Chapter 13
DOMINIC
This was a bad idea. Was it a bad idea? Will she be happy to see me? This was a mistake.
The same thoughts keep circling, making my palms sweat as I run my hand through my hair for the seventh time.
Just knock, idiot.
I take a deep breath and knock.
A gasp sounds from behind the door, and Lindsay opens it, but only a crack. She’s looking at me like I’m something out of her nightmares, and my brain confirms that this was definitely a mistake.
“Nic?” she whispers before looking over her shoulder.
“I’ll be right back.” Her comment is for whoever is inside her apartment.
My mind provides many guesses, none of which calms my nerves.
She slips out into the hall and closes the door behind her.
With wide eyes, she asks, “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I took the day off. Wanted to come surprise you and Jules.” I lean down and press a kiss to her cheek, trying to pretend like this is fine.
That Lindsay doesn’t look terrified to be standing near me.
That the tension coming off her body doesn’t make me feel like I’m her dirty little secret in the enchanted town she occasionally visits.
I knew Lindsay would be at home today because Jules is two days into her suspension, and Lindsay is working from home until Jules goes back to school. I had hoped she’d be excited to see me, and I could talk both of them into playing hooky for a few hours to show me around their neighborhood.
“But…” She looks me up and down, like she’s just now realizing I’m a zombie. “But how are you here? I assumed you couldn’t leave Mapletown.”
“Lindsay,” I hear a female voice call seconds before the front door opens.
“Oh, hello there.” The woman is several inches shorter than Lindsay, with paler skin and fewer curves, but with the addition of soft creases in the corners of her eyes and silver streaks in her hair.
Her mother, I’m guessing. The woman turns to her daughter.
“I didn’t realize you were having company today. ”
I notice that Lindsay is looking between me and her mother like we’re both covered in blood. My heart sinks when I figure out why. She’s ashamed of me. Her fear is in her parents meeting me.
“Well, come in,” her mother says with a smile. “There’s no need to hang out in the drafty hallway.”
I step around Lindsay and offer my thanks to the person who doesn’t mind hosting me. “My name is Dominic. Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” I offer my winningest smile and most gentlemanly bow.
She giggles. Jackpot. “I’m Annabelle, Lindsay’s mother.”
“Who’s here?” a man’s voice calls out from another room. He’s got gray hair, a tall, thick build, and the same olive skin as Lindsay, who’s still hovering by the front door, unable to speak. “Hi there. Linds, you going to introduce us to your friend or what?”
After a long, awkward pause, Lindsay clears her throat and takes a step in our direction. “Right. Uh, sorry, I just…” her eyes dart between the three of us expectantly. “Never mind. Mom, Dad, this is Dominic Jennings.”
I’m both eager and anxious to hear the way she introduces me. What I am to her.
“He owns a bar in Mapletown.”
Factual, but without any attachment.
“Nic, this is my dad, Matteo, and my mom, Annabelle.”
“Dominic!” Jules shouts as she rounds the corner and runs toward me, wrapping her arms around my middle.
“Hey, princess.” I called her that once while she and Linds were making pizza rolls in the bar’s kitchen, and she looked at me like I’d just given the keys to a Lamborghini.
“What are you doing here?” she looks up and asks.
“Took the day off to come see you.”
“Really?” She’s delighted. Grabbing my hand, she drags me toward the living room. “Come have a scone. I made them. They’re peppermint!”
“I’ll pour us all some coffee,” Matteo offers.
“Actually, Nic,” Lindsay begins, “can I talk to you in the bedroom really quickly? I have that book you asked about.”
“Book?” I ask, before realizing this is a ruse. A performance. One that Linds is not selling. Not even a little. “Oh, sure.”
We step into the bedroom, and she closes the door quietly behind her, then rounds on me like she’s about to scream. “What the fuck is going on?” Her voice is barely louder than a whisper.
“What do you mean?” I reply quietly. I still have no idea why she’s acting so strange. I’m hoping I get an explanation before we return to the living room, because I’m feeling extremely deflated right now. “Why are you so upset to see me? Did I do something wrong?”
Her eyebrows pinch in confusion. “No, of course not.”
“Then what is it? Are you ashamed of me? You don’t want your parents to meet me?”
She puts her hands on my forearms, offering reassurance.
It works. Her touch releases the tension in my neck, as much, if not more than, a neck massage.
“What? No,” she scoffs. “They’ve been trying to set me up with their friends’ sons and nephews ever since I turned forty.
You could have a machete in your hand, and as long as you say please and thank you, they’d tell me to give you a chance. ”
“Then what?”
“Nic, you’re the size of a tree and your skin is fucking green,” she says, rubbing her temples. “Aren’t you concerned about being here? Outside of Mapletown, outside the enchanted bubble and wandering around in your true form? How is this allowed? How is it safe?”
Oh. Oh. She’s worried about me. About my safety. I’m so relieved she isn’t ashamed of me that I pull her into my chest, my hand cupping the nape of her neck.
