Chapter 17
DOMINIC
Idon’t sleep a wink. Instead, I toss and turn, yanking the ends of my hair out of a desire to create as much pain as I saw reflected in Lindsay’s eyes before I left.
What a fucking cockwaffle I was. So what if she’s protective of me?
Is that really a dealbreaker? That the woman I love senses when I’m not being treated right by the people and around me and she…
makes me aware of it? Is that truly why I left her house last night? It seems so silly now.
When we first started talking, and we’d go weeks without being able to talk in person, I remember thinking, I was given a second chance at life, and I get to spend it with her.
I’m not going to waste another moment, and here I am, wasting precious moments that could be spent with her, making her laugh, running my tongue across her sweet skin, holding her in arms while she sleeps.
I turn over and grab my phone off the nightstand.
It’s almost eight. Pulling myself out of bed, I start formulating a plan.
A gesture of some kind. Yeah, that’ll do it.
Nothing too over the top. It’s only our first fight, but it was enough of a doozy that I need to make sure the present I give her is something she actually likes.
No more flowers. No more picnics. She likes chocolates, especially when they’re filled with peanut butter, but that’s not big enough.
My mind continues to pore over the options as I brush my teeth. With a fresh shower and a renewed sense of determination, I leave my trailer with a pep in my step. I make it about two feet before the sight before me has me stopping dead in my tracks.
It’s Lindsay, and she’s running. There’s no sense of dread or fear in her expression, though. In fact, she looks happy. She’s got a bag in one arm. I can’t tell what’s inside. When we lock eyes, she picks up her pace, and my feet respond with urgency.
We’re panting when we come face to face. There’s so much I want to say to her, but where to begin?
She beats me to the punch. “Nic, I’m sorry.” Her eyes are wet, and to know I caused her a moment of strife feels like someone’s running a chainsaw down the middle of my chest. “I don’t care who you’re friends with, including Gemma. I-I overstepped, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I hold her face in my hands, bending down until our noses are almost touching. “I’m sorry too. The fight was stupid, and I regret the whole fucking thing. You’re way more important to me than Gemma. I’ll choose you every time.”
She looks up at me and smiles. Fuck, that smile. I’ll never stop being in awe of it. She pulls me into a hard kiss, filled with forgiveness and desperation. Hauling her into my arms, I carry her back to my trailer.
“What’s in the bag?” I ask when I drop her onto my bed. I take it from her hand and open it onto the table next to the TV. “Banana and mayo sandwiches?”
She nods. “I made you three. I didn’t like the idea of you being stressed without your comfort food.”
There were still a couple hours before the bar opens.
In that time, I make her come three times with just my fingers, her sweaty body writhing beneath my hands.
She insists I give her a break, and I only agree to it when she crawls between my knees and takes me in her mouth.
Those plump pink lips swallow me deep. She lets me fuck her mouth until I’m leaning over the edge, so dangerously close to shooting my seed down her throat.
“I’m coming,” I say through heavy breaths, and goddess that she is, removes her mouth and presents her perfect breasts, lifting them just beneath my cock like the most stunning blank canvas on which to paint.
I continue with rough strokes as my come drenches her chest and runs down the center of her belly.
Once my balls are empty, I watch her rub it into her skin as she moans with pleasure.
I lose consciousness after that.
Lindsay
Winter becomes a steady cycle of snow falling, then melting, then falling, then melting, as erratic temperatures dictate the thickness of our outerwear.
Nic and I get into a good groove. After the fight about Gemma about two weeks ago, I vowed to make an effort and give her some slack.
If he trusts her, so can I. I greet her with a friendly hello when she comes into the bar, and whenever Nic says he needs to help her with something, I smile like I’m in the running for the Most Supportive Girlfriend award, and don’t say another word.
We spend almost all our nights together at my house. I even sacrificed six of the hangers in my closet so he can keep stuff here. Things between us feel steady, and I couldn’t be happier about the way Jules has bonded with Nic.
They have inside jokes now, a secret handshake that I’ve attempted and failed because there are so many parts to it.
She’s even started painting his nails a new color each week.
It’s a new Sunday tradition. After dinner, they load the dishes into the dishwasher together, then sit at the kitchen counter for their manicure time.
This is when Jules talks to him most about school and her blossoming social life.
He’s so attentive, too. He asks follow-up questions, offers comfort without prying too deep when she reveals something that has upset her, and while he’s blowing on his nails, he helps her practice her choreography for the upcoming talent show.
I didn’t realize men with painted nails was a kink of mine, but my god, seeing him go about his day not giving a solitary fuck about how brightly colored his nails are has my pussy in a constant state of flood.
When he’s behind the bar pouring drinks with those deft hands, or lifting a keg onto his shoulder, and I get a flash of pink from his thumb, well, let’s just say, I’m carrying extra pairs of underwear in my purse now.
The current color is a deep teal, and as we lay in bed, our bodies sated and spent, I run the pad of my thumb over it, making a mental note to ask Jules the name of this particular shade in the morning.
Nic rolls me over until I’m on my back, and his lips travel down the column of my throat with smacking, ticklish kisses that have me squirming beneath him. He pulls back and lays on his side, his strong jawline pressed against his palm as he stares at me.
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything.
He worries his bottom lip, the tips of his ears turning dark green. Then he brushes the hair off my forehead and says, “I, um, I love you, Lindsay.”
I kind of thought this was coming, but not even the sweetest daydream could’ve prepared me for the real thing.
I trace the outline of the white scar beneath his eye.
The boy who stole my heart as a kid. The man who filled the cracks and made it whole again as an adult.
How did I get so lucky? “I love you too.”
Because that’s what this is, isn’t it? The comfort and safety of walking through life next to a person who understands you, accepts you, and wants only the best for you. I didn’t know it was real, or that it ever could be for me.
