They all leave eventually.
“It’s not ending. We should both take some time to think. To get on the same page.”
Maybe it is ending, and he’s saying whatever he needs to in order to get me to calm down. I don’t think Nic would do that, though.
“I’ll still see you at the talent show on Friday, right?” I call out from the doorway.
He doesn’t turn around. He lifts his arm and replies over his shoulder, “Yeah. See you there.”
Since I have nothing else but his word, I take deep breaths as I watch his truck pull out of my driveway, hoping that even though he’s leaving, there will come a day when he returns.
Chapter 18
DOMINIC
The pint glass in my hand has a smudge near the rim, and no matter how roughly I run the rag over it, the smudge remains. What a perfect metaphor for the current state of my life. Is that a metaphor? Who the fuck knows.
The last forty-eight hours have not been easy. They’ve made me long for the darkness from that first year as a zombie, in fact, because that’s exactly what I’ve become. A mindless creature shrouded in darkness, unable to form coherent thoughts, staggering through my waking hours with a gaping chest wound where my heart should be.
She said she loved me, then that she didn’t trust me enough to live with me. I don’t know how to reconcile the two. It was my fault for asking her to move in so quickly after we said I love you, but I was just expressing how I felt, what I wanted to do. I was ready, and I thought she was too.
I should’ve known she’d bring up Gemma and the secrets I haven’t been willing to share. She was right, and it’s perfectly reasonable that she’d want me to tell her before allowing me to live with her and her daughter. I can’t begrudge her prioritizing Jules’s safety.
What I realized is that I wasn’t ready to look at the horizon and accept what was coming. We were always going to end up here, in the place where we can’t move forward without her knowing about my past, and me knowing the second I reveal it, she’ll go running in the opposite direction. Maybe I foolishly hoped she’d forget. That we could proceed without addressing it ever again.
“Boss!” I hear Riz shout from beside me.
“Are you okay?” He looks gravely concerned as he glances down at my hand.
“Oh, shit.” Without realizing, I squeezed the smudged glass so hard it shattered in my palm.
“The hell’s wrong with you, man?” Vyla pops up on my other side, crouching down to collect the shards around my feet.
“Sorry,” I reply in a flat tone. My hand is bleeding a bit, but I feel only numbness. “I’ll go wash up.”
I splash water on my face in the bathroom, pleased to see that the cuts on my hand have already stopped bleeding. My world feels like it’s crumbling, and I’m racing around the pile with scotch tape trying to put it back together.
How am I going to face her at the talent show?
She can say it’s not over all she wants, but whether it’s now or several months from now, she’s going to ask me about my past again, and I can either tell her and risk having to see her terrified reaction of me every time we cross paths for the rest of our lives, or not tell her, after which she’ll definitely dump me, and risk having to see her terrified reaction of me––based on whatever horrors she’s imagined––every time we cross paths for the rest of our lives. Either way, I lose the girl of my dreams.
What I won’t do is bail on Jules. I already made a sign to hold up in the crowd during her performance. Maybe I can go and hide somewhere in the back. She’ll still spot me with the sign, but I won’t have to see Lindsay.
To make matters worse, as if that’s even possible, my rut is late. It’s never late. If it doesn’t show up by Saturday, I should probably call Dr. Yates and see if she needs to change my medication.
I was looking forward to being out of my mind for a couple of days in the hope that it would distract me from the heartache. At least the moving in discussion saved me from having to tell her about my monthly fuck frenzy. That’s something.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Vlad is blocking my path back to the bar. “Need a refill?” I ask.
“You look like shit, you know that?” His voice is scratchy, and his New England accent is thicker than maple syrup. He looks around the bar. “Where’s your lady? Haven’t seen her around.”
This ancient vampire has never, not once, asked me anything personal. Today, of all days, he wants to become buddies? “Yeah, she’s been busy.” It’s the best I can do.
He shakes his head. “She ain’t busy.”
I wait for him to keep talking, but when he continues to stare at me, I step around him and head back behind the bar.
He plops down in front of me with the same assessing glare. “Don’t be an idiot.”
