17. Dom
Watching Emma wipe what remains of the blood off the back of her neck sends a spike of rage into my heart. But I don’t say anything to her about it.
“I know it was bad,” she says when we are finally sitting in my truck on the way to my parents’ house that night. “It’s really bad. But you have to know that he didn’t do it to hurt me.”
Just because I know the truth of the situation doesn’t mean that I’m not pissed about what I saw and learned that afternoon. “I know.” I clench the steering wheel tightly.
“Eddie used to practice with me, Dom. He knew I wouldn’t take it easy on him, and I used his hesitancy to hurt me to my advantage. It was my mistake for letting my hair fall over my shoulder. I should have had the foresight to keep it back or pin it up before the fight.”
“That’s not why…” I trail off, catching myself before I say something that makes me sound like an idiot.
“What?” She turns in her seat, pulling at the seat belt so she can look at me straight-on. “Why were you upset about it?”
Luckily, I’m pulling up to my parents’ house, so I park and turn off the engine so that I can tell her everything.
“You know I have three little sisters. You’ve met Alice and Violet. Delia’s away at college on the other side of the country, and I can’t be there to protect her. I was used to that. She’s a big girl. I know she can make her own decisions. But your brother said something today. Something that makes me sick. I’ve never had to be careful when I walk outside at night. Or when I go for a run. If I see someone acting weird or suspicious, it doesn’t affect how safe I feel in any given situation. You do. You have to worry about how you’re going to get home or if you’re going to be safe when you go for a run. And your brothers made sure that you’d be able to defend yourself.” I sigh and slap my hand on the steering wheel in frustration. “I should have done that for my sisters.”
Emma snorts. “Shut up, Dom.” I watch her roll her eyes. “Yeah, Danny and Linc made sure that I could defend myself, but that didn’t change anything. I still have to worry about walking in a dark alley. I still have to plan an alternative route home just in case something happens. And yes, when I see a creepy guy in the middle of the night, I cross the street to avoid him. It doesn’t matter that I know how to kick someone’s ass. In the heat of the moment, I’m still going to be the same as your sisters, smaller and more fragile than a man would be in that situation. That’s not a problem you can solve.”
“It’s frustrating,” I admit. “I want to be able to help. To do something.”
“You do help.” Emma smiles at me, reaches over, and puts her hand on my cheek. “You’re you.”
She turns her head, and I see my mother standing on the front porch, waving at us like a maniac.
“She’s going to come knock on the door here in a second if we don’t get out,” I tell her. “We might as well go in.”
“Good.” Emma pats her stomach. “All that ass-kicking made me hungry. And sore.”
“You’re literally the only person I know who would think about food after your day.”
We get out of the truck and Emma slides her hand into mine, even though we’re just walking across the lawn.
This moment, right here, is going to burn itself into my memory for every lonely night ahead.
“Your mom owns a restaurant, Dom. She makes amazing food. You can’t blame me for wanting to eat the deliciousness.”
She releases my hand to hug my mother, and the two women walk inside without me. I follow at a slower pace, even though I can see Emma practically dragging Mama into the kitchen for snacks.
“That’s a good girl.” My father’s voice comes from his office. “I like her.”
“So do I.” I walk into his office and take a seat on the couch that sits against his wall, lying back and putting my head on the arm. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing.” He waves a hand dismissively. “Just taking care of the paperwork needed from us for Bee to go with her uncle tomorrow.”
“Have you met him? Is he a good man?”
“I don’t like him,” Dad says. “He’s got shifty eyes. You know the kind. Secrets in that family must run deep, though, because I couldn’t find any information about him that would keep her from going there.”
A lifetime ago, my father worked as a private investigator, and he still has all the skills required for the job.
“He’s an upstanding citizen, which is suspicious,” he goes on. “Not even a parking ticket. I don’t want Bee to go to someone who isn’t on the up-and-up.”
I snort, seeing the protective flash in his eyes. “You just want her to stay with our family and that’s clouding your judgment.”
He dismisses me with a look. “Your mother and I love having her here, yes. But that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong.”
I close my eyes for a second, enjoying the peace. “I’ll have Linc keep an eye on him while I’m gone, if that will make you feel better.”
“Good. I’ll give him all my notes.”
Notes. Because my father doesn’t do anything half-assed, and of course he’s got notes on the other man.
“Dinnertime!” Bee bounces into the room with a laugh. “Hi, Dom!”
She runs back out again before I even open my eyes, and my father’s laugh has me smiling.
“See what I mean? She’s a breath of fresh air. Now that you’re all grown-up and out of our house, we need someone young.”
“You need an empty nest,” I correct him as we walk into the kitchen. “So that you can sleep in and enjoy retirement. And you don’t even have that yet because Vi is still living here.”
“Bah.” He waves a hand in the air, narrowly missing Vi’s head as she walks in. “No, I don’t. She keeps us young.”
“Oh, your mother is amazing,” Emma says from the table. In front of her is a bowl of menudo and a plate of tortillas. “Look, Dom. She made menudo. It’s delicious. You gotta have some.” Emma slurps her soup and then tears off a piece of tortilla and eyes the soup with a smile on her face.
“I love her,” my father corrects his earlier statement. “Forget liking her. She’s perfect and you need to marry her. Now. Before she smartens up and leaves you for someone better.”
“It’s been a week,” I tell him. “Give it time.”
“If you give her time, she’s going to realize that she’s too good for you and leave.” He isn’t trying to use his words as a knife, but they still cut as deep as one just the same.
“She’s amazing,” I agree with him and let everything else go. I don’t want the first person I tell about how I feel to be someone other than Emma.
She deserves to be the first person to hear those words.
