“Eating dinner. Want me to tell her you’ll see her tomorrow?”
“Please,” he mutters at Oliver, before extending a hand to help me up. “I’m going straight to bed.”
Oliver and Georgia chuckle and walk out.
Dom disappears into the house. I make my way to the bathroom and pee gallons of processed wine with an apology to my liver. I open the door to find Dom holding a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen, because it seems he is perpetually in dad-mode, even after two bottles of wine.
“Here,” he croaks, and I could kiss him if it weren’t for the line drawn in the sand and the imminent vomit threat.
“Thanks.” I swallow three and chug the water on the way to my bedroom.
“Lina,” he calls, from outside his room. I look over. “That was fun, even if I want to die.”
“Look at you!” I say with half a smile. “Relaxing so well!”
EIGHT
Dominic
“Handle it, Doug,”I tell the CEO of my manufacturing company through my hangover. “This is your problem, under your jurisdiction.” I’m trying to step back from this issue I’m having with the same company from Sunday in an attempt to relinquish control and delegate more effectively. Especially right now, because I have a Pirate Plunder to attend. Also because I’m hungover. “What am I paying you for?” I add in. “Don’t contact me about this until tomorrow morning. And when you do, make sure you’ve come up with a boatload of solutions.” I hang up the phone, cringing at coded pirate pun.
I throw on my bathing suit, start collecting items to pack. Sunscreen (the cream kind), towels for me and Frankie, sweatshirts, water bottles, snacks, first aid kit. I look at the pile, briefly considering bringing the small rolling suitcase I have before realizing I absolutely cannot look like the World’s Biggest Pirate Weenie at the Plunder. Especially after my unhinged sharing of pathetic relationship history. Regardless of any physical or metaphorical line drawn in the sand.
Because it’s been a long fucking time, and I truly believe that further confirmation of Lina’s attraction to me is what will keep me going through all the parenting bullshit. Hopefully, if I milk it long enough, the ego boost will last me all the way through to Frankie’s teenage years.It’s okay, Dom, I’ll tell myself when Frankie screams at me for enforcing a curfew.You may be Sir Better Safe Than Sorry and Prince Over-Prepared, but at least someone thought you were ‘hot as fuck’ that one summer.
However, I will certainly not go overboard. It will not let it go to my head. I am consciously avoiding the many little voices, the one that is sayingyou deserve this, you can balance this, the ones sayingLina doesn’t seem untrustworthyandplenty of single parents date or have sex and go on to lead happy, functional lives. I focus on the reasonable, rational, Sir Better Safe than Sorry voice that reminds me of what happened the last time I fucked around (I found out).
I am steering clear of the voice of my hypothalamus, the part of my brain wondering what color Lina’s nipples are under that tiny bikini, the part of my brain currently screaming at my body to fuck Lina into the sand after spending several drunken hours trapped in a small space next to her half naked body.
Sighing, I throw everything into a tote and walk down to the main house.
Where everyone is wearing an eye patch.
“Argh, matey,” Frankie screams, inexplicably sweaty and wearing a ring of purple marker around her mouth. I don’t ask.
“Do I get an eye patch? I want an eye patch.”
“Of course you get an eye patch,” Lina says, handing one to me.
I pull it on. It’s really soft. “Where does one even buy seven eye patches in Westerly, Rhode Island?”
Six different faces look at me with varying levels of disgust.
“We all teach or have taught elementary school, Dom. You really think we went out andboughtthese eye patches?” Georgia is genuinely horrified, sayingboughtlike one would sayflayed aliveordecapitated.
“Shiver me timbers,” my daughter says sadly.
“We made them out of stuff we found around the house,” Lina tells me gently.
“Sorry.”
Lina looks at me, eyes sparkling. “You really look like a pirate.” She doesn’t say what I know she’s probably thinking, likeplunder my booty, orswab my yo ho ho, or something.
“Why do I really look like a pirate?” I ask, baiting her, looking to add more fodder to my ego for when Frankie starts dating.
Lina gestures down my body. “The hair. The tattoos.”
“Swarthy,” Tita Gloria adds on.
