-flop if she sees me.” He drops Kennedy and walks away, leaving us to wonder what in the hell is going on.
“She hasn’t forgiven him for violating her son with his balls,” Kennedy informs me. “I think.”
While Nox and Bee take off to run around and play, Alta and her daughters get all the food set up on a folding table that just appears out of nowhere like she conjures it. After grabbing some tacos since that’s what I wanted in the first place, we wander around and find a few empty chairs next to Ian and Bria Keller.
“Hey, Bria!” I greet with a smile.
Bria waves but doesn’t say anything because she has almost a whole piece of pizza shoved in her mouth.
“Excuse my sister,” Ian says with a laugh. “She’s afraid that she’s gonna get another call out and have to go before she finishes her food. I think she said something about how being a social worker sucks.” He takes a drink from his beer, burping loudly when it is gone. “And then she said she wants to quit.”
“Liar,” Bria snarls when her food is gone. “You take that back right now. I never said that.”
Ian shakes his head and gets up. “I’m gonna leave before you three team up on me like you used to. Peace.”
Tall and blond-haired, Ian is still just as in shape as he had been when he was on the football team before joining the military with my brothers.
“Did you guys ever wonder what we did to have such hot guys in our town?” Kennedy’s head is tilted to the side while she watches Ian walk away. “Don’t get me wrong. Linc’s got it all on lock.” I gag. “But seriously. They’re all hot.”
“Logically,” Bria agrees. “It doesn’t make sense. But I mean, just because they’re fit doesn’t mean that they’re hot. Take Eddie for example. Stryke Out is a jackass, and yeah, he looks decent. But he’s not hot.”
I laugh at that because she’s telling the truth.
“Vagina butterflies,” Kennedy says loudly. “I get it. Not all of them cause vagina butterflies.” She smiles at me in the orange glow of the fire.
“Oh, shit.” Bria laughs. “Emma got you with the butterflies, too? She’s been on that since high school. It’s on point, though, so I use it when I’m thinking about relationships too.”
“They’re a real thing,” I tell them both. “You should never settle for less than vagina butterflies.”
“Hey, I’m not arguing about it,” Bria says seriously.
Speaking of vagina butterflies, I space out on their conversation when I catch sight of Dom in his element.
Wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a black shirt, he has a scowl on his face. The same one he has when he is trying to figure out what is missing in one of his cases. He steps out the back door of his house, closing the sliding glass door behind him, and sees all of the people that have appeared with us, and his expression changes.
He scans every single face in the crowd, and then his eyes lock on mine.
Kennedy doesn’t give a shit that my entire world seems to be tilting on its side when she decides to lean over me and whisper loudly, “She’s got vagina butterflies right now.”
Bria nods. “Yeah, she does.”
I bite my lip, doing my best to ignore them and focus on Dom. Because I only have a week, and I still have no real idea how to get him to see me as anything other than his trainee. Literally last night I decided that it was time to let him go.
He stares at me, his face an unreadable mask, and I feel his eyes bore into my skin.
It’s too much.
I get up and spear Kennedy with a hard look. “Tell someone I got sick. I’m going home.”
“No.” Kennedy shakes her head. “I don’t think you are.”
Before I can ask her what she means, Dom’s there, turning me back around with a hand on my shoulder. “Where’s my shirt, Emma?”
With wide eyes, I stare at him.
Confused? Yep.
Trying to figure out what to say to throw him off? Definitely.
But I can’t come up with a single thing, so I decide on the simple truth.
“I took it off.”
“Too bad.”
When he moves his hand away from my arm, I think I’m going to burst into tears of frustration. Until he picks me up and holds me up to his body with his hands on my ass.
“What are you d-doing?” I stutter, completely thrown off. “Put me down.”
He doesn’t put me down.
He kisses me.
And I let him kiss me like the sucker I am. Because when Dominic Ortiz kisses you, you damn well let the man do it.
Vagina butterflies are real.
So very, very real.
I want to lean into the kiss, taking more than he’s giving me, for as long as he’ll let me have it.
Except we aren’t alone in my backyard dancing under the stars. We’re surrounded by friends and family, and there is no going back.
There’s no pretending that it’s a mistake.
That I’m a mistake.
And somehow, I know he did this intentionally.
To force himself to face the truth.
So I wrap my hands around his neck and my legs around his waist, and I kiss him back with everything I have.
Vagina butterflies have nothing on the way Dom makes me feel.