Page 109 of Autumn on My Mind

“Kids?” Daryl says, tactfully not responding to my mother’s inebriated words. “What’s—uh,” he says, still looking confused, but determined, too.

I think he’s deciding how best to ask his son and his girlfriend’s daughter if they were kissing.

“We were dancing,” Dom says, and his voice is much clearer than mine would be if I tried to say something. It’s brisk, matter-of-fact. “We can dance, can’t we?”

Alvina nods in time with the new song playing over the speakers, lost to the conversation now, but Daryl considers us with serious eyes.

“Of course you can dance,” he says after a second of silence. Then his expression twists in concern as my mother loses a bit of her footing. “Careful⁠—”

And I step forward without thinking. “I’ll get her,” I say to Daryl, my heart sinking. “Around the waist with her arm over your shoulder works best.” Then I look at Alvina and sigh. “Come on.”

I reach for her, but to my surprise, Daryl stops me.

“No,” he says firmly—he even pulls Alvina closer to his side, tightening his arm around her shoulder. “I’ll do it.” He pauses, and then, maybe because he sees my expression, he explains, “This isn’t your job, Reese.” His voice is gentler now, and filled with awful, humiliating understanding—the kind that says I see what you’ve been living with, even though you’ve tried to hide it.

I swallow and look away as shame dances over my skin. Shame I shouldn’t feel, but it’s made itself comfortable anyway.

“Well, get home safe, kids,” Daryl says with a nod to both of us. “I’m going to take Alvina back to her house.”

When I look in surprise at Dominic, he’s looking at me, too. Our brows have both jumped, but Daryl doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t ask why we were dancing or why we were so close. He just leads my mother away, through the dancing couples and then out of the tent.

We watch him go and then turn back to each other.

“Did he not—?” I begin, my voice dropping away when I run into the sticky business of actually talking about what happened.

“Did he not see?” Dom says for me. He rubs his chin, his gaze jumping back to where Daryl and Alvina left the reception. “I don’t know,” he admits then. “I wasn’t—I didn’t realize they were there.”

His neck flushes red at this, a slow turn of color I barely see, but I can feel the same heat creeping over me.

“So,” I say, barely audible over the music and the swell of people around us.

Dom eyes me, his expression unreadable. “So,” he says with a slow nod. “Should we call that…?” He trails off, waiting for me to fill in the blank.

“A fluke,” I say in a strained voice. It’s a big decision to make in such a small space of time, and I’m not totally sure about my answer. “A momentary lapse in judgment.”

He swallows and then jerks his chin toward the opening of the tent. “Agreed.” He pauses and then adds, “Well, I’m going to go.”

“What?” I say, blinking at him.

But he nods again. He digs in his pocket for a minute and pulls out his keys, pressing them into my hand without meeting my gaze.

I try to protest. “But you’ll⁠—”

“I need some fresh air,” he says, and despite how well I know him, I still can’t interpret the blankness of his features. The splotchy red rising in his neck has reached the tips of his ears; if I didn’t know he’s sober, I’d think him drunk.

Dom doesn’t drink. Neither of us do. But some sort of spell captured us earlier, and now, it seems, he’s coming down. He turns on his heel and strides off, and it’s not ten seconds before he’s gone.

I look down at the keys clutched in my sweaty hands—gross, but I’m feeling too warm—and I sigh, feeling stupid and horrible for reasons I don’t fully understand.

What did Daryl see? I don’t think my mother saw anything, because she’s not tactful enough to stay quiet. Even without her, though, my throat is tying knots, and the dress that felt so beautiful earlier now feels suffocating.

My heart is numb as I drive back to Dom’s, the interior of my shed blurry as I change into pajamas, and the swish of my dress defeated as I shove it into the trash can in the back of the shop.

I knock on Dominic’s front door at ten the next morning. He opens it with a confused expression, probably because I’ve never knocked at the front before. He looks awake enough, but he’s not dressed in his work clothes yet—just jeans and a t-shirt.

Before he can speak, I hold up the feather necklace. His hand jumps automatically to his neck—which, of course, he finds empty.

“Do you want this back?” I say, sounding very calm and very collected and not at all like we almost kissed last night. “Or should I keep it?”