He turns slowly, and our eyes meet. He walks, shoving his hands into his pockets, never taking his eyes off me. That is until he’s at the bottom of the steps leading up the porch and he notices Jenny for the first time. I see him looking her over, noticing how much we look alike. What’s he thinking? That this beautiful little girl is my sister, probably.
“Hey,” he says, climbing the steps. I stand, wondering how he found me and why he’s here. The last time he looked at me, it was with disgust in his eyes. When I packed my bag and left, I wasn’t expecting to ever see him again.
“What are you doing here, Dominic?” My voice sounds clipped through the tightness of my throat.
“Can we go somewhere?” he asks, gazing back at Jenny who has finally noticed him. She has a little smile on her face.
“Sure,” I say. “Let’s take a walk.” I turn to Jenny and tell her to go inside to Nana. It’s only after that’s out of my mouth that I realize my mistake. I can’t look Dominic in the eye now. All the memories of our night together are so fresh, and with them, the ache of shame at what he found and how he responded.
I walk slowly down the stairs, watching to check that Jenny has done as I asked. She pushes the door, trailing dolly by the hand. Dominic’s shadow slides up next to mine as he follows me towards the lane that leads into the field next to my home. There’s an old tree there that fell in a storm when I was a child. It’s always been my place to sit and think. I spent so many hours there before Jenny was born. Neither of us says a word until we get to the tree and I sit, back leaning against its gnarled trunk. Dominic sits beside me.
“Why are you here?”
Dominic spreads his legs, resting his hands on his thighs. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t answer. I stare at his profile; the scrunch of his brow as he frowns at my question, or maybe the answer he’s struggling to come up with.
“Why are you here?” he asks, finally turning to look at me.
“This is my home,” I say feeling frustrated. He’s driven all this way to question me, after the way he left me without a word.
“Your place is at college,” he says.
I shake my head, worrying the hangnail on my thumb. “I’m not going back.”
“Why?”
“I’m messing things up,” I tell him. “I thought I knew what I was doing, but I’m making things worse. My mistakes are just getting bigger. I have to get out before…” I trail off, not really knowing what to tell him.
“If it’s because of how I left the other night…because of what I saw.”
I shake my head but I’m lying. If he never reached into my purse, I wouldn’t have felt like I was back at the beginning again. My sixteen-year-old self and all her complicated feelings were back, and I couldn’t deal with it. I’ve been running from her for most of my short adult life.
It was only when the man at the door spoke to me, that I realized that wasn’t the solution. Facing up to our mistakes is the only way we can ever be free of them.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have walked away like that. I shouldn’t have reached into your damn purse in the first place.” My face flushes with embarrassment, remembering the way his face had looked when he’d realized what he had found. “I should have a least given you a chance to explain.”
I rest my face in my hands, feeling so ashamed.
“But I wanted to tell you that I would never say a word to anyone about where you work or what I found. Those things are private.” He says the last bit softly and my heart aches. I don’t know how to feel about anything anymore. Everything feels tangled and complex, the threads of one situation woven through another until I don’t know where to start or finish with any of it. “Hey.” Dominic takes hold of my wrist and eases my hand away, holding it in his huge palm, cradling it like my flesh and bone is something precious to him. He touches my hair, pushing a strand behind my ear tenderly. I start to cry because I don’t deserve his gentleness. He should be angry with me. Disappointed. He should be telling me that I’m disgusting, but he’s not. “Shhh,” he says, putting an arm around me and tugging me against his chest. I burrow into his shirt, hiding my face and breathing in his scent, reveling in the tightness of his embrace and the comfort he’s offering like it’s nothing.
“You should go,” I say quietly. “You should walk away from here and forget we ever met. You should feel grateful that you didn’t get mixed up in my mess. Do it now and I won’t think badly of you. I’ll understand.”
“No,” he says. His voice is steely and determined. “I’m not leaving, Hannah. Not until you can convince me that staying here is better than coming back with me. I don’t know what your mess is, but nothing’s so bad that it can’t be fixed and forgotten. You gotta tell me, cos right now I just don’t understand.”
I cry against him because, even though I told him to go, I didn’t want him to walk away. Since the first evening we spent together in his room, I’d sensed something about him; a feeling that he was going to be something important in my life. I’d thought at the time it was the part he was going to play in getting me the scholarship I so desperately need. Then I thought that maybe we’d be friends, and I found that I liked that idea. Then I’d hoped for more.
Hope is a dangerous thing. It leaves our hearts open to damage that we might never heal from. And when your heart’s been damaged before, hoping is not only dangerous but foolish.
Foolish or not, the only way he’s going to leave is if I tell him everything, and I realize I don’t have anything to lose. Even if he tells the whole college my sordid story, no one is ever going to find me in this small town. And even if they did, everyone here already knows most of my shameful secrets anyway.
