by Sunniva Dee
While we eat the chocolate cake Grandma has baked for the visit, I breach the subject of caretaking. My plan had been to talk with Melissa alone, but seeing the two of them together, Melissa repeatedly stroking Grandma’s arm, I change my mind.
“Melissa, do you know anyone who could spend some hours a day with Grandma? I’ll be moving home once I graduate in about seven months, but we need help until then.”
Grandma’s forehead crinkles next to me, and she shakes her head. “Dominic, honey—not ‘anyone.’ Melissa! I only want Melissa. Were you going to have someone from her old people’s home come over and baby me?”
Obviously, this was my way of urging my ex to volunteer without putting her on the spot, and here’s Grandma ruining everything with one swift blurt-out. I’m sure Melissa is busy with her studies and her job. Choir practice, perhaps a boyfriend. I’m psyching myself out.
“Melissa, I’ve been a little bit loopy lately,” Grandma confesses, not waiting for me to pick up the pieces of my strategy. She’s taking charge herself. “My boys are concerned about me, and Alan wants to put me in that home you work at.”
As she speaks, her eyes brighten with tears, and I stop mulling over my broken plan. I had no idea she knew. Has he discussed this with her directly?
My uncle’s a dead man.
“No, Little Lady, we never—” I start, but Melissa interrupts without a glance in my direction. As a matter of fact, she hasn’t looked at me since she came in the door.
“Mrs. Davide.” She squeezes Grandma’s fingers again and smiles. “Don’t you worry. I’m aware of what’s been going on, how you’re not feeling so good sometimes, and I wouldn’t have come today if I didn’t plan on helping you out.”
A lump sticks in my throat. It really, truly does, and I swallow hard to keep the damn thing down. I grab for my lemonade, unable to speak.
“Oh, Melissa—you always were so darling,” Grandma says, clasping my ex’s hands. With the love fest evolving around me, I’m hesitant as to what to do next. I need to dig into details—find out when Melissa can start, how long she can stay every day and when. Hopefully, Alan can commit to covering the remaining hours.
With her behavior, Melissa has made it clear that she’s doing this for Grandma and not me, which makes things easier, so I jump on the first important piece of information we need to discuss. We’ll move on to schedule and salary afterward, I think.
“Grandma, let me find your medication so Melissa can get a picture of what you’re taking.”
I find two of her pill bottles in the kitchen. There should be another couple, though, and I call out for Grandma. She scurries in, a new eagerness in her step, and finds them easily enough behind the Nutella in the pantry. I’m glad she’s not in her confused state, because we’d have no idea where to look.
“Let’s keep them all in the same place, shall we? On the spice rack with the others?” I suggest.
“Yes, all right.” She giggles like she’s been naughty by not keeping the meds in one location. For every passing day, she seems more like a child to me.
As we return to the TV room, I catch Melissa dropping my phone back on the coffee table. I cross my arms, speechless for a second. It pisses me off when people mess with my stuff.
“Was it ringing?”
She swings toward us, focusing only on Grandma, and smiles. “No, I’m getting an iPhone next too. Neat. Did you find them, Mrs. Davide?”
I grab my phone and slide it open. I breathe out at Pandora’s message.
Wish you were here, Perfect Dominic.
She’s texting me! Shit, this means so much to me right now, I can’t even hear the chit-chat around me.
I’m not sure what she’s saying, though. Is she okay? How fast can I move this session with Melissa and hash out the details? I need Pandora on the phone ASAP.
Melissa and Grandma talk recipes. Something about lemon bars they used to make and how Grandma thinks she’s got the ingredients.
“After dinner.” Grandma nods. “Let’s all have stew first.”
Chocolate cake. Stew, and then lemon bars. Jesus. Surely Melissa has somewhere to be?
“Miss Davide, that sounds delicious.”
“Oh, sweetheart, please call me Pearl like you used to!”
PANDORA
With everything going on—Destiny and Mica finally coming out as a couple, Shannon setting me straight about Dominic versus his boss—my brain’s freaking buzzing.