“Nic!” She pushes out of my embrace and looks at me with wild eyes.
“I got approval from the mayor to leave town for the day. For those like me, who can’t shift into a form that naturally blends in with humans, her approval comes with a mask spell.”
“Mask spell? What is that?”
“Everyone who’s never seen me before can’t see that my skin is green. To them, I look like a regular white guy, just with a lot of scars.”
She chews on the inside of her lip. “So Jules and I can see the real you, but when my parents look at you, your skin looks white.”
“Yep.” I’m realizing that her fear could’ve been avoided if I’d given her a heads-up that I was coming to visit, and now I feel like an asshole. “Sorry for the scare. I’m perfectly safe anywhere I go as long as I’m back in Mapletown by midnight. That’s when the spell wears off.”
“Oh god. Okay.” She lets out a trembling breath and leans into me. “Fucking hell. I was standing there like, why are my parents so comfortable around this giant green stranger?”
I’m realizing now that Jules had the opposite reaction to Lindsay, despite her being able to see my green skin. “Why didn’t Jules freak out?”
“She probably assumes I explained the existence of monsters to my parents the same way I did for her.” She fans her face. “Shit. You just aged me, like, fifteen years.”
“Maybe this will make up for it.” I pull my gift for her out of my coat’s inside pocket.
It’s nothing special. I didn’t even wrap it. But that doesn’t seem to matter, based on the little excited hop she does.
“Peanut butter cups? You got me peanut butter cups?”
I nod. “For when you miss me.”
She lets out a loud, unhinged cackle, ending in the most adorable snort I’ve ever heard. “This is perfect. Thank you.”
I’m awarded with a heated kiss that makes my knees wobble.
She puts the candy on her nightstand and gestures toward the door. “Come on, let’s go have scones.”
We join Lindsay’s parents and Jules in the living room and nibble on scones while her father flips the TV channels between two different hockey games.
“So, Dominic, how long have you owned your bar?” Matteo asks.
“About six years now.”
“Have you always worked in the restaurant industry?” Annabelle asks.
“Not always.” I tread carefully here. Not all of my work experience is technically legal. “I worked as a server on and off after high school. Then a bartender for a couple years in Memphis. I enjoyed it, especially once I got good at it.”
“Oh yeah? Did you learn how to flip bottles in the air and pour cocktails behind your back?” Matteo asks.
I chuckle at the image. “No, sir. None of that, but I can mix a mean martini.”
We go around sharing our signature drinks, and I tell them the hardest cocktails to make.
They seem genuinely interested. Perhaps that’s why I thoughtlessly utter, “After I was turned, I really wanted to be my own boss, you know? And since bartending was something I knew how to do, it felt like the perfect fit.”
“After you were…turned?” Annabelle asks with raised eyebrows.
Fuck! I’m not used to interacting with normies. My filter came down way too easily.
“Uh, he meant––” Lindsay begins, looking panicked.
“After I, uh…” I’m urging my brain to come with something. Anything. “Turned against my community,” is what spills out.
Lindsay and I exchange a what the fuck look before she adds, “Yeah, he was in a cult. A bad one. Very oppressive environment.” She keeps nodding, almost manically. “He’s lucky to be alive.”
I suppose it works, if I were to think of that first dark year before my recovery as cult-like. There wasn’t a leader, although I guess the leader here would be the virus? It’s too late to walk it back anyway, so I play along. “Yes. Lucky.”
Once we’re past that minor hiccup, the conversation flows smoothly. Matteo and Annabelle are both kind and don’t seem overly judgmental, but I find I’m unable to relax until I’m back in the truck and driving toward the highway.
A memory floats upward, of the time Gemma introduced me to her brother.
We were having dinner at a fancy restaurant, and I struggled to follow their conversation.
I couldn’t tell if the references they were making were too inside, or I was too dumb to follow along.
The way Gemma kept rolling her eyes and laughing whenever I spoke made me think it was the latter.
That was the only time I’d ever met a girlfriend’s family, and she wasn’t even my girlfriend at the time.
Maybe she was testing me, seeing if I was worthy of the title, and I failed.
Since then, I’ve had trouble gauging how people perceive me.
Specifically, if I’m in on the joke or part of the punchline.
Recalling the details of the day, I think I made a decent impression on Lindsay’s parents, but it’s impossible to know for sure.
Based on the way Linds has spoken of them, I get the feeling she wouldn’t need their approval to date me, or anything more serious, but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with them thinking I’m some uneducated loser who can’t provide for and protect their daughter. I’m capable of both.
What I’m starting to realize, a realization so strong I can no longer push it aside––is that I want to provide both.
I want to spend the rest of my days with Lindsay and Jules.
If the only thing I’m good for is making their lives easier and putting smiles on their beautiful faces, I’d be honored to fill that role.
There’s just one problem.
Would Lindsay let me?