Dominic #3
The quiet stretched between us, long enough for the bass from the main house to pulse against my ribs.
I could feel her hope—small, stupid, and fragile—vibrating in the space between us.
For a second, the ice in my chest cracked.
I saw the way her fingers gripped that greasy bag hard enough to crumple it, her eyes searching mine for a sign that I wasn't as detached as I pretended to be.
The warmth of the thought was terrifying. It felt like slowing down into a corner I knew I couldn't make. If I gave him a chance, the whole world would stop being black and white. I’d have to admit that maybe my father wasn't the only one to blame for the silence in our house.
I thought about this afternoon. I thought about the way the engine had screamed when I dared it to break—the purity of that destruction. Destruction was safe. Forgiveness was a liability I couldn't afford.
I looked at her and watched the hope die in her eyes before I even spoke. I shook my head once. A clean, closed-off gesture.
"No."
"You're a prick, Dominic," she muttered, her voice trembling with exhaustion that had nothing to do with her job. "You’ve got all this money, all this space, and you’re still just a small man hiding in a big house."
A sharp, unfamiliar jolt spiked behind my ribs. It wasn't the steady burn of anger; it was a jagged, erratic kick that made my lungs seize for a heartbeat.
I didn't want to deal with this strange new feeling. I didn't want to know why my pulse was suddenly thrumming in time with the bass coming from the house, or why the disappointment in her eyes felt like a physical weight.
I turned and reached the back door of the main house, ripping it open to drown that new, terrifying ache in the noise of someone else’s chaos.
The dining room was a stage, and I was the uninvited critic.
“Dominic,” my father snapped, his face darkening from wine-flushed to a deep, dangerous purple. “We have a guest. You will apologize for that entrance and—”
I didn’t look at him. I looked at the girl.
She was pretty in that generic, curated way that looked expensive until you realized there was nothing underneath it. Up close, the shimmer of her dress was tacky, and the way she looked at me—half-scared, half-intrigued—made my skin crawl.
“My bad,” I said, my voice cutting through the music like the clean slice of a knife. “I didn’t realize the estate was hosting a career day for high-schoolers. Did you bring your permission slip, or does my father just sign off on those now?”
Her mouth fell open, a small, indignant gasp that he drowned out with a roar.
“That is enough!” He jabbed a finger toward me, his voice trembling with the kind of rage he reserved only for me.
I didn't give him the satisfaction of a fight. I didn't give him a single word of defense. In one fluid motion, I reached past him and grabbed the wine bottle from the silver bucket, the condensation slicking my palm. I didn't reach for a glass. I didn't wait for an invite.
I uncorked it with a single, violent twist, then paused. I looked at the guest—really looked at her—and let a slow, smug smile pull at the corner of my mouth.
“Don’t look so jealous,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, mocking drawl. “You’re probably not even old enough to legally have this anyway.”
I tipped the bottle back and took a long, unapologetic swallow. The vintage was cold, sharp, and tasted like money I hadn't earned. I set the bottle back down on the table with a heavy, rhythmic thud that made the crystal rattle and the girl flinch.
I stared at her for a heartbeat before my fingers tightened back around the neck, dragging the glass across the surface with a slow, grating screech.
The shimmer-dress stopped existing the second I walked away.
I didn't look at the person who had traded his entire persona for a performance. I disappeared down the hall, my shoes ringing against the floor with a rhythmic authority. My father’s shouting followed me, but it felt like white noise—background music to a challenge I’d already won.
I reached the stairs, the silence of the long hallway wrapping around me like a familiar suit of armor.
I didn't slow down. I didn't stop to look in the mirrors.
I felt lighter than I had all day, the adrenaline from the dining room successfully burying the unfamiliar friction Carter had sparked in the dark.
I took another pull from the bottle as I walked, the alcohol burning a path through the lingering taste of grease and metal.
Carter kept swinging at me like she thought she could make it hurt—like she was the only person around here who didn’t know when to back off.
The problem wasn’t that she was wrong. It was that the friction felt more like home than anything in that dining room. I was starting to crave the way she looked at me when she was angry.
She was a fire hazard. She keeps arguing with me like she thinks she’ll win. The problem isn’t that she’s wrong. It’s that I’m starting to like it.
Great.
I was officially losing my mind.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and retreated into my own space, my composure settling over me like it had never fractured.