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“What did she say?” My voice lowers. “‘I must wear the hat of the bad guy who has the audacity to flat-out tell her no.’ And she wasn’t complaining. She’s never nagged me or even done anything more than point out things like ‘we play good-cop/bad-cop with our daughter, and I’m always the bad cop.’ Not with a pout on her face, mind you, but with an adoring smile. And I’m ashamed to admit that I completely overlooked the things she was really trying to tell me.”
Doc has come out of his moment of shock, so he’s gained the ability to question, “What does any of that have to do with you being a ‘shitty Dom’?”
So, I spill everything that went through my head while I sat at the dinner table. Every revelation that branched off into more realizations, I threw it all out there for him to straighten out and organize for himself, so he can do what Doc does better than anyone else I’ve ever known or heard of. Make sense of things that make no sense, and fix things that seem impossible to fix.
He's nodding, and it feels both good and awful that the conclusions I drew for myself seem to be aligning in his mind too.
He clears his throat before he speaks. “First and foremost, you need to realize you’re human, Seth.” When my eyebrow arches at him like Dwayne Johnson’s once again, while I fight the urge to roll my eyes, he continues. “Yes, Doms have an incredible amount of responsibility, and we’re damn-near expected to be these all-knowing beings who can predict the future and read minds to a supernatural degree. And you an even higher level than that. You have the highest IQ of anyone I’ve ever met, and you’ve had that fact shoved down your throat since you were five years old. On top of that, you’re known across the world to be one of the top-skilled Dominants in the country, who has been trusted by hundreds of Doms and subs to teach them how to be respectable members of this community.”
“Thousands,” I correct.
He ignores me and presses forward. “So you’ve got a battle going on inside you that you may not even realize. On one hand, you’ve got a lot of pressure on your shoulders to live up to what so many people think and say about you. On the other hand, the fact that your reputation is so positive and you hear probably every single day what an amazing Dom you are, your confidence in your role is—well-deserved and rightly—high. But… You. Are. Human. And as a mere mortal, Seth, no matter how smart and skilled and admired and reputable you are, you’re going to make mistakes. Perfection is an impossibility.”
What he said about the battle inside me rings true. Only on the outside, I put on a good front that everything I do is done without much brainpower. I’m a genius; therefore, it all comes so easily for me, right?
Wrong. So, so, very wrong.
Yes, I have a brain like a computer, but then God thought he’d add a little bit of spice—in the form of ADHD.
My computer brain has a shit load of tabs open all the fucking time. And most of the time, I think I do a pretty good job of keeping all those tabs organized. But what Doc just said makes me understand that sometimes, a few of those tabs are neglected while I focus more on others.
I feel like my Dom tab has not only been neglected but completely separated into its own window. Out of sight and out of mind.
Doc continues, “Secondly, while you take everything you just told me as something wholly negative, it should also be viewed as a testament that… you’re happy. You’re a man who is truly, genuinely happily married and who cherishes the family he’s been given. Who loves fatherhood and cares about his little girl’s feelings so much he avoids hurting them even the tiniest bit. And you’re so happily married, in fact, that your role as a husband who deeply adores his wife has overtaken the other role you have in your life that was formerly the most important to you. The part of yourself that was the ‘main character’ for so long but has now taken a step back to become a—still highly important to the plot—side character.”
I can’t help but chuckle at my best friend. “Ya know, I’ve always admired your ability to come up with metaphors and similes customized for each of your clients.”
He smirks, but then carries on when he sees he’s getting through to me. “In a perfect world for a perfect Dom, you’d be able to perfectly balance all the side characters inside you. But you aren’t The Office. You’re just a man, brother. And if someone can’t forgive that you make human mistakes sometimes, then it’s them who’s the problem, because they have highly unrealistic expectations.” He looks at me pointedly.
“‘It’s me. Hi. I’m the problem,’” I deadpan.
He rolls his eyes. “You are not a Swiftie.”
“Not even close. But the radio plays her stuff every-other fucking song, so you learn the lyrics whether you want to or not. At least a couple of them are catchy.” I shrug.
“So learn these lyrics whether you want to or not—You. Are. Human,” he jabs.
I give him a judgy face. “Um, those aren’t the words. It’s ‘When we’re human again….’”
He stares at me blankly after I sing the line, operatically and everything.
After a moment of just staring at each other in a silent game of Chicken, he finally breaks. “Okay, you’ve stumped me. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Beauty and the Beast, bro. Come on!”
His brow furrows. “Astrid watches that with Luna all the time. There’s no song in there that sounds like that.”
“Duuude. Which release do you have? The 1991 OG version?” I ask.
He pulls out his phone and checks something before he replies, “According to her Favorites list on Roku, it is indeed the one from ’91.”
“Nah, man. Add the one from 2002 at the earliest. It was the first special edition to include the song that was cut out of the original.”
He slowly shakes his head at me. “I’ll get right on that.”
“Don’t shake your head at me. I’ve already spilled my guts about how obsessed I am with my daughter?—”
“Don’t say that. It sounds creepy,” he interrupts.