At the thought of Dominic being with that bitch, I still have a knot in my stomach no massage could erase. Shannon is right, though. I need his friendship—and to be honest, I hope Spa Bitch is lying.
Tonight after Smother, I’ll be alone again. Christian and Shannon will be in her room as usual, and Destiny and Mica won’t conceal their own private slumber party. Only I will be alone. If Dominic were here, I’d probably drunk-text him.
I decide to message him while I’m still sober in case my after-party self considers the option even though he’s not in town. A convo now might keep me from making a fool of myself later.
Wish you were here, Perfect Dominic, I type.
I start my primping session to go out when he doesn’t reply right away. The longer he takes to answer, the more kohl goes around my eyes. I head to the kitchen and grab a beer, then take it with me to the bathroom.
Mica surveys me from the doorway when I start tossing clothes out of the closet. “On a mission?” she asks.
“Yeah, I don’t know what to wear. I need to kick ass tonight,” I say, realizing how true that is. My need to blow minds grows proportionally with how long Dominic takes to text me back.
My eyes flick to the phone. Still nothing after freaking forty-five minutes! Am I getting some of my own medicine? No, guys don’t do the whole payback for petty stuff, do they? Plus Dominic’s too good of a person.
Why then?
He’s busy.
I’m so insecure right now. I don’t buy my own explanation.
“Oh, oh!” Mica breaks into my anxious merry-go-round. “Your onesie—the black cat suit?”
I clap my hands. “Hell yes! You’re a freaking genius!”
Mica’s stunning in a red mini dress, matching earrings, and fake Louboutins. As I grab the suit and trot back into the bathroom, I ask, “You coming tonight?”
She flashes a big grin my way. “Yep, I’ve talked my sweetheart into going.”
My sweetheart.
It’s so wild to hear her use endearments for Destiny. I’m still digesting that two of my best friends are dating.
“Taxi’s here!” Shannon screams from the door. “It’s super-late—if Pan’s supposed to get shit-faced before they close, we better hurry!”
Mica simply points at me and winks instead of going over-the-top party-euphoric like she used to. Yeah, Shannon appears to be filling the gap after Mica. I wonder why people in this apartment swapped personalities. All hormones, probably.
“Destiny, you’re the only normal one,” I say as I hop down the stairs with my shoes in my hand.
“Why normal?”
I shrug, make sure I’ve got my for once too-silent phone in my purse, and crawl into the cab. I guess I’m quiet on the way over, because Shannon frowns from the front seat. “What’s going on, Pandora?”
I glance at my purse in my lap. With the lid flipped open, I’m clutching the phone inside it.
“Sorry, just being pathetic.” All three of my friends’ attention snaps to me at once.
“Oh my God,” Mica squeals, sounding a hell of a lot more like herself than she has in weeks. “You’re waiting for Dominic to call you, huh?”
“No, I…” I trail off.
“Call him, silly. No need to wait.”
“Heck yes, girl,” Shannon says and leans her chin on the headrest to study me. “He’s so smitten w
ith you,” she assures me, and everyone else bursts into laughter.
“Smitten,” I copy, accentuating the “t” with an airy pop. “Smitten… so smitten.”
“Who’s smitten?” Destiny asks in her best schoolteacher voice. She arches her eyes until they are huge and innocent. Destiny has the poppy “t” sound down even better than I do.
“Dominic’s smitten.” Mica bobs her head calmly, sagely. We swat the word between us like a ping-pong ball, Mica adding an opera pitch to her version, until the driver slams on the brakes. We’re at Smother, and our little radio theater show slash language course must be what causes him to lose his patience.
“Okay, out. Go ‘smitten’ someone else,” he mutters.
Shannon pays him, while Mica rummages around inside my purse. “What’re you doing?” I ask, but she’s got her serious-face on, the one that indicates absolute concentration, the tip of her tongue sticking out. Finally, her hand ducks back out, wiggling my phone between its digits.
