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Dom straightened up in his seat, putting his signature I-don’t-give-a-damn-if-you-are-in-charge-here spin on every answer. “Hell, yeah, I know her. Are you kidding?” He uncurled his thumb at me. “Let me introduce you to the state’s high school all-star pitcher three years in a row.” I glared at him with an awkward laugh, knowing he was only chatting me up to watch me squirm. “Makes a mean batch of apple dumplings, too, if my memory serves me right.” Leaning over, he flipped up the edge of the folder Anna put on James’ desk. “She must’ve put that in her resume somewhere.”
Not so much as batting an eye at Dom’s tendency to dominate every conversation, James ignored him as he flipped over his hand. “For whatever reason, getting a Speech Therapist up here has been extremely difficult. So, I’m glad you guys get on so well.” The pen he picked up to entertain himself with pointed at Dom. “Maybe you can convince Faith to stick around for a while.”
Clicking air through his teeth, Dom turned to me and nodded. “I’m going to try my damndest. That’s for sure.”
James sighing at his phone when it rang again got Dom’s lingering eyes off me, and Anna rattled her fingers on the desk to rescue her boss from having to deal with us anymore. “We should head to our morning meeting, Mister Stryker. So, maybe Doctor Vasser wouldn’t mind giving Faith a little tour on her way out if he has a few minutes to spare.”
Hooking his finger into my sleeve to bring me with him, Dom rocked up out of his seat. “Yeah. I think I can swing a little walkabout.”
They went one way in the hallway, and we went another, inching along in no hurry to get away from each other. His arms crossed over him, and he rocked into me a little. “There’s not a lot to tour. So. if you just want to skip all that until orientation, I’ll walk you to your car instead.”
Only from how his eyes bounced around my face like that I knew I’d be getting kissed if I let him. So, I pushed the down button and nodded, because I wasn’t about to miss out on that possibility. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
The doors closed behind us, and after a slight pause, his head dipped toward me as we stared at our warbled reflections ahead. “Please tell me you don’t have a man tucked up in the storage container you got coming in a little bit?”
I understood if I gave him the slightest hint that I might be interested in getting back together with him, he’d consider it done already. So, when the doors opened up again not two seconds later, I shrugged back at him as I stepped outside. “As long as you tell me you don’t have some chick waiting for you to come home from work.”
His hand came to my lower back as we rounded the corner into the lobby. “No. Definitely not.”
We didn’t go out the front door more than a foot or two when his phone started ringing, and he groaned at it as soon as he pulled it from his pocket to check the caller ID. “I’m going to have to bail on you. I have something I need to deal with.”
Disappointed that I wouldn’t have another dose of his arms around me, my belly flooded with that falling sensation. “It’s alright. I’ll catch up with you later.”
His flirty gaze stayed on me until he reached the front door. But when he laid his hands on his hips, that playfulness disappeared as he shook his head. “I want to say about a million things to you right now, and I don’t even know where to start. But I just want you to know I’m so happy you’re back. You have no idea how happy.”
The wind caught my hair to come between us, and we both smiled as I pulled it away again. I didn’t understand yet the depth of the emotion in how his eyes teared over, but I knew how just being near him again made me feel. “And I want you to know what it means to me that you were the first person I ran into. It’s like I’m actually home now, Dom.”
I kissed my fingers, and he caught it in his fist. Whatever lies that tore us apart a whole lifetime ago disintegrated into only dust as the bond between us stomped them out.
Hearing the thwump of the glass doors parting for him as I went to my car, I released the whimper I’d been holding back. Getting more hysterical with every step I took across the parking lot, I could hardly breathe as I fought with my keys to get my car open. “Oh, my God. Did that just really happen?”
I probably lost a year off my lifespan already, because anytime I came across a man with blond hair for the last twenty years, my heart stopped. I looked for him in every face, just hoping he found me somehow, and knowing he’d been there all along left me completely numb.
19
For the Best
Faith
The last two decades of my life resulted from a pile of lies.
The mile or so it took me to drive home again wasn’t long enough to give me time to sort out what I just experienced, though.
More out of spite for the old bitch who told me I’d never be good enough more than anything, I excelled in college and built a successful career for myself. So, I guess I should thank Missus Vasser for showing me what I was really made of. But that the variables guiding my decisions back then had been so manipulated that I felt like I had no other choice made me want to bypass my house and go choke her for a minute.
Finding Dad going through his box of papers at the kitchen table, I closed the door behind me when he looked up. “You’re back quick. How’d it go?”
Setting my purse on the counter, I laughed back at him. “The whole thing was shocking, to be honest.” I set the keys on the wall hook and pulled out a chair across from him at the tiny white table as I stared him down. “But you’re not going to believe who I ran into, though.”
Dropping his eyes back to the box, he let the paper fall inside and slid it away. “Oh. I think I have a good idea.”
Puffing my cheeks, I shook my head at my fingers as they rubbed across my childhood drawings the magic eraser couldn’t scrub loose. “So...”
I spilled every detail of my talk with Missus Vasser before I broke up with Dom to my dad. So how he could let me go on believing Dom lived on the other side of the country when he was only three miles away all these years was something I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive. “Did he just reappear out of thin air one day? Or?”
He stopped his thumb twiddling long enough to jerk them both from his hands to shrug at me. “What was I going to do, Faith?” I rolled my eyes away to the window as he leaned closer, swaying sideways to catch my attention. “His mother had already set the wheels in motion, and you were already gone.”
Gently sighing from his nose, he seemed lost in the air for a moment. “Dom was such a mess, too. So, I didn’t see the point in hurting either of you even more with the truth.”
