Chapter Twelve Dominic
Chapter Twelve
Dominic
D ominic had said good night to his mother at least an hour ago now, but he still found himself pacing back and forth in his kitchen, unable to sleep. It was too late at night to go anywhere in this small town, but he needed to burn the energy he was feeling somehow. It wasn’t even bad energy, it was… excitement. Or fear? He wasn’t entirely sure what label to put on it, but all he knew was that he’d had the best evening in a long time laughing with Amanda and his mother. They’d all done dinner together and finished off a bottle of wine and cracked open another.
It had felt seamless and happy, and after the way his morning had gone, that felt like whiplash. One minute, he’d been numbly staring at a possible future of blindness and the next he was laughing with his mother and his neighbor about childhood stories of that one time he’d put VapoRub all over his hair as a toddler and had smelled like menthol for a month.
Dominic paused his pacing and glanced out the back window at Amanda’s dock. With the right lighting, he might be able to get some more work done on it. That would definitely help get some of his anxious energy out. It wasn’t the safest idea—carpentry at midnight—but he needed to expel his frustration somehow.
He headed for his garage and gathered up the toolbox that Jack had slowly helped him build to full capacity. Jack had also given him a floodlight that was battery operated. They’d meant to use it for working in the fog that sometimes came over the lake in the early mornings, but working in the pitch-black night seemed as good a use as any.
It took about ten minutes to haul everything out to the dock and figure out how to set up the light, but once he had, the area was decently lit, and he could pick up where he and Jack had left off earlier. Admittedly, his lessened vision made things a bit more of a gamble, and he found himself going back to the house twice for a second, then a third flashlight.
But as awkward as it was working in the middle of the night, it was successful in distracting him from everything he was feeling. He had to focus intensely to be able to see what he was doing, and there was absolutely no room for emotional ruminations at the same time.
“It’s literally twelve thirty at night,” a voice came from behind him as he was hammering a railing into the base of the deck.
Startled by the sudden sound, he slammed the hammer down squarely on his thumb with all his force.
“Ouch!” Dominic shouted and jumped up so fast that he lost his balance. He swung his arms fiercely to try to recenter his gravity, but it was of no use. Seconds later, Dominic was plunging into the cold, dark water of Heart Lake with a sore thumb and an even sorer ego.
“Oh my God! Dominic!” the voice shouted, and he recognized it as Amanda now.
Thankfully, the water at the shore was still shallow enough that falling in only dropped him in to his shoulders. He splashed and pushed himself closer to the shore, climbing his way out next to the dock onto the grassy slope of Amanda’s backyard.
“I’m fine! I’m fine,” he repeated as he climbed out. But he was definitely not fine. He was shivering. Like, full-body shivers where he had no doubt Amanda could hear the chatter in his voice.
“You’re freezing!” she countered, rushing down to the shore, grabbing him by his wet shoulders, and pushing him toward her back porch. “Come inside, quick. Let me help you get warm!”
He wanted to argue and protest more, but honestly, he was shaking so hard he could barely take a full breath. It was almost summer, but for some reason, the water was still like ice. Maybe because it was the middle of the night; he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of, however, was that he wasn’t going swimming in Heart Lake anytime soon.
“Thanks,” he tried to voice between chattering teeth.
Amanda ushered him into her house, leaving him standing in the back entryway for only a moment as she grabbed several throw blankets off her couch and wrapped them around his shoulders.
He held them tight around him, but it didn’t make the chattering stop.
“Maybe you should take off the wet clothes?” she offered. “I can put them in the dryer.”
“I don’t have any other clothes,” he replied between frigid breaths and shakes.
She shrugged. “I won’t look. I promise.”
With that, she turned her back to him and opened a nearby small closet, procuring several towels from it.
“Strip everything off, and then I’ll give you these towels,” she continued. “It’ll be a lot better than staying in wet clothes.”
With her standing only three feet in front of him, he did what she commanded. Quickly and carefully, he peeled off each layer of soaking wet clothes and dropped them onto the tile floor beneath him.
