“Morning, kid,” I said, making him jump and bump into his bowl. A little milk spilled onto the hardwood. He looked up at me, with panic clearly visible on his face.
Fuck Jeff Donovan.
“Don’t worry about that,” I told him, not moving a muscle for a full minute. I learned my lesson with Erica. If she triggered a freakout, she just needed a moment to collect herself and remember that she was safe here. I assumed that Dominic would be the same.
Walking into the kitchen, I grabbed a rag and got it wet. I came back into the living room and knelt in front of him, wiping up the mess as he watched me with wide eyes.
“Listen carefully,” I said, meeting his eyes so he could see how serious I was. “Accidents happen. I’m not mad about it. But even if I was, you don’teverneed to fear me. Do you understand that?”
“Mom told you about my dad?”
“She did.”
“I hate him.”
“That’s understandable,” I sat on the floor beside him. “You saw some pretty bad stuff happen to your mom. It’s only natural that you’d hate the person that caused it.”
“You don’t think that makes me bad too?”
“No. It just means that you love your mom. Nothing wrong with that.”
Dominic smiled. “Are you going to stick around, Trainer?”
“I want to. Would you be okay with that?”
“Yeah. Just be nice to mom.”
“Always.” I climbed to my feet. “Now, I’m going to go get my own bowl of that cereal. Do you mind if I watch your show with you?”
“Okay,” he agreed.
As I got myself a bowl, I also turned on the coffee pot. Erica had mentioned to me once that she couldn’t start her day without a nice, big cup. I wanted her to be comfortable while staying with me. Maybe we could do this more often.
Eighteen
Erica
I parked my car in front of Better Pawn, a pawn shop right on the beach. Opening my purse, I pulled out the small black jewelry box. I didn’t bother looking at what was inside. It didn’t have any sentimental value to me anymore.
The pawnshop itself had metal bars on its dusty windows, and the sign overhead was missing a letter. As I stepped inside, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside the shop. When they finally did, I saw that the man behind the counter was watching me curiously.
The shop was filled with what I would expect from a pawn shop. Electronics like TVs and computers, jewelry in a glass case, musical instruments, and a huge collection of DVDs. I even saw a line of lawnmowers in the back of the store.
I bypassed all of this and went straight to the man that was waiting. He was tall, with wavy silver hair, and when he grinned at me, I could see that he was missing a tooth.
“What can I do for ya?” he asked.
“I want to pawn this.” I held out the jewelry box. The man, whose name tag identified him as Carl, took it from me. He pulled out a loupe magnifying glass and opened up the bod to reveal my engagement ring and wedding ring.
They were a matching set that Jeff had designed for us, so they were one of a kind. The engagement ring had a large princess-cut diamond surrounded by twelve tiny round diamonds. The wedding ring matched, the gold band holding six more of the tiny round diamonds. It was gorgeous, but not really my style. It was too big, too flashy. I wasn’t a fan of showing off like Jeff was. Of course, he insisted that I wear it constantly. I had only taken the set off when cooking or showering. If I forgot to put them back on immediately after those activities, I was accused of being a whore and trying to attract men by posing as if I'm single. It didn’t matter that I hardly ever left the house alone, and he probably had people watching me.
Carl held each ring up, peering at them through the loupe for a long time. I watched silently, wishing that I was spending my lunch break eating something instead of dealing with this.
“I’ll give you thirty-five hundred for them,” he said. I scoffed, I couldn’t help myself.
“I know for a fact that those rings are worth twenty thousand dollars,” I argued. “Thirty-five hundred is insultingly low.”
“It’s the best I can do,” he said, handing the box back over.
