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  Dominick handed me the glass, and I chugged it heartily, trying to still my nerves. Nothing about me was still though. The world was becoming a confusing swirl the more I drank. The only thing that was clear to me was my desire. My body had been denied the pleasures of a man for far too long, and the one I had always wanted was only a few feet away. When he had originally left after the wedding, I never thought I would see him again. Now, here we were, sitting side by side. I was no longer a child. He had to see that. I would make him see that.

  “Truth or dare?” I asked.

  “I bet you want me to say dare.” He gave me a sarcastic look.

  “I don't care which one you say as long as you play,” I lied.

  “Truth.”

  “Did you ever have sex with my sister?”

  Dominick shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I don't want to play anymore.”

  “It's too late.” I shook my head. “You picked one already. You have to see this through.”

  He sighed, “No, I didn't sleep with your sister.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you I wasn't playing anymore.” He frowned.

  We sat in awkward silence for several moments before I spoke again, “I'm glad you didn't sleep with her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I've always liked you.” My heart felt like it had climbed up into my throat. All the warm alcohol in the world wouldn't push it back down. While I was feeling bold, I was still scared of rejection. This was the moment of truth—the best time to bring it up. If he said something that made me feel like crap, I could just pretend like I didn't remember anything tomorrow. Then we could go on like nothing had ever happened.

  “Puppy love,” he replied, staring forward.

  “I'm not a puppy anymore, Dominick.” I looked over at him, biting my bottom lip.

  “No. You're a drunk little girl.”

  Hearing him call me a little girl made anger rage through me. I rose from my chair and attacked him, flailing and slapping at him.

  “I'm not a little girl, you asshole. Stop calling me that.”

  He quickly went on the defense, laughing and cowering and covering himself with his arms at first to deflect my attacks. When he realized I wasn't going to stop, he tried to grab my wrists. I lost my balance and fell onto his lap, worming myself around into a sitting position. By that time, he had a firm hold of my wrists. Both of us were breathing heavily. He was smirking at me, looking gorgeous with those warm gray eyes. For a moment, I thought I saw the man he had been before, and I lost myself. My body bent forward, my lips zeroed in on their target. Apparently, my perception wasn't as good as I had estimated, because he turned his head just in time, and I missed. In that moment, my heart shattered into a million people. He had rejected me.

  “Kim, you're drunk,” he said when I pulled away, and he turned back around to face me. The hurt was plain on my face. My eyes were watering, and I suddenly felt small and alone.

  “I'm not, Dom,” I insisted, wiggling my wrists free of him. “I'm a woman, and I've wanted you for as long as I can remember.” I crawled off of his lap and returned to my chair, feeling ashamed of myself. Of course, he had rejected me. He would never see me the way I saw him—feel for me what I felt for him.

  Suddenly, I was angry again, angry that he had rejected me, angry that I had been stupid enough to hope and try. “I'm glad my sister never fucked you,” I grumbled.

  “I think you've had enough to drink.”

  “And I think you need to realize that she never loved you. It was me. Always me. Do you have any idea how many times I daydreamed about you being my husband? How many nights I cried after you left because I missed you so badly? Did you even think about me when you left? About what it would do to me? No. Because you were too wrapped up in my stupid selfish fucking sister to notice. You never saw me. Never. I love you. Not her. I always loved you.

  “Do you remember the day my sister told you that she had become engaged? You acted all cool and tough like it didn't faze you. I went and sat outside because I thought you were okay. Then you came outside, and I saw you crying. I wasn't meant to see you, but I saw you. And then I started crying. Do you know why? Not because I gave a shit about my sister and her stupid boyfriend getting engaged. Not because I was worried about myself. I cried because I was afraid I'd never see you again. I cried because it wasn't fair. You were always so good and perfect. You deserved to be happy. And she was so fucking selfish that she never even looked back at you when you left. But I looked back. You were all I could think about. And I cried and cried and cried.”

  The tears came unbidden like the words from my lips. I couldn't be around him anymore. Just being in his presence was tearing me apart. Why was I saying these things? Why was I embarrassing myself like this?

  Unable to handle it anymore, I got up and ran to my room, closing the door behind myself. Then I laid on my bed and sobbed. Part of me hoped Dominick would come comfort me, but he never did. The look on his face when I had left was of utter shock. He was speechless and probably uncomfortable. It didn't matter. I had been carrying the weight of those words for so long, it felt good to get them off my chest but horrible at the same time. Tomorrow, I would pretend like I didn't remember it, but I would remember, and he probably would too. What was going to happen now?

  Thankfully, I didn't have too much time to worry about it. My head was spinning and the crying I did expended what little energy I had left. Before I knew it, I was fast asleep, a night of dreamless sleep carrying me away from my worries and fears.