I sit down at the table next to her and marvel at the way she savors every single bite of her food. If it weren’t innocent and if we weren’t surrounded by family, I’d have to drag her to bed because I’m suddenly jealous of the way she’s handling a bowl of soup.
“So, Emma.” Vi smiles at us. “Are you going to tell us what happened and why everyone at the restaurant today was talking about you being a ninja?”
Emma chokes on her soup and then flushes while she wipes her face with her napkin. “I’m not a ninja. I just sparred with Eddie today.”
“Stryke Out?” Vi snorts and then shakes her head. “I hope you beat his ass for the shit he said at Dom’s last week.”
“She did,” I tell everyone proudly. My hand rests on the back of her neck, careful to avoid her hairline, and I gently massage while everyone else talks.
“Why’d you call him Stryke Out?” Bee slurps her menudo and waits for an answer to her question. “It doesn’t sound very nice. Did he suck at sports?”
“No,” Emma says with an embarrassed flush.
“He struck out in other areas,” Vi explains, using her hands to talk and make a bunch of gestures. “You know how, like adults can try something and they’re bad at it? So you get three chances, and then it’s called a strikeout because you lose your chance. Well, Eddie’s last name is Stryker, and that sounds similar.”
Bee nods, taking in every word that Vi says like it’s gospel and she’s about to be tested on it.
“Well, he tried some adult stuff and he failed, and so now we call him Stryke Out.”
“That makes sense.” And just as quickly as she asked about it, she returns to her food and dismisses the rest of us.
I, on the other hand, read between the lines and turn to see Emma’s flushed cheeks.
“So Stryker tried something and struck out with you?”
Instead of telling me what I want to know, Emma blinks slowly, and I watch the flush drain from her cheeks. Then she turns to face me with an expressionless face. “If you don’t want to strike out, you’ll shut your mouth and mind your business.”
Silence descends among the adults at the table while they all watch our interaction.
The look on her face has my teeth on edge, and I’m starting to think I made a mistake by asking about her relationship with him when Emma starts talking again.
“I don’t ask about your exes. Nor do I ask if you’ve slept with any real badge bunnies. In fact, I keep my nose out of your past because that’s exactly where it belongs… in the past.” She sets her napkin down on the table and scoots back. “I would think that you’d offer me the same respect. I know you don’t like Eddie, and sometimes I don’t like him either. But he’s been my friend a long time, and I’m not going to sit here and let you poke your nose into something you know absolutely nothing about. Not if you’re going to use what you learn to make judgments about something that happened before he even knew better.”
With that, Emma gets up and walks away.
“You’re in trouble,” Bee says through pursed lips. “Emma used her ‘mom’ voice with you. She did that to me when I broke a window with a stick. You better go say you’re sorry or she’s gonna come up with a punishment.”
“I think I love that girl,” Mama says from her end of the table. “Emma, I mean. I love her.”
Both Dad and Vi are nodding along with her.
“She’s strong enough to keep Dom in his place.” Dad talks about me like I’m not there, and I’m so caught up in how I messed up that I can’t even say anything about it. Because the truth is that Bee is right. I was wrong, and Emma shouldn’t have had to say anything to me in the first place.
“Dom.” Vi taps the table, drawing my attention. “You gotta go talk to her. Before she decides to steal your truck again.”
“She stole his truck?” Mama asks just as I’m pushing my chair back to follow Emma like Vi suggests.
“Yeah.” Vi laughs at my back. “Parker told me after Remy told her. I guess Emma stole his truck and left it at the cemetery.”
I leave, knowing that everyone in my family is about to know way too much about my personal life for my own good. But Bee is right. I need to apologize.
Half expecting my truck to be gone when I walk outside, I’m surprised to see Emma sitting on the steps with her back to me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her immediately. “I wasn’t trying to be a jackass when it came to him. I just thought it was funny that you call him Stryke Out.”
Emma sighs and turns to face me. Just like every time I see her, she takes my breath away. The way her hazel eyes see everything all at once and those wisps of hair that frame her face, making her look more like an angel than anyone who belongs on earth.
“You don’t understand how much Eddie was there for me,” she says suddenly. “When you were all overseas. And then after, when Danny died. Eddie was more than just my boyfriend. He was my friend more than anything. He was the shoulder I cried on when I couldn’t tell my parents I was sad. He was the person who helped me through the darkest moments. And yes, I broke his heart when we broke up. I know I did.” Emma sighs and wipes a tear from her eye that I hadn’t even noticed. “We’re friends, even if he says things without thinking about them. He’s earned the right to be a little bit of a jackass. Because he was there for me.”
“He’s your jackass,” I say quietly. “I get it. You can be mean to him, and he can be mean to you. But no one else can.”
She nods. “Yeah. And I’m sorry I snapped at you in front of your family. But he’s still my friend, and a true friend defends you even when you’re not in the room to defend yourself.”
“It’s okay, Em.” I put my arm around her shoulders, and she curls into my side like she’s done every night we’ve been together. “I told you, I get it.”
“He’s the only reason I made it through my brother’s death and every deployment that Linc went through. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
My arm tightens around her, and guilt flashes through my chest.
I remember the way she looked when we came home.
The way she broke, and finding out that Stryker was there for her before she even knew about my existence… it burns in a way I’ll never be able to find words for.
I have to tell her I’m leaving, and I have to ask her to wait.
I have to do the one thing that I know will destroy whatever is growing between us.
But as the sun sets and her very existence eases the chaos inside me, I chicken out.
Later that night, when she’s asleep in my bed, with her hair spread out on my pillow, I can’t rest.
“Tomorrow,” I lie. “I’ll tell her I’m leaving tomorrow.”
Maybe then I’ll be able to chase these ghosts away.