“The little girl on the porch is my daughter.” I pause, waiting for him to say something but he’s silent. “I was sixteen when I met Brayden. He was twenty-eight. I thought he was the best thing ever. He made me all these promises and I was so foolish. I believed everything he said. I didn’t want to sleep with him. Not really. My momma had always told me that I’d know when the time was right. That I’d know when I found the right man. There was something about Brayden that kept me wondering. An edge to him that I wasn’t sure about. But I was sixteen and naïve and he was twenty-eight and impatient and…” I trail off, crying again.
Even my momma doesn’t know what really happened that night. When I told her I was pregnant she was disappointed enough. Telling her that I’d been…I can’t even bring myself to think the word.
Dominic smooths my hair and kisses my crown. His kindness slowly starts to sooth me. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says gently. “Not if it’s upsetting you.”
“I didn’t want to sleep with him,” I say, needing him to know. Needing him to understand, but most of all, needing to admit what happened to me.
Dreams and nightmares; we have to feed them to keep them alive.
I don’t want to feed these nightmares anymore. I need to accept them to move on. I know this.
“Oh, Hannah,” he says softly.
“Afterward, I didn’t tell anyone. I hid at home and told my momma I was sick. I skipped classes and hid out here in the field, reading books to try and escape from what had happened. I didn’t answer his calls. I hid when he came looking for me. When my belly got big, my momma was so disappointed. She told me she was going to make him own up to his responsibilities. She made me meet with him to tell him I was going to have a baby. Even then I couldn’t tell her. I sat in that diner, across the table from the man that forced himself on me and didn’t say a word. When my momma told him, he actually laughed. Said I was a stupid girl and that I should have been on the pill. Momma was so outraged, she threw a glass of water on him and told him never to come near me again. Half the town witnessed that outburst. The shame of it.”
“There’s no shame,” he insists.
“I was sixteen and pregnant by a man that didn’t want to know. I’d dropped out of school by that point, but momma insisted tha
t I go back. She forced me to keep going, and when Jenny was born, she took over, letting me focus on my studies. She told me that one mistake doesn’t have to affect a lifetime.”
“You didn’t make a mistake,” Dominic says. “You did nothing to be ashamed about, and your momma’s right. She was right to push you. She was right to make you carry on.”
“She sold everything we had that was worth anything to get me into college. I got a couple of low-grade scholarships, but I knew I had to work to stay there. And I had responsibilities too. I didn’t want to go off and leave momma and Jenny in hardship. She’s my baby. I had to make sure she was okay…that momma had enough to provide for them both.”
“That’s why you took that job.”
I nod. “In my first week, I made four times what I would have made working anywhere else. I didn’t have the option to pick a job in a store or a boutique. I had to make big money.”
“The money in your bag, was that tips?”
I pause for a moment because admitting the next part feels huge, but I’ve come this far. My heart feels lighter than it has in years for admitting the truth.
I shake my head against his chest. “At the club, sometimes the customers ask for extra services. Mostly it’s the performers that get asked for lap dances and more. But last week the owner of the club told me that someone had asked for me.” Dominic seems to take in a deep breath, as though hearing this is as hard for him as it is for me to admit it. “I wouldn’t have done anything physical with someone,” I say. “The customer just wanted to watch me…”
“Watch what?” he asks slowly.
“Watch me…touch myself.”
The confession hangs between us. I tense against him, fully expecting him to get up and walk away again. Maybe when he found the vibrator he’d imagined worse than the actual reality. Maybe he thought I’d been fucking the customers for money, prostituting myself. So is this as bad? I don’t know. It all feels like shades of gray, but I feel better for telling him.
“He paid me a lot. $7,000. He wanted to make it a regular thing. He sent his assistant to my dorm after you left. $10,000 a month.” I almost laugh at that last part. I mean, what the fuck. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman when he said it.
“That’s why I was calling you. I saw the car outside, the one with the number we saw that night. I watched it drive away. Who the hell is he?”
“I don’t know really. Someone with more money than sense. I was scared at first. His behavior was way outside the bounds of acceptability, but Jack told me he’s just a rich man used to getting what he wants. He has a stake in the club and has done this kind of thing before. He finds a girl that he likes and pursues her. He probably thinks that what I considered stalking was Christian Grey possessiveness.”
“So why did you come home? Is that why you’ve dropped out? So you can work for him.” He says that last bit sounding a little sick.
“I came home because I got scared. I got scared because for a minute I actually considered taking him up on the offer. I mean, $10,000 a month would set Jenny up for life. It’d mean I never had to worry about money again. I have no idea why he chose me when there are so many other girls out there who’d do a whole lot more for a whole lot less. I told Jack to tell him to leave me alone and he did.”
I sit up, no longer feeling like I need to hide in Dominic’s embrace. I’m at the end of my story and now it’s all out, it doesn’t have the hold over me that it did before. Dominic isn’t looking at me, though. Maybe the last part was too much for him? Things dredged up from the past seem remote. Things from the present have a greater power to hurt.
