22. Chapter 22 #2
“I think that’s what I’ve been doing all these years.” My jaw tightens. “Paying for it.”
“I don’t let anything mean too much. Don’t let anyone get too close. And when something starts to matter enough, I shut the door before it gets the chance.”
Lilly’s face from tonight flashes through my head.
The way she looked at me when she reached for something real and I gave her my body instead of the truth.
My stomach drops.
“She keeps reaching,” I say quietly, my jaw tightening. “But one day she’s going to stop.” I look at Dom then. “And if I don’t figure out how to face this, I’m going to lose her. Not because of Nico. Not because of what happened that night.”
My voice drops.
“Because of what I keep doing with it.”
The silence that follows feels different.
Not empty.
Then I hear a sharp sniff followed by a quiet curse.
Dom stands, steps around the low table, and reaches down to gently pull the crystal glass from my hand before setting it aside.
I look up at him.
He reaches for me, pulling me to my feet and straight into a crushing embrace, his head dropping onto my shoulder.
This time, I don’t push him away.
My arms stay heavy at my sides for a few seconds before I finally lift them. I wrap them around him, gripping the back of his shirt in my fists.
“I’m so fucking sorry about Nico,” Dom rasps against me, his voice cracking.
My eyes close.
We stay like that for what feels like hours before Dom’s grip finally loosens.
“Okay,” he mutters under his breath, his voice thick and gravelly.
He swipes the back of his hand across his cheek, wiping away the wetness before staring down at the slate floor and giving himself a moment to collect himself.
I drag the heel of my palm across my own face, clearing my eyes as I take a long, shuddering breath.
Dom looks up at me, his eyes bloodshot but clear.
I look down at my abandoned glass on the table, then back at Dom.
Nothing patches up twenty years of friendship like mutual emotional destruction and obscenely expensive alcohol.
He bends down, grabs his tumbler, and drops heavily back onto the couch, resting his elbows on his knees.
I silently grab my own glass and sink back into the cushions across from him. The whiskey burns all the way down as I take a slow sip, the heat settling deep in my chest.
“What made you come here?” Dom asks.
“Lilly.”
Her name leaves my lips before anything else does.
“After you told me to leave, she ran after me.”
Dom tilts his head, listening.
“She got into my car and started asking questions. Reasonable fucking questions.”
“It’s a little past one. You still have time for pillow talk.”
It feels foreign talking to Dom this freely again, but underneath that is something painfully familiar. Like we’ve somehow fallen back into the way we used to talk a lifetime ago, before there were thousands of miles and years of silence between us.
“What makes you think she hasn’t read the articles already?” Dom asks quietly.
“I’m sure she hasn’t.” I take another sip and place the glass on the table. “My family spent a shit load of money making sure the old press was buried deep.”
“Right.” Dom huffs out a breath and turns to study me. “Do you want to tell her?”
My eyes stay on his for a second.
“Surprisingly... yeah,” I say softly. “That’s why I came to you first.”
A faint, dry smirk touches the corner of Dom’s mouth.
“So I’m the guinea pig?”
“Test run,” I correct him, the corners of my mouth lifting. “I owed you an apology regardless.”
Dom takes a slow sip of his whiskey, his eyes staying on me over the rim of the glass.
“Where is Lilly now?”
“Asleep in my bed.”
“Have you thought about what Coach is going to do when he finds out?”
I give a slight shrug.
“Worst case? I get traded.”
Dom shakes his head, a scoff leaving his lips.
“Be realistic. Coach is the one who fought the front office to bring you to the Blazers. He had to convince the owner to drop the biggest contract this franchise has ever seen to get you here. He isn’t trading you.”
“Even when he finds out I’m fucking his daughter?” I counter, raising a brow.
“He’ll crash out,” Dom says with absolute certainty. “He’ll make your life hell on the ice. But he won’t punish the team, and he won’t give up on you. You’re priceless to this team.”
Dom leans forward, his gaze turning serious.
“Do you honestly think the boys would sit back and let you get traded? They’d have to drag us out with you.”
A small smile pulls at my mouth.
I swirling the whiskey around the glass before looking back at him.
“Do you think Jessica would let me borrow an outfit of hers?”
Dom blinks, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“...Why?”
“I have a girl in my bed whose dress is currently at the bottom of my laundry basket,” I explain. “I wanna take her somewhere tomorrow, and she needs clothes. I'm going to book the earliest flight and I don’t have time for detours to her place.”
“What kind of clothes do you need?”
Jessica’s voice drifts out from our right.
Both Dom and I snap our heads toward the shadow of the sliding glass doors, rising in unison like two guard dogs catching an intruder.
Jessica steps fully onto the patio, sniffing and furiously wiping at her wet cheeks.
“What?” she snarls softly, her voice raspy from crying. “Did you really think I’d leave you alone out here after the marks you left on his neck?”
“It’s rude to eavesdrop,” I tell her, my voice dropping back into its usual low rumble.
“It’s rude to choke people almost to death,” Jessica fires right back, her eyes rimmed red.
Hard to argue with that when my fingerprints are still visible.
She walks straight toward us.
I brace myself for another lethal glaring match, but Jessica suddenly uncrosses her arms, steps directly into my space, and throws them around my torso in a quick, fierce embrace.
My entire body locks.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Zed,” she whispers softly against my chest.
Before I can react, she pulls back and gives me my space again.
I’ve never known how to answer those words.
I heard them so many times at Nico’s funeral that eventually they stopped meaning anything. I stood there like a stone statue, unable to look anyone in the eye while people offered the same polite, hollow society condolences before moving on to the next person.
I don’t know what to say to Jessica now either.
So I just look at her and give her a single, tight nod.
Jessica lets out a sigh and crosses her arms back over her chest.
“Now,” she sniffs. “What kind of outfit are we talking about?”
I take a deep, slow breath and glance over at Dom. He’s standing there with a faint smile touching the corner of his mouth as he watches his girl.
I turn back to Jessica.
"What would you wear to meet the most important person I’ve ever lost?”