23. Dom
I made it back for her graduation. I also made it back in time to get my ass kicked in front of her entire class. But she kissed me.
She kissed me.
Emma meant it as a distraction. I knew it in the moment. But the feel of her lips on mine ignited every single memory I have of her in my arms and wrapped around my body.
So, letting my guard down happened, and I’m lucky that she’s a good shot or she might have punched me in the dick that’s been half-hard since I walked into the gym and saw her standing there.
“You know I’m going to drive a knife into your spine as soon as we leave here, right?” Linc greets me with a smile when he shows up to the academy for Emma’s graduation ceremony.
We stand together, watching Kennedy and the rest of the Hayes and Townsend families unload from their vehicles.
“Yep,” I say while nodding. “I figured it was more important to let Emma have her turn first.”
“I’ve got it on video!” Benton Mays, one of our friends, says with a smile as he walks up. He holds out his phone as far as he can manage with it wrapped in a hot-pink cast.
“You know you’ve got another hand,” I point out uselessly.
Idly, I think about taking the phone and smashing it on the ground, but I kind of want to see the fight. In the moment, I had to concentrate all of my energy on what she was doing and where her next hit was going to come from. But now? Now it’s all a little bit foggy, and I want to see it.
“Why a pink cast?” I stare at his arm while we wait for Benton to start the video.
“Because the woman I’m in love with hates the color pink.” His voice is completely deadpan, and he doesn’t offer any other information.
I can’t ask him about it, either, because he hits play on the video, and we are all treated to five minutes of a pixie beating my ass.
“I almost feel bad for you,” Linc groans when she hits me in the gut. “Even knowing you deserved every single hit.” He grimaces as the video ends and I was left on the mat with Emma walking away. “But at least you didn’t pull her hair like bitch-boy did.”
A bell rings, the signal for everyone to take their places, so we march into the building and grab seats in the back of the room.
The graduation ceremony is long, but not too long, and soon we’re watching Emma take the stage to a round of shouts and cheers not only from her family and friends in the crowd, but her fellow cadets as well.
“Thank you,” she says into the microphone.
I can’t take my eyes off her. The blue uniform that she wears fits her perfectly, and with her cover set on the podium in front of her, I can see the intricate braid she put her long hair into for the ceremony.
“I actually didn’t know anything about having to speak until five minutes ago, so I hope you’ll stay with me while I take a breath.” Another round of cheers comes from the cadets in front of her. “We started this journey eighteen weeks ago, all of us with a goal in mind. A plan. A hope to make a difference in our communities. In our state. I’m proud to serve alongside every single one of you.” She takes a deep breath, and it echoes into the microphone. “Honestly, I think the cadres just wanted to punish me for winning the pizza party they teased.” The smile drops from her face. “Thank you. For making all of us better.”
Emma walks away, her head held high. Our eyes lock briefly, and I do my best not to wave my hand in the air like an idiot.
But she sees me.
Like a child whose favorite person in the world knows they exist, I want to celebrate the simple fact that she sees me. Yeah, she’s pissed as hell. But she wouldn’t care at all if she didn’t have feelings for me still.
“I hope you’ve got a plan,” Linc mutters next to me. “’Cause that look doesn’t bode well for you.”
I swallow down the doubt and worry and cock my head to the side. “How do you know she didn’t mean that for you? Besides,” I add as an afterthought, “I already broke out the big guns.”
After they dismiss the crowd and the newly minted law enforcement officers, I hang on the outskirts of the crowd and wait for Emma to walk by.
“No.” She holds up a hand as soon as she sees me. “I don’t want to talk.”
“I know,” I tell her hurriedly. “But I’m not above bribery.”
Her eyes narrow, and for a fraction of a second I feel bad. Only until I remember what’s at stake and what I stand to gain.
“What kind of bribery?” She crosses her arms over her chest, resting her arm right under her badge.
“I brought empanadas from Mama for you to take home and eat this weekend, and I got a reservation for everyone at the hibachi place in Bangor for an hour from now.” I tap my hand against my thigh. “And my parents called Bee’s uncle. They’re coming too.”
Emma’s face freezes, and my heart slams to a halt while she processes everything I’ve just said.
“You did all of that?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “How long have you been home?”
I swallow, and I swear that I still feel sand lining my throat. “Flew in day before yesterday, but no one knew I was home except Benton. Not until after I saw you.” The admission should have cost me. It should have hurt like her fist in my stomach had. But it doesn’t. Seeing Emma, hearing her voice, even if she doubts me, is the most beautiful thing in the world.
“Okay.” Her voice drops an octave. “But you’re not sitting next to me at the hibachi place.” She walks away without looking back, and I watch as her mother and father pull her into a group hug.
“She’s smiling,” Kennedy says from my side. “That’s the first time in four months that she’s really smiled, Dom.” Linc’s fiancée glares at me until I start to sweat. “If you make her cry, ever again, you won’t have to hide from Linc. And you won’t have to run from Emma. You won’t be able to run anywhere. I’ll wait until you think you’re safe, and then I’ll gut you with my machete. It’ll be easy, and then I’ll use your body as bear bait and no one will miss you.”
