Chapter 17 Dominic #3
She shakes her head. I think it’s an entirely unconscious rejection of my words. “Eventually, I will. I’ll cook dinner, clean, get groceries, tuck Harley in, pick up the living room, mop the kitchen, turn off the lights, and go to bed . . . alone.”
She waves her hand around as she lists out her nightly routine.
To her, it’s just a Thursday evening, same as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and every other day.
To me, I’m taking notes of where I can insert myself to give her a moment of existence where she’s not checking something off a perpetual to-do list.
“And I’m used to that,” she says. “Doing it on my own. So letting you do the dishes is hard because what if I forget how, and when I have to do it alone again, it’s even harder because it’s a reminder of when I didn’t have to.
” Her eyes lift to the ceiling before finding me again.
“It feels like you’re chipping away my foundation, showing me that maybe I built it wrong.
That maybe it was built wrong for me and I just kept building on those misplaced stones.
But if I take it all back to the ground, let it all crumble around me, I’ll have to rebuild everything and that’s terrifying. ”
“Because what if I leave then too?” I finish the thought she doesn’t and her eyes go glittery with tears that gut me.
I wrap my arms around her, not only holding her but holding her broken pieces together.
I feel the wetness of her tears through my shirt where her face is smushed against me.
Running my hand over her hair, I say quietly, “There’s another option, though.
What if I stay and it doesn’t have to be so hard, so heavy?
What if you don’t have to do it alone because I want to do it with you?
Dishes, groceries, laundry, taking care of Harley, taking care of you. All of it.”
“Why?” Her voice is muffled by my chest.
I could give her platitudes about it being how I was raised, because my dad has never once sat in the living room recliner, expecting my mother to wait on him hand and foot.
I could say it’s because she’s beautiful and interesting and deserves it.
And all that’s true. But I don’t, because that’s not the heart of why I’m here right now.
She’s being intimately vulnerable with me, so I return the gift.
“Because I need to be needed,” I say simply.
“Protecting people isn’t what I do. It’s who I am.
On the ice, with teammates, and in my family, with my parents, my sister, my friends.
I see people so easily, sometimes in ways they don’t want me to—” I huff out a laugh at what feels like a complete understatement.
I know how Griffin responded to me dragging him out of his comfort zone (poorly), how Kipson is reacting (angrily), and even how Briar is trying to pull away from me now (scared).
“I see the things they need so clearly, and I want to help. Helping feeds something in me, makes me feel like I’m worth something, like I have value because of what I can do for them. ”
She looks up at me, her eyes wide. “You don’t have to—”
I don’t let her tell me I don’t have to do these things because she’s wrong.
I do. I see myself clearly, too, and I do need to help.
It’s what makes my existence feel meaningful.
I’m not some genius who’s going to change the world.
I’m not going to be a person in any history book.
Even with hockey, the one thing I’m really good at, I’ll be a trivia question at best, a line item on a team roster at worst. I don’t have a Hall of Fame–level career, but that doesn’t matter.
Briar does.
I can have an impact on the people around me. For good or for bad, and I try to choose for good every single time.
So I shake my head and say, “Yes, I do. And now, I find myself wanting to protect the little drop of sunshine in your center more than I want to breathe because it is so damn stunning when you let it shine. It makes me feel like I had some small part in making you feel safe enough to share that with the world. With me.”
Her eyes are peering into mine, jumping left and right like she’s looking for the trick or the lie or trying to figure out the manipulation, but there’s only honesty here. I press a kiss to her lips, and then I whisper, “Let me do the dishes so you can shine.”
Her smile is my new favorite. It’s full of hope and, for the first time since I met her, relief.
“I’m going to start a load of laundry,” she says quietly. It’s not quite the shine I was hoping for, but it’s a start.
And by the time Harley’s shower water turns off, the kitchen is clean, the washer is running, the living room is picked up, and Briar and I are sitting on the couch, kissing.
Luckily, Harley has heavy footsteps so we stop before he comes in, but his eyes still bounce from Briar to me, and he seems pretty aware of what he interrupted. “Dom, can you tuck me in again?”
“Absolutely,” I tell him, getting up.
Are we playing house? Yes. Am I loving every bit of it? Also yes. Briar and Harley are a set, one I’m falling for more and more with each passing minute.