by Sky Corgan
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize that would upset you so.”
“You don't realize that a lot of things you do upset me.”
“I'm sorry.”
“You say it, but it doesn't sound like you mean it.”
Dominick turned to me. “Kim, I truly do mean it. I never meant to upset you. It was just a business meeting, and I was trying to keep things casual.”
“It wasn't a business meeting though. It was a pleasure meeting. You said so yourself.”
“All I can say is that I'm sorry. I can't turn back time and take back my words. If I could, I would.”
“And what would you have called me then? Your lover?”
“I don't know. I've never really had to think about it before. I just said what sounded natural to me.”
I could tell he was becoming uncomfortable, and somewhere, deep down inside of me, I was happy. He was always so nonchalant about everything, so unaffected. It was nice to see him squirm for once.
“There's something that I need to know,” I continued, “something that's been nagging at me since the first time we slept together, since I read Behind Her Green Eyes.”
“Yes?”
“I know you're in love with my sister. You'll always be in love with her. I understand that and can live with it. But I have to know, am I just a replacement for her?”
He laughed again, and I couldn't understand if it was because the tension had boiled over and this was the way he dealt with it, or if he actually found my question humorous. Either way, the sound of his laughter just ticked me off.
“I'm being serious,” I barked at him. “Don't laugh at me.”
Dominick quickly quieted down, though his face still held a grin. “You're so blind sometimes.”
“Huh?”
“I don't care about your sister at all. I mean, sure, she's my best friend. She always will be, even though we don't see each other anymore. But I'm not in love with her. I'm in love with you.”
His words caught me off guard, and suddenly the world was spinning. Did he actually just confess to being in love with me? Surely, I heard him wrong.
Dominick continued, “When Tammy told me that you were going to school here in Arizona, I was absolutely elated at the chance to connect with you again. I wanted to see what kind of woman you had grown into. I'll admit that the feelings didn't come all at once when I first saw you. You weren't the little knobby-kneed girl I remembered who always used to follow Tammy and I around. You had grown into a woman. And when I looked at you, I saw a stranger.
“At first I feared that you were just interested in taking advantage of my generosity. Of course, I would have been fine with that. I had offered for you to stay here, and I wasn't going to renege on that no matter what kind of brat you turned out to be. I just wanted to help you and your sister out, as I always have. That's what best friends do, after all.
“But as the days and weeks went by, I saw you for who you truly were, a young woman who wanted to pay her own way. I never had to ask you to do anything around the house. You just did it. You cared for me, even though you didn't have to. Even though I was distant and unapproachable sometimes, you still carried on carrying on. I thought it was just out of a sense of obligation, but that night we got drunk together, I started to realize it was something more, started to hope that it was something more.
“When I caught you on video pleasuring yourself and saying my name,” he laughed.
“It's not funny.” I sunk into the loveseat, my cheeks growing pink from just the mention of the video.
“It was pretty funny at the time.” Dominick smirked.
“Just shut up and finish your story. It was starting to get good.” I fought back a smile.
“Oh, was it now?” he teased.
“Continue.”
“Fine. Anyway, when I saw that video, there were a lot of things going through my mind, mostly happiness. That was when I put everything together. At first, I thought it was just a crush, but then I remembered everything you said when you were drunk, about being in love with me. That's when I realized that despite the fact that we were both different people, you were still in love with me. So, I decided to take a chance.
“I thought things were going well between us, but you've been hot and cold ever since. I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand women. For as much as I write about them, I really don't get them. Fake it until you make it, as they say. I just knew that you loved me and you weren't after my money, so I thought that if I cared for you, that would be enough to keep you by my side. If I've screwed up along the way, which I obviously have, I'm sorry. But know that I do love you, and I just want you to be happy. If I'm not making you happy, please let me know, and I'll try to change.”
“You have screwed up a lot,” I admitted. My face wanted to scowl, but my heart wouldn't allow it. Inside, I was jumping around like a lunatic, completely elated at his confession of love. I had waited so long for it.
“Am I fixable?” He turned to me with an earnest expression.
“I think I have something to work with now.” I grinned stupidly.
“Are you still mad at me?”
“Not so much anymore. From now on, though, when someone asks what I am to you, the answer is girlfriend.”
“Alright,” he laughed.
“And don't leave me anymore cryptic love songs. Victor had me convinced that you're a stalker.”
Dominick frowned. “I don't like that boy.”
“Well, he's my friend, so you're going to have to get over it.”
“I don't like the idea of you being alone with him.”
I smirked. “It's funny to see you jealous.”
“I'm only human, Kimlet.”
“You don't seem like it at times.”
Dominick looked at me strangely. “What's that supposed to mean.”
“You're just so emotionally different from what I remember as a kid.”
“So are you.”
“Then I guess we both changed.” I took a deep breath, realizing I had never really thought about how different I was to him.
Are we good now?” he asked.
