Chapter 8 Briar
Briar
“Who is that?” Trina purrs. Literally. She sounds like one of the cougars housed here at the Berkshire Zoo. She’s also peering across the walkway with quite the hungry look . . . at Dominic presumably, who is sitting on the ground outside the gibbon habitat with Harley.
“A friend,” I answer vaguely. I’m not trying to be coy, I just don’t know how to phrase this situation. And a lifetime of experience has taught me, even a single stray comment about Dom could end up splashed across the sports pages. I don’t want to cause him, or myself, any unintended drama.
Dominic’s clearly wise to the game too. He isn’t exactly famous in that paparazzi-chasing sort of way, but since there’s a chance someone might recognize him, he’s wearing a ballcap pulled down low and sunglasses.
Paired with his khaki T-shirt and black jeans, he blends into the zoo personnel quite well, and no one should identify the professional hockey player in their midst. Or at least, that’s the hope, and so far, nobody seems to be giving him a second glance.
Except Trina and me, and neither of us are the least bit concerned with Dominic’s job as an athlete.
“Can I be his friend too? Girl, look at the chest muscles stretching the hell outta that shirt. Those nipples are downright bitable.” She takes a snarling bite out of the air.
“Trina!” I scold, but when she rawrs, complete with clawed fingers like a big cat, I can’t hold back the giggles.
Despite my declaration that Dominic is a friend, that’s getting harder to argue.
He picked us up early this morning, with a bag full of bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches and a cup of coffee for me already on the console.
It’s a small gesture, but it means something, like he wants to take care of us.
And the more it happens, the more I’m starting to like it.
He drove us to the zoo while switching between his own coffee and a gross-looking green protein smoothie, asking questions about my job the whole time.
Once we arrived, he opened my door, helped me out of the jacked-up truck, then made sure Harley wasn’t overdoing it on his still slightly tender ankle.
I gave him a quick tour of the gibbon area, basically pointing out the viewing windows and the closest bathrooms, and then I had to get to work.
But dragging myself away from them was hard, and I’ve spent most of the day wondering what they’re up to.
The answer seems to be . . . happily watching Caprice and her baby.
Dominic is not what I expected, nor what I thought .
. . about hockey players or about men in general.
I didn’t think men like him existed in real life.
Men who are kind, generous, and supportive, and who don’t expect to be revered by the mere right of having been born with a penis.
At least in my experience, he’s a complete anomaly.
And fine, I’ll admit that his chest looks pretty nice too. So does the cocky yet not arrogant smile, the gentlemanly manners, and the way he stood up to Tyler without escalating things. It was nice to have someone on my side for once.
And while he keeps calling us friends, I can feel the way he looks at me.
He wants me, but he’s not going to force things.
He’s not going to make me do anything that I’m going to regret.
Instead, he seems to be rock solid, strong enough to silently say, Here I am.
When you’re ready—if you’re ready—I’m still going to be here.
It’s reassuring, but the truth is, all that strength, all that restrained intensity, also feels overwhelming. I’ve spent a lifetime having men in my life tell me I’m not good enough. Dominic’s dark gaze not only says I’m good enough, but that I’m a queen.
It might make a good fairy tale, but jumping from Cinderella to princess is scary, especially when I already made that leap once and ended up so much worse off, in many ways.
“I think I’ll go check on him,” I tell Trina, and she gives me a knowing look. “Them! I mean, them! Harley and my . . . friend.”
Trina isn’t convinced in the slightest. Despite our twenty-year age gap, she’s one of my best friends at work, and she knows the basic gist of my history, though I haven’t told anyone the worst of it.
But she’s been around the block enough times to know that I don’t usually get blushy and weird about guys, nor do I let my son hang out with random strangers.
“You do that. Go check on him.” She does not mean Harley, but rather than argue, I start to head their way.
“Oh, Briar?” I pause, turning back at her questioning tone.
“If it matters, your friend has been talking with Harley literally all day. They’ve been thick as thieves over there, just watching the gibbons and having a grand old time.
And if Harley likes him, and he makes you smile like a quokka does, that’s a good man in my experience. You deserve some good.”
