“I’m sure it’s a lot to deal with, but this one is close to you. It’s right under your nose.” My voice cracks with that statement, and I curse my inability to keep my personal feelings out of it. He opens his mouth to speak and I wait, seconds, maybe longer, before he finally does. “I’ll take care of it, Cecelia.” I stride out of the room feeling more defeated than victorious. And when the front door closes minutes later, I sag behind my bedroom door and let another lone tear fall.
DOMINIC IS HERE TO PICK me up tonight. I have no idea why, but he’s in my driveway staring at me as I descend the steps, his features impassable. Nerves fire off as I round his hood. He doesn’t have the decency to open the door for me like Sean does before I climb into his passenger seat.
“Where’s Sean?”
He takes off in reply while I glower at the side of his head. My day is not improving at all with his surprise arrival. It was Sean I hoped would balm and distract me from my argument with my father. The last thing I want to do on my day off is spar with this motherfucker.
“Seriously, man. Words.”
“Sean is busy. I’m doing him a favor.”
“I could have driven.”
“Well, you aren’t.”
“You could let me drive now.”
“Not a chance.”
“I’ve been practicing in Sean’s Nova. I’ve gotten better.”
He smirks. “You think so?”
“Know so.”
Wrong words. Those were the wrong words to say.
In zero to a hundred and twenty, the bastard has me screeching at the top of my lungs as he fully opens up his dark horse’s capabilities. This driving is nothing like the thrill ride that he took me on the first night. I’m terrified as he flies down the road with absolutely no regard for his life or mine.
“Okay, point made. You’re the king, okay? Slow the hell down, please.”
He nails the few curves before he hits the straightaway as sweat gathers on every surface of my body.
“This isn’t funny!”
He cranks up the music as we pass a small gas station.
“Dominic, please. Please!”
I’m truly terrified, and he glances my way before he crosses the yellow lines and slows considerably.
“Thanks for reducing speed, but we are not in Europe, Dominic!” I shriek, white-knuckling every available surface before he pulls the emergency brake and turns, banking us on a shoulder doing a complete one-eighty. I’m fairly sure I just pissed a little as we race in the opposite direction.
“Forgot something,” is his excuse as he slides to a halt perfectly between a minivan and pickup at the beat-up station.
I’m in a full-blown panic attack at this point as he turns to me. “Need anything?”
“You motherfucker!”
“Not in the mood for foreplay at the moment, but how about a Mountain Dew?”
I’m a millisecond from launching myself at him when he graces me with his bored expression. “I’ll take that as a no.”
He walks toward the store, and I’ve never seen a more perfect depiction of full swagger as I do in Dominic’s gait. I glance around the sketchy looking store and fight my bladder. The drive to wherever we’re going will no doubt take twenty minutes. It always does here. I decide to go for it and get out of the car. Dominic is in the cooler section when I walk up to the counter that sits next to an oversized LIVE BAIT sign and ask the attendant for a key. Next to me, a few older men sit perched in outdated black plastic chairs while continually pressing buttons on old lottery machines like their lives depend on it. Taking the key, I exit the building and walk around the corner to the battered door before suffering through thirty of the most disgusting seconds of my life. I wash my hands with syrupy looking soap and exit the bathroom with the oversized key in hand. I’m halfway to the door to return it when a guy blocks my path. He nods over his shoulder to Dominic’s Camaro.
“Nice ride.”
“Thanks.”
“Yours?”
The man has to be in his late forties, his pot belly on full display due to his T-shirt riding up and riddled with something resembling ketchup. He reeks of liquor. I side-step him and he blocks me, his eyes rolling down me in a disgusting and predatorial way. Booze has obviously given him way too much false confidence.
“No, the car isn’t mine, excuse me.”
“I used to race back in the day. Just wanted to—”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because olive fingers wrap around the side of his neck, and the arm attached to it launches him into the side of the building. I grimace at the sick smack of flesh to concrete as the man’s eyes go wide and he stumbles, his legs twisting awkwardly before he falls flat on his ass. Dominic doesn’t so much as glance his way as he snatches the key from me.