  Sunday Night

  Never before had I felt like such crap. When I awoke the next morning, the room was spinning and the sun was my enemy. I hissed at it as I pulled the covers up over my head, practically gagging at the smell of sweat and alcohol that permeated from my body. There was another scent too though, a scent that it took me a second to place. Dominick.

  The moment I realized I could smell him was also the moment I realized I was only wearing my bra and underwear. In a panic, I threw the covers down and surveyed my surroundings. This was not my bedroom. Not my beige comforter. Not my bed. I was in Dominick's bed, and I was practically naked, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  Had we? I squeezed my thighs together, then slipped a hand in my underwear to poke around my vagina. No, we hadn't. Part of me wanted to sigh in relief, but a deeper part of me was disappointed. Sure, I wanted to remember my first time, but I had also hoped my first time would be with him. If he hadn't taken advantage of me when I was drunk, then it was probably not going to happen.

  I groaned and pulled myself out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom to pee. Then I rummaged through his chest of drawers for a T-shirt and pair of boxer shorts. What had happened? Why was I in Dominick's bed? What had we done? How I wish I would have remembered.

  I opened the bedroom door to the tantalizing aroma of breakfast. Dominick was in the kitchen whipping up some eggs and bacon. It was the first time I had seen him cook since I'd been staying with him.

  “Good morning,” I grumbled, pulling myself up onto the bar that looked out over the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” he replied with a grin.

  “I woke up in your bed,” I said stupidly, not sure how else to phrase it.

  “Oh, yeah.” His eyes shifted nervously. “You threw up on yourself last night, so I took your clothes to wash them and put you in my bed. I hope you don't mind, but I didn't think you'd want to wake up in a puddle of vomit.”

  “No, I would not have.”

  Dominick turned off the burners before going to fetch me a glass of water and some Tylenol. He slid them both in front of me, smiling all the while, then he made me a plate of food.

  “What are you so chipper about?” I asked, frowning.

  “First hangover?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn't feel good, does it?” He wrinkled his nose as he shook his head.

  The son of a bitch is mocking me. “No,” I replied dryly.r />
  Dominick grabbed a plate of food and sat beside me. His appetite was hearty, while the very sight of eggs made my stomach turn. Still, he had gone out of the way to cook for me, so I wasn't going to let them go to waste. At least, not on my plate. If I threw them up later, that couldn't be helped.

  Each bite was agonizing, making it feel like there were little men boxing in my stomach in a sea of stomach acid. The food itself didn't taste bad, but my tolerance for it just wasn't there. After the third bite, I found myself running to the bathroom to vomit. When I came back, Dominick was setting my plate on the stove.

  “Maybe you could try again later,” he suggested.

  “Oh God, how do I make this go away?” I groaned, throwing myself onto one of the loveseats in the living room.

  “Eat, shower, sleep is how I usually do it.” He came around the corner and sat on the other loveseat.

  “Eat obviously isn't going to happen.”

  “No. In that case, it would be shower and lay in bed all day until you can sleep. Then when you wake up, eat.”

  “And that will work?” I gave him a skeptical look.

  “Well it won't make it go away immediately. Sleep is the most important part of the equation. Without sleep, you're in for a day of misery.”

  “I'm never drinking again.”

  “You say that now.” He smirked.

  “I mean it. I'm never drinking again.”

  “We'll see.”

  “How is that you don't feel like crap?”

  “Experience, my dear Kimlet.”

  I decided to get the process started. A shower did work to make me feel better. When I was standing under the warm running water, it was like I wasn't hung over at all. But as soon as I turned off the faucet, the hangover came back full force, and I found myself vomiting stomach acid into the toilet. This was going to be a miserable day.

  When I finished my shower and went to my bedroom, I found the bed unmade and with a putrid looking red stain all over where my head would have been. I touched the top of the mattress; it was still moist. Pressing my finger against it reminded me of spraying one of those aerosol air fresheners. Except, instead of a pleasant scent coming out, the smell of my vomit rose up to greet me, sending me running back to the bathroom to throw-up again.

  “I hate you for doing this to me,” I told Dominick when I finally re-emerged. He looked as happy as a clam, sitting on the loveseat, watching television.

  “I did nothing. You just need a better tolerance,” he replied, not even bothering to look at me.

  “There aren't any sheets on my bed.”

  “You're free to use mine.”

  That was all the invitation I needed. I dragged myself back into his room and practically threw myself on the bed, cuddling up around one of his pillows and praying that sleep would come. Dominick's scent was surprisingly calming instead of nauseating. He smelled like grapefruits and shampoo and man. It was different from how I remembered him smelling in the past. Back then, his scent was more a mix of fabric softener and Axe and sweat. The way he smelled now was definitely an improvement. Perhaps not all changes were bad.

