We had a ton of evident energy and history between us, tea leaves weren’t needed to see it.
“Epic love is once in a lifetime. You define each other, but you’re resisting.”
“Define?” I asked, not liking the turn this was taking. Whether she was reading the bowl or how Dominic and I reacted to each other, she was hitting too close to home.
“You react off of each other. Even apart, each action is caused by a reaction to the other. And it looks like you’re joining again, but a secret holds you back.”
I froze, my back rigid against the chair. What she was saying wasn’t anything carrying much depth or difficult to figure out. Plenty of lovers fed off of each other and had secrets. I always thought supposed psychics made money from throwing out the most common plights, eventually hitting a vulnerable target who would empty their wallets wanting to know more, but this was the first time I’d ever understood the inclination.
“Years and distance lie between you, but when all is revealed, it will either put you back together or tear you apart for good.”
“Thank you for your time. I’ll keep that in mind.” I rose from the seat and charged away from the tent as fast as my legs could take me until I reached where Dominic stood.
I had no interest in exploring the two nails she hit on the head.
“Hey,” he wrapped his hand around my bicep. “Did she spook you?” A smirk twisted his lips.
“It’s fine. Like you said, bullshit, right? Let’s go catch up with Joe and Caterina.” I crossed my arms and didn’t look back to Dominic’s steps behind me.
“They left, the baby wasn’t feeling well. I think she’s teething Caterina said. I told them I’d give you a ride back, but would you mind if we took this all back to the pub first? We’re dismantling in like an hour.”
“Sure,” was all I could say.
A slow grin split his mouth. “I’m glad you came tonight.”
Caterina had invited me here, and I shouldn’t have gone off so long with Dominic. She was right about how endearing he was.
To me, he was the goddamn pied piper, and it was pissing me off.
20
Dominic
“I thinkthat’s all of it,” I told Thea after we loaded the last tray into our industrial refrigerator.
“It seemed to go well, did you tell Joe ‘I told you so’, yet?” She wrapped her arms around her torso and raised a brow.
The longer the night went on, the harder it was to stop touching her. For the first time since she’d come here, we were just us. Nothing from the past or complications of our present were in the air tonight.
Fighting the urge to kiss her the past few hours exhausted me. I loved hearing her laugh, feeling her settle into my side without tensing up or pulling away, although at one little moment the small step she took away from me didn’t go unnoticed.
“No, I’ll wait until the morning when we’re both fully awake and he can appreciate it.” Her shoulders shook with a laugh as she rubbed the tops of her arms.
“Are you cold? Come upstairs, I’ll give you a shirt to wear home.” We made our way out of the kitchen and left the restaurant. After I locked the door behind me, Thea regarded me with a caution I hadn’t seen from her in the past few hours.
“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.” She waved a hand at me. “My place is a short drive away, I can manage until then.”
“Thea, you’re never any trouble. Come on, you can see my inherited digs.”
I unlocked the door next to the restaurant that led up to my apartment.
“Inherited?” Her eyes narrowed as a chuckle escaped her.
“This was Joe’s apartment,” I told her, nodding to my front window. “Then Joe and Caterina’s until they had Ava. There’s only one bedroom so they outgrew the place. Moving in made sense, and makes early opening days a hell of a lot easier, although, maybe I should be looking for something more in the middle now.”
I jerked my chin to the staircase. “After you.”
She took a reluctant step forward. I shut the door behind me and placed my hand on the small of her back. She climbed the stairs, my eyes fixating on her curvy ass filling out those tiny shorts to perfection, as it always did.