He drops his head against my wrist and lets out a relieved sigh. When he lifts his head again, his eyes are glistening. “I’m so in love with you. I think I have been since you walked into the bar.”
Our gazes catch, the emotion so thick he’s almost blurry.
We reach for each other, tangling our legs and closing every speck of distance that comes between our bodies.
He starts kissing along my collarbone, then down my arm.
I feel the flat of his tongue swipe across my nipple, and I settle into the familiar way he traverses my body.
His love language seems to be tonguing every inch of my skin. I’m not mad about it.
His tongue circles my belly button, and he looks up at me, a mischievous grin stretching those perfect, heart-shaped lips. “I have an idea.”
“Oh yeah?” I’m expecting him to propose sex toys, anal, maybe even pegging––all of which I’m down for.
Instead, he says, “Let’s move in together.”
Move in together.
Move in together?
Move in…together?
You know when you say something enough times and it starts to sound wrong? That’s what’s happening inside my head with the question Nic just asked. The more I dig for an answer, the more uncomfortable I become.
I could chalk that up to not living with a romantic partner since Billy and I tried it. That was over a decade ago, and it didn’t end well. Now, I’m in my forties. My daughter is a teenager. My belongings take up exactly as much space as I let them, and they’re in the exact right places.
Nic’s still looking at me with pleading eyes, and I realize I haven’t spoken in a long time. “You want to move in together?” Repeat the question. Hope he misspoke. It’s not a great plan, but it’s all I’ve got.
“Yeah, don’t you think we’re ready?” He sounds so certain. How is he so certain?
“Um,” I stammer, “I mean, there’s still a lot we don’t know about each other.
” Like, where does he cut his toenails? If the answer is not, “In the bathroom over a towel that I immediately empty into the tiny steel trash bin,” could I live with that?
Another is, where does he store his granola bars with the powdered brain tissue?
And how much does Dr. Yates send him each time?
Will I have to empty out an entire cabinet for them?
What I finally say is, “I’m not sure,” because I’m not, and I don’t want to lie to him.
I just said I love you, for fuck’s sake. That’s a big deal, considering how much I hate men and how ready I was to die alone. Can’t we put the brakes on and savor one big step at a time?
He moves off me and crawls up the bed until we’re side by side. “You’re not sure? Really?”
Words are escaping me at the moment, so I nod.
He scratches the hair on his chin. “What about the hangers?” he asks, gesturing toward the closet. “I stay here all the time. I basically already live here.”
“Uh, hard disagree,” I reply, surprised he’d make that leap. “Sleeping here and living here are two very different things.” A memory wiggles its way to the front of my mind. “Besides, you haven’t even told me the stuff about your past. The stuff that only Gemma knows.”
It could be seen as a low blow. I’m not trying to trigger his past trauma, but if we’re going to have this discussion, really consider moving in together, I deserve to know him as well as Gemma does, don’t I?
He pushes the sheets off his body and sits on the edge of the bed, reaching for his pants. “I don’t want to get into that right now.”
It feels like he’s proving my point. “See? How are we supposed to take a huge step like this when you don’t even trust me enough to share that with me?”
“I shouldn’t have to talk about that part of my life. With you or anyone else.”
I’d argue that any subject cloaked in this much visceral pain is the thing that needs to be talked about the most. Maybe not with me, but someone. Not Gemma. A professional of some kind.
Not that I can say any of that to him now. He wouldn’t be receptive to it.
This isn’t just about me, though. “Forgive me for wanting to know everything about the person who will live under the same roof as my daughter. I have a duty to protect her, Nic. I don’t know why you think I’d love you any less if you told me the truth, but not telling me makes me imagine the worst.”
He pulls his t-shirt over his head and wipes his cheek. “I understand,” he says, his voice shaking. “I really do.”
Then the panic sets in. The finality in his tone, the sight of him fully dressed. He’s leaving, isn’t he?
Men always leave.
My mother warned me, didn’t she?
There’s a reason that memory stands out among the rest, right? Why I can see it so clearly, decades later? Either I wanted to believe she was too smart to ever be wrong, or life repeatedly confirmed the accuracy of her assumption.
They all leave eventually.
They certainly always have. Every situationship, every boyfriend, every casual hookup––they all ended the same way.
Not with me pursuing the breakup. Billy is the only exception, but that was after dozens of prior breakups and even more final straws.
The time I ended things, it was already long over.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I beg Nic, wrapping the top sheet around me and coming to stand in front of him.
“We were just saying I love you, fucking, what, five minutes ago? Come. Come back to bed.” Can’t we press pause on this whole discussion?
Table it until we know more about each other?
Why does this feel like it has irrevocably changed what we have?
He doesn’t say anything, so I keep talking. Maybe if I keep telling him how much I love him, that heartbreak will fade from his eyes. “Just give me time. Please. I want us to be on the same page before moving forward. That’s all.”
“Okay.” His voice breaks halfway through that word, and I wonder if there’s any truth in it. He pulls me against his chest, but his arms are loose around me, and there’s a stiffness in his posture that I don’t recognize. “I’m going to head home,” he says after he presses a quick kiss to my hair.
Tears start pouring out of me. “I don’t want this to end. Why does it feel like it’s ending?”
They all leave eventually.
“It’s not ending. We should both take some time to think. To get on the same page.”
Maybe it is ending, and he’s saying whatever he needs to in order to get me to calm down. I don’t think Nic would do that, though.
“I’ll still see you at the talent show on Friday, right?” I call out from the doorway.
He doesn’t turn around. He lifts his arm and replies over his shoulder, “Yeah. See you there.”
Since I have nothing else but his word, I take deep breaths as I watch his truck pull out of my driveway, hoping that even though he’s leaving, there will come a day when he returns.