“Here! Call him. Now. If you don’t, you’ll be too drunk to dance in five minutes flat. You’ll be going all crème de menthe on me.”
“Wow, that’s just rude,” I say but take the phone. Tonight we arrive so late that we hit the crowd in front of the crummy little entrance to Smother.
The doorman lifts the rope for Shannon to enter while we get in line. She’ll find Christian and be out in a minute to get the rest of us.
I check my watch. Past eleven p.m. on Dominic’s little island out west. He complains about downtown Stowden being tiny with nothing to do, the reason why he texts me from bed at this hour, and yet I don’t have any new messages. My stomach squeezes around a knob of worry.
I press the phone to my ear and let it ring. Dominic picks up almost immediately, and my heart speeds up.
“Hello?” His voice is intimate, like he’s checked the caller ID and knows I’m the one calling.
“Hi, Perfect Dominic,” I joke, but the words come out in an unplanned purr.
“Is everything all right, babe?” he asks. His tone is a question and the volume low as he speaks. His grandma must be asleep. Why didn’t I think of that? He must have been busy putting her to bed—hell, she might have had a bad day.
“Yeah,” I sort of giggle out my short answer.
“Are you at Smother?”
“Uh-huh—we’re in line,” I say.
“Be careful, Pandora. Don’t drink too much.”
Wow. Since I moved to Deepsilver, Dominic has been near me, listening to me, even rescuing me. But until now, he has never pleaded for me to behave. I’m not sure how I feel. Then again, we’re talking about Dominic—
—caring!
A flutter of happiness rises in my belly. “Pfff,” I reply, “are you kidding me? I can take care of myself.” My smile grows on my face, threatening to possess all of me.
Until someone else speaks.
It’s a soft hum, near enough to the speaker for me to picture how close she stands, or sits—or lies—to Dominic. Her pitch is young. Sensual. If Dominic’s voice had been intimate when he answered the phone, hers is ten times more intimate as she addresses him.
“Honey, who’re you talking with?”
That, right there? That was not Dominic’s grandma.
And so I hang up, shut down the phone, and cover my mouth.
26. TO PIECES
DOMINIC
I fling my phone on the bed, whirl around, and glare at Melissa. A glint of smugness flashes over her features, and I don’t consider the consequences before I let my gut speak. “What the fuck was that, Melissa?”
All of a sudden, she’s not so shy anymore. Now, Melissa has no problem meeting my glare, her big brown eyes going wide and innocent in the process. She must have followed me when I retreated to my room for what I’d hoped would be a private conversation with Pandora.
“Excuse me?” she says. The caressing lilt she used on the phone has vanished completely.
I’m so mad I can’t think straight. “I’m ‘honey’ to you now?”
“Gee, I didn’t know it was a crime to use nicknames.” She lifts her round shoulders in a shrug and spins with every intention of returning to the den. She seems to think her work here is done.
It’s not.
I grab her arm, holding her back. Then, I pull her back into my room. “Oh, you know perfectly well what you did.”
“Hey, I was just messing around.” She smirks, unaffected by my anger.
“Really, Melissa? Did you enjoy yourself?” My fingers go to my hair, raking through it, because I need to keep them occupied or I will break something.
Since I left Deepsilver, Pandora has been ingrained in my mind. I need to call her back immediately. I swipe the phone up from the floor, hit redial while Melissa observes me with detached amusement from the doorway.
“Dominic has a jealous girlfriend.” Her singsong pitch is a single shade from the mocking tone we all used as kids.
“No,” I bark out. “She’s not my fucking girlfriend, Melissa.” My call goes straight to voicemail four times in a row, but my fingers still go through the motions of redialing.
It’s like wherever I am, things can’t be right. I can keep Grandma safe tonight, but Pandora? My gut feeling tells me she’ll get on-her-ass drunk.
I need to fucking clone myself!
“No?” Melissa bats her lashes at me. Playful Melissa used to be cute. Not anymore. “Why isn’t she your GF, Dominic? Have you lost your touch?”