I take a slow breath, her words touching me deeply. I do deserve some good, but Harley is the good in my life. Everything is centered on him, not me and definitely not a man. I learned that lesson. It’s just gotten harder to remember it lately.
“Thanks, Trina.”
Her words have the opposite effect than she intended, making me slow my pace as I walk toward Dominic and Harley. With each step, I remind myself . . . friends, friends, friends. But the two of them, sitting side by side, looking comfortable and chummy, make quite the cute picture.
“That’s a personal question there, kid,” I hear Dominic say.
I shouldn’t eavesdrop, but I slow even more, listening to see what my son has asked. With him, especially at this age, there’s no telling.
Harley grins, unrepentant. “You avoiding the question? Chicken.”
Dominic laughs loudly, completely unbothered by the callout from a child.
“Definitely. But alright, you want the truth?” Harley nods wildly and I freeze, not even breathing with how much I want to hear this answer to a question I don’t even know.
“I don’t think the knee socks are cringe at all.
In fact, I think they’re pretty cute on some people. ”
I glance down at my legs, which are in fact covered by khaki knee socks. I also have on knee-high muck boots because I’ve been cleaning out the flamingo pond, which means I smell like mud and dried shrimp.
Definitely sooo cute, I think. But I’m trying not to feel flattered because it’s pretty obvious I’m the “some people” Dominic is referring to.
Unless he thinks Gary, the volunteer who specializes in primate education, is looking extra good today as he wanders the area, answering questions in, you guessed it .
. . knee socks. Though I happen to know his are compression socks to help with his arthritis.
I clear my throat, getting both Dom’s and Harley’s attention. “Mom!” Harley yells, “Come look at the baby!”
My son seems completely oblivious that I might’ve overheard his conversation, or that I would care if I did hear, but Dom is smirking.
He knows I heard, and to prove that point, he intentionally drops his gaze to my legs.
When his eyes travel back up my body to meet mine, the look on his face has my cheeks feeling hot.
Cargo shorts, knee socks, and muck boots have never felt like lingerie before, but under Dom’s appreciative eyes, they definitely do.
“What’s she doing?” I ask Dom instead of what I really want to ask, which is Want to see me without the socks on? or maybe, With only the socks on?
“Sitting beside Caprice,” Harley explains, sounding thrilled by what would seem to be a pretty boring day.
Dominic chuckles. “He seems really excited that she’s sitting?” He looks confused by my son’s exuberance.
“The baby is only three months old, so she spends almost the entire day and night clinging to her mother. Sitting beside her is a major milestone in her growth and development.” I get closer to the plexiglass, peering through it to see my favorite animal in the entire zoo .
. . Caprice. “Did you tell him about the trick?” I ask my son, and he shakes his head.
“Trick?” Dominic echoes. His eyes bounce from me to Harley questioningly.
Instead of answering directly, I tilt my head back slightly and let out a loud, high-pitched whooping noise that sounds vaguely like a car alarm going off. Harley grins. Dominic looks surprised and horrified in equal measures. “What the—”
I don’t have to explain, though. Caprice does it for me, answering with a car alarm sound of her own. Whoop whoop whoop whooooop.
I close my eyes for a moment to listen to her song, feeling the happiness in it. She’s proud of her baby and wants to show off her progress. “I see her, Mama,” I tell Caprice, even though she can’t hear me through the viewing window. But her eyes stay on me, like she knows I’m talking to her.
Caprice has been here for the entirety of her twelve years, born at the zoo just like her offspring.
When I started here four years ago, we became fast friends.
Mostly because I bring food, but there are other workers who do that, yet they don’t have the same bond with her that I do.
Somehow, our connection is different. She talks to me, watches and follows me around in the backstage area of their habitat, and has even protected me when one of the younger male gibbons tried throwing his nutritional biscuit at me in protest. Suffice it to say that after her intervention, that male never did anything like that again.
It might sound silly to some people, but I consider Caprice a friend.
“You can talk to monkeys?” Dominic teases.
“Gibbons aren’t monkeys. Technically, they’re lesser apes,” I say automatically, ready to launch into my speech about the origins and differences.
But then I see Dominic fighting not to smile and realize the truth.
“Which you already knew because either Harley or Gary has told you everything there is to know about gibbons today.”