And it feels right.
So. Fucking. Right.
It must show on my face because I see it on Dom’s. I see it in the steady hold of his gaze fixed on mine. In the breath he’s struggling to control. He’s watching me with a plea I can’t pretend I don’t understand.
Isla must realize something’s wrong. Must feel the change. Her face lifts off my chest and I’m the first person she fixes those big eyes on. Her cheeks are bright with exertion. Her lips are parted. And she’s watching me like I’m supposed to know what to do.
I do.
I want to kiss her.
I want to taste the stray snowflakes off her skin. I want to rub our cold noses together while fisting my fingers through her hair.
But I set her free.
I release her into Dom’s embrace and turn to the tree I’d been studying.
“This looks good.”
???
“He doesn’t even want you there.”
“We are much too busy to move our plans around to accommodate you. You are being selfish.”
“You are honestly so selfish most days.”
“You can’t do anything right.”
The conversation between Isla and her parents play through my thoughts as I watch Isla throw her head back and cackle at whatever Dom’s telling her. She hasn’t stopped. Her smile hasn’t wavered. She’s so happy it’s painful to look straight at and I had nothing to do with it. It’s all Dom. Even now as he playfully swats her with a discarded branch, her laughter fills the parking lot.
People glance at them in passing, smile and carry on with their day. To the world, they appear to be a cute couple enjoying the week before Christmas. Not a soul would have guessed the morning she’s had.
“He doesn’t even want you there.”
“You can’t do anything right.”
From her own parents.
My dad has never been all that attentive or caring, but he’s never talked to me like I was something he peeled off his shoe. Mom would never. Neither has ever even raised their voices.
Yet the words I heard her parents throw at her, the careless, disgusting venom they spewed to hurt her... I’m baffled.
I’m pissed.
Who does that to their own daughter?
To Isla.
Across the lot, she grabs Dom’s wrist when he goes for another swing and the two howl and cling to each other when she accidentally elbows him in the jaw.
My lips twitch even as I battle the bubbling rage choking my lungs.
They wanted to hurt her. Their words had been blades slashing tiny, thin lines. Deep enough to scar, but shallow enough to hide behind feigned concern.
I have never met Isla’s dad. Never had a need to. From the stories Macie has told over the years, he hadn’t been a good father. Absent, verbally abusive. After Isla was born, he’d grown distant. She suspected he was cheating, but could never prove it.
I believe everything after hearing him today.
