Max always hated to share his toys with me when we were younger. Apparently the same principle applied to Dominic now.
That wasn’t to say I wasn’t spending lots of time with Dominic. I was.We sat together on the bus and at lunch. He met me outside each of my classes. He was in my bed every night. I was at the chippy during all of his shifts. He walked my paper round with me, our hands entwined. Took me twice as long, but I didn’t care. It could take all night if it meant Dominic was next to me.
Even when I had to revise during my free periods and after school, Dom was there. I’d given up asking him if he was meant to be in class. He never gave me a straight answer, more often than not kissing my questions away until I forgot what we’d been talking about in the first place.
Summer was officially here, which meant one thing.
Exams were around the corner.
As I had been every day for the last week, I was sat at my desk. Notes, flashcards, and textbooks were scattered across the surface. My hands were stained with ink, but I barely noticed. “Ask me the next one.”
Dominic was lying on his front on my bed, frowning at one of the brightly coloured flashcards I’d handed him. “What is stratified sampling?”
“Umm…something to do with population sampling.” I rubbed at my forehead. “Is it sampling in proportion to subgroups within a population?”
“Yes!” Dominic fist-pumped the air, making me grin. He did it every time I got a question right, and every time, it made my stomach flip. “Okay, what’s one advantage of stratified sampling?”
This one I knew. “It improves representativeness.”
Dominic snorted. “That’s a mouthful.”
“That’s what he said.”
“Hey.” He wiggled his brows at me. “I’m at least two mouthfuls.”
I stretched until my back cracked. “Was that the last one?”
“Yup.” He stacked the cards neatly together and handed them back. “You’re going to smash your mock, Shadow. Don’t worry about it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered, turning back to the textbook. “You weren’t the muppet who decided a statistics A level would be a good idea.”
There was a creak of bed springs and then Dominic’s hands were on my shoulders. I gave a small groan as his talented fingers sought out knots and rubbed them away. “Is it such a bad thing if it goes poorly? It’s not like it’s going to help with your art career.”
I scowled down at a particularly tricky equation. “I’m not going into art.”
Dominic’s hands froze. “What?”
I spun the chair so I was facing him. “I thought I’d told you this.”
“Nope.” Deep lines were carved into Dominic’s brow. “Why aren’t you going into art? You’re so talented. You take all those extra classes down at the community centre.”
I shrugged, feeling self-conscious. “I’m okay, but I’m nothing special. And it takes special to make money, Dom.”
“Is making money more important than doing something you love?”
I laughed bitterly, shoving backwards so I could stand up. And pace. Something about this conversation meant that was necessary. “Come on, Dom. Don’t stand there and pretend people like us can afford to have dreams. Not ones where we can’t guarantee the bills being paid or having food on the table.”
Dominic rubbed at his chin, staring off into space. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
I stopped in front of him as what I’d said hit me.Dominic doesn’t have food on his table now.“Shit, Dom, that wasn’t a criticism of your dad.”
He got to his feet and tugged me into his arms. Kissing my temple, he sighed. “You can criticise my dad, Shadow. Fuck knows he deserves it. And you’re right, we should want more for ourselves. I just don’t see why that ‘more’ can’t be found in art.”
“It’s just not smart.”
“Fuck being smart. What do you want? In your dream world, what would you be doing?”
“Well, art, obviously.”