I stare at her, controlling myself. I don’t understand her game plan. “What do you want from me, Melissa?”
She blinks back. “Funny. You come back here, how many years later? After your lame apologies, you never once contact me—until you need a babysitter for your grandma. Clearly, you’re the one wanting stuff!”
She steps toward me and taps a finger on my chest. “You’re rude, Dominic, and God knows what I saw in you. If that chick’s having issues, maybe she’s better off? I mean, at least she doesn’t have to wait for a Dominic special, ‘The buh-bye note.’”
“Wow. I’ve said I’m sorry.”
“’I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’” she mocks, and I shake my head.
“No, seriously, Melissa. You said it yourself—that happened a long time ago.”
She winks. “Hey, shoot me for remembering. Figured I hadn’t gotten you back in a while.”
“Fucking again!”
She bursts into laughter, and I suck in air slowly so that I don’t lose my cool. My actions were cowardly back then, I’m aware of this, but damn, I’d be grateful if she let it go at some point!
“Oh, oh,” Melissa chirps. “I have an idea.”
“Shit.” I can’t imagine any new idea of hers being good.
“You know how you never really broke up with me?”
“I’m pretty sure I did,” I say and can’t help adding, “Black on white.”
“Since we’re both here, I’ll just break up with you instead—in person. You know, the way it’s supposed to go down?” She beams a bright smile.
I, seriously, have no ready reply. That is just ridiculous.
“Dominic Davide?” she continues in the voice priests use to ask if someone wants to stay married to each other for eternity. “I hereby break up with thee. We’re over. From this day on, you shall be erased from my head.”
“Jesus. Okay. That a promise?”
“Sure is! And sorry about the honey dealio. Good luck with that.” The Wicked Witch of the West stifles a snort of laughter. Then, she swings on her heel and scurries out the door.
Fuck. My gaze draws from the empty doorway to my phone on the bed.
Shannon.
They might be inside Smother already, in which case she won’t hear me ring. It’s worth a try, though. I’ll text her. Leave voicemails.
/> Shit, shit, shit!
PANDORA
Christian appears before Destiny can comment on how I flung the phone back into my purse. Shannon’s eyes probe me too, not focusing on her boyfriend as he nods at the bouncer, pointing two fingers in our direction so he knows to let us past the line.
Jealousy blooms hot in my chest, swelling into a living, breathing thing. By the time we’ve pushed inside Smother, into the throbbing, red mass of perfumed bodies, I am furious. I am also fearless—and mindless.
I stride to the bar, flag down Arriane, the nicest of the girl bartenders, who serves up my crème de menthe mixture within an agonizingly long minute.
I don’t look at Destiny while I wait, because I know what she wants when she nudges me in the waist with an elbow.
“Why did you hang up?” she finally screams over the music anyway.
I just shake my head. I’m not talking about this. “Forget it, Destiny. I’m here to have fun. Right, Mica?”
Golden locks bob around Mica’s face as she wiggles to the beat. “What?” she mouths, leaning into me, her hand cupping an ear. A guy she chatted up in the queue while I was on the phone arrives. He already owes her a beer from some bet over the color of my—yes, my—panties being wrong. Mica is wrong too. They are not, and I quote, “whore-red.”
The club vibrates with the song “Breaking a Sweat.” It’s raw, loud as hell, and exactly what I need. The roaring dubstep shakes my bones. Fights the jealousy thickening like globs of wet cotton beneath my ribs. The bass reaches my marrow, the core of my being, forcing my thoughts, the chaos away.
I start bouncing to the music, causing Mica to clap her hands and jiggle her booty. Arriane pours a refill into my glass on the way to another customer. Arriane isn’t going to leave me unattended tonight, and behind her I see why. Leon’s glittering stare studies me from the shadows. He’s leaned against the shelves, bottles of flavored vodka lined along his sides as if his own façade is part of the display. Arms crossed, he examines me with no “hi” or nod in greeting. Façade. That’s what it is. He might not be as gorgeous underneath it. Like me.