“Okay, towels, please,” he said, his hands cupped over his groin in an attempt at privacy, even though she wasn’t facing him.
Amanda handed him the towels while keeping her eyes forward, meaning she missed him at first and he had to find her hands to get the towels. But once he did, he took both towels quickly and wrapped one securely around his waist and the other like a shawl around his shoulders for more warmth.
“All good?” she asked, still turned away.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice smoothing out as his shivering began to calm. “I’m covered up.”
She turned to face him, and he saw her try to keep her eyes on his, but they faltered briefly and glanced down the length of him.
He wanted to pretend her gaze didn’t affect him, but it did. She was incredibly beautiful, and the way her lashes hung heavily over her brown eyes was hard not to find mesmerizing. He swallowed, trying to push the thoughts away. “I… uh… well, thanks. That was very cold.”
“The fireplace is going,” Amanda continued, now looking away. “Come on. Join me in the living room. You need to get a lot warmer than just those towels.”
He followed her to the couches that surrounded her fireplace and instantly felt warmer from both that and the extra blankets she piled on top of him. She put his wet clothes in the dryer before returning to check on him.
“This is perfect,” he admitted but looked at his bruised thumb, which was already beginning to turn different colors. “Ironic, but would you happen to have an ice pack for my thumb?”
She laughed and nodded, heading for the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a small blue gel pad, handing it to him.
He held the cold, soft surface against his finger and sat there quietly, gazing at the fireplace. There was something about staring at flickering flames that could make a person get lost.
Amanda sat in the love seat perpendicular to him, tucking her feet beneath her on the couch. He could still see the slight stain of the red wine they’d switched to earlier on her lips, and he tried not to think about what it would be like to kiss them.
“What the hell were you doing working on the dock in the middle of the night?” she said. “That’s crazy-person behavior, you know.”
He could feel his cheeks flushing but didn’t make eye contact with her. “I needed the distraction.”
“Why?” she pushed, and, God, he didn’t want her to.
And yet, he also did. “You know why.”
She wasn’t taking his bait as easily. “Me? What would I know about your craziness?”
“You. My mother. All of tonight,” he replied, wrapping the towel tighter around his shoulders. “You’re not innocent here.”
She frowned, her head tilting to the side. “Sorry. Was getting to know your mother overstepping neighbor boundaries or something? She’s really nice, and we have been becoming friends lately. Haven’t we?”
“Of course we have,” he replied, now finally shifting his gaze to hers. “It was actually really nice to see how well the two of you got along.”
Amanda nodded, but he could see a hint of worry etched in her furrowed brow. “If my mother ever comes over, you’re welcome to meet her. She just tends to work a lot, and we’re not as close as it seems you and your mom might be.”
Dominic let out a sigh as he dropped his head back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “We’re meeting the parents now.”
She laughed lightly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Maybe I wish you did though,” he countered, rolling his head to the side and finding her eyes again. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “I think I’d actually like that a lot because I’m wanting to get to know you better, and maybe it will reveal a thing or two.”
Amanda’s gaze skittered away from him, and she stared into the fireplace. “The Boat Parade is this weekend. Are you going to be there? You could always bring your mom.”
He hadn’t expected the sudden change in conversation but went with it anyway. “Yeah. I know how much work you’ve put into it. I don’t think my mother will still be in town then, though. I’ll be there.”
He wanted her to address what he’d just said, how he’d just put himself out there and basically told her he wanted to be dating. He wanted to be meeting the parents and doing all the things that people who date do. He shouldn’t want that. He knew he shouldn’t. Who would even want to date a recent divorcé in his position? It wasn’t practical for her, and it wasn’t practical for him.
But he still couldn’t help what he was feeling in that moment.
Amanda nodded, still not looking at him. “The parade is fun. We’ve done it a couple years now, and it’s just a contest basically of who has the best-decorated boat. Nola and Tanner will have a boat in it, and I’ll drive one for my boss. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
“I can’t,” he replied. “I promised Jack I’d be on his. We’re doing a Halloween theme.”
