"I don't think sleeping in a bed at the same time is what they mean when they ask that question. If they ask it at all."
I sit up in the seat. "Will they?"
"I'm assuming so, but I don't know for certain," Dom says, patience sounding forced. "You're my first annulment."
I drop back into my seat. "I don't see a way around this. Unless you sleep on the floor."
"I will not sleep on the floor."
"Why?"
"I like my back, thank you very much. If I'm going to be driving to different destinations until we give Bernice back, I prefer to keep my back pain-free."
"I guess." I cross my arms as hare-brained ideas pass through my mind. "Maybe we could find an empty room and con one of the hotel staff into letting you use it. You could put that pretty face to work." As soon as the words leave my mouth, I know I'm in for it.
"You think I have a pretty face?" Dom asks.
I sigh, long and loud, to let him know how obnoxious I find this. "You are mathematically good-looking."
"Explain."
"Your face is symmetrical." I gesture around my face. "Your nose has a pleasing slope."
"Careful, Menace. You know what they say."
"What's that?"
"Compliments lead to softened feelings, and that's a threat to all that loathing you feel for me."
"Don't you worry, Errand Boy. My hard feelings are in no jeopardy of diminishing."
"Good. For a second there..." He trails off, leaving my thoughts flailing like a trapeze artist suffering a malfunction.
This is his way of communicating that although he is gallant, and likes to flirt, and is extraordinarily caring, he has no interest in me beyond surviving these next few weeks and annulling our marriage. It's imperative I keep that top of mind.
Oddly, it makes the whole only one bed scenario more palatable. The only feelings I'll be fighting in bed at night will be mine.
"This forces a conversation we need to have anyway," I declare, composing myself. "What are the parameters around public displays of affection? We're not selling this relationship, so it's not like we need to go hard."
Dom nods, quietly focused on passing a semi-truck. When we're cleared, he says, "I'll follow your lead. I'm still not sure why you didn't tell your family the truth from the beginning."
"Because I hated the way my dad assumed he would control what was going to happen. How he instructed us to get an annulment, without asking questions. How could he assume I would blindly follow his directive?"
Dom's phone belts out an instruction to exit the freeway at the next ramp, and he complies. "Probably because a lot ofpeople do." He leans forward to check the traffic from the left before easing the car right.
I scoff. "His employees, sure. But not me."
Dom only nods, and it makes me realize we have not talked about his parents and if he told them what we did. "I'm sorry I didn't think to ask about that night you had dinner with your parents." I was busy making Malibu Dom, but that probably doesn't need mentioning right now. "Did you tell them what we did?"
"Yeah." Something in his demeanor changes. Perhaps it's his shoulders, the way they curl in a degree. For reasons I do not understand, his parents are a touchy subject. "My dad thought it was hilarious. He asked if he can meet you. My mom had a far more expected and appropriate reaction."
"Horrified?" I ask.
"She called it an oopsie." His jaw clenches.
"To be fair," I point out, "I called it an oopsie that first morning, too."
"I recall," he says dryly. "It was a poor decision, sure, but an oopsie is when you throw a football to a friend but it sails through their hands and hits someone nearby in the head. It's unintentional."