“One more thing.”
“Hm?”
“Say that thing you said, after you said you're not in love with my sister anymore.”
“What?”
“You know, that thing you said.” I bumped my shoulder against his, too embarrassed to say it myself.
“That I'm in love with you?”
“Say it again, but don't make it sound like a question this time.”
“I'm in love with you.”
“One more time.”
“I'm in love with you.”
The night ended in a frenzy of torn clothes, connected body parts, and moans so loud that the entire complex probably heard us. And by torn clothes, I mean literally. I ripped that shirt off of him so fast that we still can't find some of the buttons. The sex was explosive, like a firework display that lasted half the night. We'd roll around in the bedroom for an hour, then come out to replenish our electrolytes before another round of sheet aerobics. By the next morning, I was so sore I thought I would be laid up the entire weekend. That was fine though, because Dominick took care of my every need, stepping into the devoted boyfriend role full force. I didn't plan on it lasting. This was just him making up for being a jerkface, but I decided to savor every moment of it.
We had a long way to go before our relationship would ever resemble something normal. I knew that. Things were already headed in the right direction though, and I looked forward to seeing where they would go. Now that I knew the true depth of Dominick's feelings, the sky was the limits.
Write or Wrong
Chapter 1
It's strange dating my sister's best friend when she doesn't know, especially when he's a lot older than me. There's a constant question in my mind of whether I should tell her or not. How would she feel to know that I moved in with him only to pursue him wildly, to be seduced by him,
for us to form a tumultuous relationship and eventually fall in love?
The path to Dominick Parker's heart was not an easy one. His love for my sister blinded him, bruised his heart, damaged him. She married another and cast him aside, and because of that, he grew cold and callus. For a short while, I wondered if he was even capable of love. But by living with him, I managed to melt his heart, to show him that she wasn't the one for him after all—that he and I were meant to be together.
It wasn't easy at first. Dominick was apprehensive to love again, afraid that I'd leave him like my sister had. His fear and reluctance wounded me, the constant push and pull of his emotions. One moment, he'd be hot against me, making love to me with such uninhibited passion. The next, he'd be cold as ice, ignoring me as if I was nothing more than an inconvenience. He had almost driven me away before I got a chance to figure him out.
Our love was far from perfect, but it endured. I adapted to his strange way of showing affection, and slowly he began to heal. Nothing made me happier than knowing I could repay him for all of his past kindness by teaching him to love again.
It's crazy to think that we'd been living together for a year now, and my sister still had no clue what was going on between us. I'd come home to visit during vacation, and she'd ask if I was dating anyone, and all I could tell her was no. I hated to lie to her, but I honestly didn't want to deal with her reaction. She would probably think Dominick took advantage of me, which wasn't at all true. Young girl, rich powerful man. You know how the story goes. He didn't try to seduce me until after I had spilled my guts about being in love with him though. And oh how I had wanted him. I still wanted him. Every single day, I wanted him. There was no better man for me than Dominick Parker. My sister probably wouldn't see that though. She wouldn't understand, and so I didn't tell her.
Dominick didn't care whether I told her or not. This was all on me. He was perfectly happy with our semi-secret relationship. With over two thousand miles separating us, what did it matter if she knew, he said. It's not like we would ever run into each other on the street. Still, she was my sister, and up to this point I had told her everything. It just didn't seem right to keep this from her, especially when it felt like things between Dominick and I were getting really serious.
“I'm going to tell her,” I said at breakfast one morning, nodding as I slid a plate of eggs and bacon in front of Dominick with a look of determination on my face.
“Do what you will,” he replied, completely uninterested.
“You're going to have to back me up here.” I sat down at the opposite end of the table, annoyed that he sounded so dismissive.
“There's nothing to back up. You're a grown woman, are you not? That should entitle you to make your own decisions.”
“A grown woman,” I repeated the words carefully. It was so rare that Dominick referred to me as a woman. Usually, I was a girl, or a kid, or . . . Kimlet. I would never stop hating the pet name. It always made me feel like a sniveling child when he said it, because that's what I was when he first started calling me Kimlet.
“Mhm. Even if she's not happy about it, she'll get over it.”
“Do you think she won't be happy about it?”
“Who knows? Tammy is strange.”
“I don't really see what she could get angry about.” I poked at my own eggs, though I didn't have much of an appetite. The thought of telling Tammy about Dominick always made me queasy. “You've been around me most of my life. You've always taken good care of me. You pay for my stuff and take me on vacations and emotionally support me. Well, we emotionally support each other. You've never hurt me, though you have gotten kind of rough during . . .” I poked faster at my eggs. “Anyway, there's no one better for me. Surely, she has to see that.”
“You've never complained about me getting rough before.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and when I looked up, he was smirking. The lecherous gleam in his eyes made me blush.
“There's nothing to complain about,” I replied innocently.
“That's what I thought.”