“Oh, that’s cool. Jack almost won last year. He’s hoping for a comeback,” Amanda said. “I, uh… I have another date before it. My last date of the four.”
If that was her way of dropping the hint that she wasn’t feeling the same thing he was feeling, he was beginning to pick up on it. Clearly, he’d put himself out on an emotional limb alone, and she was trying to nicely let him off the hook.
“Nothing serious,” she continued. “I thought it would be less pressure to have it before the parade so I had an out time locked in, you know? So maybe we can debrief about him like we’ve been doing at the parade. I’ll want to know what you think.”
He already knew what he thought, and it was that he didn’t want her going on a date at all. But he kept that thought to himself and instead just nodded. “Sure. Happy to help. Four dates in a month, huh? You really knocked out your goal.”
She pulled her lips tight. “I am never one to not follow through on what I promise.”
“That’s good,” Dominic said, feeling like he was just throwing out words and none of it even made sense anymore. His thumb was still throbbing, and now his ego was bruised on top of it all. “Good for you.”
“It’s complicated, Dominic,” Amanda finally added after a few moments of silence fell between them. Her voice was quieter now, barely above a whisper. “I… I’m not sure who I am right now. I’m still trying to figure it out.”
He could relate to that. “I feel you on that one.”
“Did you ever have plans for a post-baseball career? Before the injury, I mean? Like, had you ever thought about it?” She stood up to stoke the fire a bit, and then, instead of going back to sit on the love seat, she sat on the same couch he was on. The opposite end of it, but still… she was moving closer. He could smell the lavender in her shampoo and the hint of wine from earlier on her breath. He tried not to let his body react to the proximity, keeping his focus on the fire instead.
She leaned back into the couch. “Are you warm enough?”
“I am,” he replied, keeping his gaze on the flickering flames. “And to answer your question, I think I just assumed I’d be in the game long enough to build up a good financial base, run some investments, and just be set for life. Not have to work, you know?”
She tucked her bare toes under the edge of one of the blankets that was on top of him. “But now you do have to work?”
“Well, technically no,” he clarified, definitely not focusing on her feet being less than an inch from his bare thigh. There was only a towel between them under the blanket, and he wasn’t about to make a move on her after she’d just rejected him. “I don’t have to work. I am pretty blessed from the length of time I was in the game and the contracts I had. If I make smart choices, I’ll be fine for the rest of my life.”
“That must be nice,” Amanda said with a teasing laugh. “I never understood how athletes made such large paychecks like that.”
He shrugged sheepishly. “It can be exorbitant. There’s no doubt about that. But also, it’s taking a lot more from you than a nine-to-five job. There are no off-hours. There is no individuation of yourself outside of baseball—you’re just a player and that’s it. That’s your identity. It’s the only identity you have the time to foster. You give up any privacy or right to making your own choices without the rest of the world weighing in on them. That money didn’t just pay me a salary—I sold my entire life and self to that team.”
She didn’t respond right away but then reached forward and placed her hand on his forearm. “That’s a really beautiful—and also painful—way of describing it. I’d never thought about it like that, to be honest.”
“Being here in Heart Lake is the first time in fifteen years that I’ve really gotten to ask myself… who am I? Who do I want to be?” Dominic continued. “But I’m not sure I know the answer to that question without baseball being somehow involved.”
He thought about the upcoming interview and briefly considered telling her about it right then and there. But that wasn’t a door he wanted to open right now.
“I feel that way about design sometimes.” Amanda’s hand continued to rest on his forearm, and he felt his skin burning in the best way beneath it. “Like a home or a room is a canvas, and every time I put my designs on it, it’s like art I’m breathing into the world. It feels like part of me… not just something I’m producing. Little bits and pieces of me left in everything I create.”
He nodded, understanding that feeling more than he wanted to admit. “I think there’s a piece of me left behind in that stadium…”
She moved closer on the couch now, her shoulder pushing up against his. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed again. Both of them just stared forward and watched the flames flicker in the fireplace, and at some point, sleep must have begun to pull at him.
It was strange to feel so lost in a moment where he also felt so found.