“I need a minute, okay?” he says gruffly. He gets to his feet and walks back the way we came. I watch him retreat, broad back stooped slightly, hands hanging at his sides. He seems deflated and I don’t like it. Dominic has always lived up to his nickname.
Big D is strong and larger than life. He’s brute on the field and a force in the bedroom. Under it all, though, he’s a complex and thoughtful man with a heart as big as his nickname would suggest.
I stare as he stops. I can see his shoulders rising and falling. It’s as though he’s taking deep breaths, trying to calm himself down. Before I can get to my feet and start after him, he turns and makes his way back to me.
I stand, ready to face him and to say goodbye. The thought tears at my heart, but I know it’s for the best. Then we’re face to face and I just can’t. The look in his eyes, it’s tortured and full of emotion. He takes hold of my chin, keeping my face turned up to his.
“You are an amazing person, Hannah Star. A beautiful, strong intelligent woman. And you need to come back to college with me, okay.”
I blink, his words bowling me over. I go to shake my head, not willing to accept his compliments, but he holds me still.
“You are not staying here to waste your potential because you feel ashamed.”
“I can’t go back.”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m not going to give you a choice. I will not let you waste everything that you’ve worked for.”
“You don’t understand,” I say, taking hold of his wrist, trying to get him to let me go so I can make him comprehend my situation. “I can’t afford to go back without keeping that job. If I keep that job, I’m going to end up getting myself into serious trouble. I’ve done it now. The owner expects me to say yes.”
“You don’t need to go back there.”
I frown at him, starting to get angry. He hasn’t seen my bank account. He doesn’t know that no one in my family has health insurance. “I need to stay here and concentrate on Jenny. I need to provide for her.”
“Come back and I’ll help you.”
“Help me? I’m not a charity case, Dominic.”
“I know that,” he growls, losing patience. “If you come back and tutor me, you’ll get the extra scholarship, right?”
I nod. “Only if you pass.”
“I’m going to pass. I’m going to work my ass off so you get that scholarship. It’ll be make or break for both of us.”
“It’s not enough.”
“If you didn’t have dorm fees, would that help?”
“I guess.”
“My family lives close to the University. The only reason I stay in dorms is because I’ve got a crazy training schedule and it’s easier. You can stay in the pool house for as long as you need to.”
“I can’t,” I say. The hope on his face is heartbreaking. “It’s too much, Dominic. I can’t impose like that. What are you going to tell them? That a random girl from college needs their charity?”
He looks mad at that. “Random girl?” I nod. “You’re not some random girl,” he says.
“What am I then?”
“My girl.”
Those two words cut me and mend me at the same time. Two tiny words that tell me so much about the man standing in front of me.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I say softly. For all his good intentions, this feels crazy.
“I know a whole lot, Hannah. More than I have a right to know. Our stories are our own until we decide to share them. You didn’t choose to share all this with me, you got backed into a corner, but none of it makes me think anything other than good things about you. You put yourself last in every way. You blame yourself for things that were out of your control or decisions you had to make because of your circumstances.” I shake my head but he doesn’t take any notice. “I may not be much. I’ve got a temper, but I try to keep it under control. I’ve got my own struggles…” He pauses, gazing down at me like he wants to share everything but just can’t find the words. I know that feeling so well.
“Your sister?” I prompt because sometimes all a person needs is a helping hand.
He nods. “She was beautiful. So full of life. She met her husband young and he seemed like a good guy. She never told us what was happening to her until it was too late. He hurt her and she suffered complications. She died.” He says that last bi
t and I ache for him. To suffer pain yourself is one thing, but to see someone you love suffer and not make it through. Well, I can’t imagine how hard it was for him. “She had a baby. I think that’s what set her husband off, feeling jealous of the attention. My parents are raising her while I’m at school, but they’re getting old. I made a promise to Bethany when she was a baby that I’d be her daddy. When I’m done at college, I want her to come and live with me.”
I blink, feeling a wave of such emotion for this good, kind man that I can’t speak around the lump in my throat. All those times I thought of him as nothing but a selfish dick-obsessed jock. I feel guilty for forming opinions of him based on first impressions and rumors.
“You’re a good man, Dominic,” I whisper, touching his cheek. He closes his eyes at the contact. Maybe he’s as relieved as me to have shared his truth. It certainly feels that way. I remember the phone calls he received and the little voice on the other end of the line. I’d assumed he was talking to a girlfriend, but now it all makes sense. To find out we’re in such similar situations feels like such a strange coincidence.
Or maybe it isn’t.
I stand on my tiptoes to press a kiss onto his soft, full lips, resting my hand on his shoulder to steady me. A groan rumbles in his throat and he kisses me back, so softly that it passes over my lips like a breeze on a summer’s day. He tugs me against him so that there is no space between us, and it feels so good to be in his embrace.
Safe.
Sheltered.
Secure.
Honored.
His touch is reverent, and I feel awed at this beautiful thing that has grown between us, despite life’s best efforts at crushing it.
Coincidence? As Big D kisses me like I’m the only woman on the planet, I decide there is no such thing.
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