For the rest of the day, I pondered exactly how I was going to tell Tammy about my relationship with Dominick. Would it be best if I just came straight out with it like, “Hey, Tammy, Dominick and I started dating.” Or, should I ease her into it, explaining how he and I had gotten close over time. That didn't feel quite accurate though. More realistically, the story should go, “We got drunk one night and I spilled my guts about being in love with him. Then he caught me masturbating on his bed when he was on a business trip by watching surveillance video. And then he seduced me and we had sex, and the rest is history.” But being so thorough would give her a lot of other things to be pissed off about, like why Dominick had allowed me to drink when I'm underage, or why he had me on surveillance video. Of course, if I simply said that we were dating, she'd want details eventually, anyway. Tammy liked details, even if she wasn't especially pleased with what those details were. It felt like a lose/lose situation.
***
“I don't know what to do,” I groaned into my hands as I sat at lunch with Victor.
It used to be him and I and a girl named Carmen Rucks that had lunch together at college, but after the previous semester, Carmen decided that video game design wasn't for her. She was taking this year off to figure out what it was she really wanted to do. I suggested fashion design or cosmetology, since she was into that stuff, but she didn't seem too enthusiastic at the idea of pursuing them as a career.
To be honest, I had been pretty sure she wasn't going to make it through the full course from the beginning. The only video games she was interested in where the super girly ones for small children, and she had never actually played any of the more mainstream games. She always used to say that her favorite thing about going to school for video game design was the abundance of boys in the classes. That's not a very good reason to choose something as your major. If boys were her main focus, she might as well have gone to school to be a mechanic.
Oh well. Her problem, not mine. It was just weird to be left with Victor as my only friend. Victor, the blonde haired, hazel eyed, tall, sophisticated boy who I had had a crush on from the first time I laid eyes on him. That crush had been tempered since Dominick and I had finally established a solid relationship. There was still an attraction though, and I often wondered what my life would be like if I had ended up with him instead. Water under the bridge. We flirted from time to time, but it was fairly innocent. Victor knew where we stood, and he seemed perfectly content with the cat and mouse game that was our strange friendship.
“I don't understand what's so hard about it,” he said, absentmindedly pulling his sandwich apart as if he would find something in there he didn't like.
“Dominick is twelve years older than I am. It's a big age difference.”
“It is. But at least when he dies before you, you won't have to worry about money anymore.”
“Victor! That's a horrible thing to say.” I scowled at him.
“It's true.”
“You're no help.”
“Did you want my help? I just thought you were talking.”
“You men are useless, I swear,” I huffed.
“That's because men don't care. It's women who give a shit about this crap. Love who you love. Age shouldn't matter, unless we're talking about pedophilia. Then age matters.” He leaned forward. “Did you know that when Dominick was eighteen you were only six. That's kind of gross if you think about it.”
I glared at him. “You're such an asshole sometimes. And yes, I do know that, because I knew Dominick when I was six, and I liked him even then.”
“Pedobear. Gross.”
I threw my empty milk carton at him. “I guess that makes your 'age shouldn't matter' statement null and void then.”
“I was just saying.” He put his hands up in surrender, a wicked smirk playing across his thin lips that I couldn't help but find sexy, no matter how upset I was at him.
“Ugh!” I grabbed my
tray and went to dump my trash. Of course, I wouldn't get any help from Victor. While he didn't dislike Dominick, he wasn't a fan of his either. Perhaps that was because of our age difference. Maybe it was because he wanted me for himself. Sometimes, I couldn't tell.
***
“I'm going to do it tonight,” I told Dominick as I climbed into his Maserati. He picked me up every day after school, like my own personal chauffeur. When I first started going to Mesa Community College, people would stare when the car pulled up. Now, they were mostly used to it. Only the freshman stared, and they got over it quickly enough.
“Do what you will,” he said. “How was you day?”
“It was a day. You know, it bugs me that you're so indifferent about this. Isn't Tammy supposed to be your best friend?”
“Best friends don't always agree on things. That doesn't make them any less best friends.” He put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot.
“Aren't you worried she'll be mad at you?”
“I handled her dating and marrying Marcus with grace. I'd like to think she'll do the same for me.”
My heart sank at the mention of Marcus and all the memories that came flooding back like a montage of sadness. Everything changed when Marcus came into my sister's life. Dominick played the dutiful best friend, hiding his feelings all throughout their relationship. But when Marcus proposed that was the end of it for Dominick. He left town, never looking back. If I hadn't moved to Mesa to attend college, I probably wouldn't have ever seen him again.
“Tammy isn't like you,” I whispered. Tammy is selfish. She doesn't have the same reasoning and understanding.
***
I sat on my bed with cell phone in hand, going over what I would say. This needed to be done. One way or another, it was eventually going to come out. It was better to get it over with now, to face Tammy's wrath and deal with it. She would understand; she would have to. There was no other choice.