If there is one person who terrifies me more than the woman I love, it is Kennedy Townsend. “I’ve seen you with a baseball bat, Kennedy. I don’t even want to know what you’d do with a blade.”
She smiles, more of a snarl than anything else, and shrugs. “I know I’m a badass. You don’t have to say anything about it.”
I wish that Emma had been joking about the seating arrangements at dinner, but she hadn’t been.
We take up half the hibachi room, with two separate chefs, but it’s entirely worth it. Emma sits three away from me, with Kennedy and Linc on her other side and Bee and her uncle sitting next to me.
The other man, who introduces himself as Jesse, stares at his plate more than anything else. I actually feel bad, because he’s surrounded by a bunch of people he doesn’t know and it can’t really be that comfortable for him.
“You’re a good man,” I tell him over our little baby soups that are more water than anything else. “Taking in your niece like she’s yours.”
He turns to me with a half-smile, more shy than anything else, and I’m caught off guard by eyes that look exactly like Bee’s. “She’s my niece,” he explains. “What else could I do?”
“I wish Bee could have stayed with me,” Emma pipes up with her arm around the little girl. “But I’m so happy that she’s safe with you.”
Jesse turns to Emma and Bee, his eyes landing on Emma’s lips for a second, and I have to stop myself from growling. “She is. My brother was sometimes not the nicest man in the world, and I’m glad that you were there for her when she needed you. I’ve got her now, though, and I won’t let anything happen to her.”
It isn’t until they’re driving away, pulling out of the parking lot and leaving us staring at their taillights that Emma says anything to me. In fact, we are the last two at the restaurant from our party, and I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to walk away from her ever again, not if I can help it.
“Thank you, Dom.” Her voice is low and unexpected.
I watch her carefully, making sure that I don’t say anything or move too quickly. “It’s nothing.” I bite my lip instead of saying anything else. Not wanting to rush her or overwhelm her or make anything worse, I stay back when all I want to do is pull her into my arms and kiss her. It’s all I’ve wanted to do since she walked away.
“I didn’t read any of your letters,” Emma says suddenly. “I know you sent them, but I don’t want you to think that I read them and just didn’t respond. I didn’t open any of them. I couldn’t.” She takes a deep breath.
I look down to see her fingers interlaced and practically white from the pressure she’s putting on them.
“I didn’t need you to.” I fight the urge to touch her until it physically hurts not to reach out. “I know I screwed everything up, Emma. I wrote those letters for myself. To keep me sane while I was in the sandbox. Add it to the list of selfish things that I’ve done since meeting you. I wrote them because I think part of me knew that you wouldn’t read them.”
She rocks back on her heels and stares at me with a strange expression on her face. “Does that mean you don’t want me to read them?”
In my entire life, I’ve never suffered from flop sweat. I’ve run countless missions, trained with men who could snap me like a twig, and not a single moment before now has ever scared me like this. Not until the moment that she puts me on the spot and I’m forced to face the truth.
Emma has the power to destroy me.
“If you read them… start with this one.” I pull the last letter from my pocket, a tiny square of paper from how many times I folded it to make it fit. “This is the last one I wrote.”
“You don’t want me to start at the beginning?”
“No.” I shake my head.
She reaches out and takes the dirt-stained piece of paper. “Okay. Come on, then.”
I don’t move, don’t want to breathe. “What?”
“You heard me.” Emma snaps her fingers together. “You said no one knew you were home, which means your house won’t have food. Either that or your sister is probably still living there. You can sleep in the guest room, and if I need to kill you after reading these, I won’t have to drive across Birch Harbor to get to you.”
I’ve never been so excited or afraid of anything at the same time as I am to watch Emma read the letters that I wrote for her.
When I wrote them, I honestly thought she’d burn them and I wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Knowing she hasn’t… it fans the flames of hope that have already started in my chest. There is only one thing I need.
“I’ll meet you there.”
Her eyes flash, and for a moment I think she’ll change her mind. She stares at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m going to stop by my parents’ house and get my house keys,” I tell her. “I know Vi has a key, but I left Mama with everything I need. And honestly, I don’t want to have to drive over there in the middle of the night if you kick me out after reading those letters.” There’s a little bit of humor there, but the truth is there too. I don’t know where I stand, and I don’t want to make any assumptions when it comes to Emma.
“Do… do you want me to go with you?” Her question, hesitant and unsure, adds to the pain and guilt that I have over how things ended.
“You don’t have to do that.” I close my eyes for a second. “I have to apologize to them, Emma. Did you see the way they wouldn’t speak to me at dinner?” When she nods, I scratch my neck and tell her the rest. “I didn’t call them or talk to them while I was overseas. They’re pissed, and I don’t want you to get caught in the crossfire. If it’s okay, I’ll go see them and then meet you at your place?”
She’s going to say no. I can feel it.
She’ll say no, and I’ll be left as nothing more than a miserable husk of who I used to be.
This is why I never should have given in to the temptation of claiming her.
“Okay.” She looks down at the paper in her hand, her eyebrows furrowed. “But if you don’t show up?—”
I cut her off, doing something completely stupid. “I’ll be there.” Before I can stop myself, I lean down and kiss her on the cheek. “I promise.”