  No matter how hard I tried to sleep, my mind swam with thought. At first, I was consumed with warm feelings of how Dominick was being more like he was before. It was sweet of him to let me sleep in his bed. That must have meant he spent the night on one of the loveseats, since there wasn't a bed in his office. I could only imagine how uncomfortable that must have been.

  On top of that, he had made me breakfast and pretty much tended to my needs since I woke up. This was the considerate Dominick I remembered, the Dominick who doctored my knee when I had fallen off of my bike, the Dominick who kissed my ouches better. Just the thought of him returning to some resemblance of that man made me swoon.

  But then I remembered the night before, and all happiness faded away. I made a complete idiot of myself. Never would I have said something like that if I was sober. Everything had just poured out of me. He knew it all now.

  Hopefully, he had forgotten, but I doubted it. Judging by the way that he was acting, he had probably been almost sober when I went running my mouth. Yeah, he definitely remembered it. If I was lucky, he'd never bring it up. Just the thought of how badly I had embarrassed myself made me want to crawl under a rock and die. Things were going to be awkward for a while.

  As much as I wanted to go to sleep, as hard as I tried, it just wouldn't happen. I had slept a full eight hours that night, and I had only been awake for about two hours. There was no way I was going to be able to force myself to sleep.

  Disgusted, I crawled out of bed and went back into the living room. Dominick was in the kitchen doing dishes, so I took his spot on the loveseat and grabbed the remote. He had been watching something on the news, but I hated the news, so I turned it to Nickelodeon to watch some Sponge Bob. My head felt like pain as I tried to concentrate on his nonsensical capers. Still, watching it made me feel like I was home, and that was comforting enough to keep me on the loveseat.

  Dominick eventually returned, sitting across from me. For a moment, I thought he was going to take the remote and change it back to the news, but he just watched the television absentmindedly.

  “I'm cold,” I complained, pulling my feet up onto the loveseat to hug my knees.

  “I'm hot.” He looked over at me.

  Yes, you are. My cheeks grew warm from the thought, and I silently chastised myself. I couldn't have sex now if I wanted to. I would probably vomit all over him.

  Dominick stood up and crossed the distance between us, sitting beside me. Then he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me to him. My eyes grew wide as the back of my head rested against his chest.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You're cold. I'm hot. I figured I could warm you up if we sat together.”

  “Oh.”

  My heart was beating rapidly. What he had done was completely non-sexual, but my body didn't seem to get that. Warmth rushed through me, but not the kind that reached my extremities. My feet were still as cold as ice, but other parts of me were working on overdrive, heating up for something that wasn't going to happen.

  It took a few minutes for me to relax, but when I did, it seemed like the two of us were meant to fit together. He was ridiculously comfortable, and being next to him just felt so right. The television was drowned out with all the hopeful scenarios playing in my brain. It wasn't long before I exhausted myself thinking, and my eyes grew heavy with sleep.

  When I woke up several hours later, Dominick was gone, and I was laying on the loveseat in the most uncomfortable position with a blanket wrapped around me. I groaned as I pulled myself into a sitting position, my neck throbbing in pain. At least, my headache was almost gone, though I did feel a strange lingering nastiness from the alcohol. From what I could tell by looking through the sliding glass door, the sun was fading over the horizon, so I must have slept for a while.

  Instead of searching for Dominick, I went to the kitchen to nuke my leftover breakfast and drink another glass of water. This time, my stomach didn't give as much resistance, and I was able to get some nourishment into my body. He was right, I did feel a lot better now. It seemed that with every step of his process, there was an improvement. As soon as I was finished eating, I felt almost like new.

  Dominick had retreated to his office to do some work, so I decided not to bother him. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the loveseat in the living room watching television, thinking about how amazing Dominick had been all day. He had even cleaned my mattress and made up my bed.

  By the next day, things returned to normal. There was no breakfast waiting for me in the morning, but I didn't mind. I was happy to tend to Dominick, knowing that he would be there for me if I really needed him. Maybe he had gotten lazy over the years, but the man whom I knew and loved was still in there somewhere, even if he only came out on rare occasions.

  The school week started, and I felt a renewed sense of energy as
I tackled my classes. I did end up asking Dominick if I could start taking the bus to school, since it annoyed me getting stared at everyday when he dropped me off, but he still insisted on driving me, and I didn't argue beyond that.

  Thankfully, even after our group project was over, Carmen and Victor still hung around me. We had lunch together everyday, talking about our classes and trivial stuff. Things couldn't have been going any better.

  The following weekend, Dominick had to go out of state to talk to the producers about the movie. He made me promise I wouldn't bring anyone over, and I agreed, though I worried it would make for a boring weekend. I didn't feel like being alone, so I asked if Victor and Carmen wanted to go do something. Victor was busy, but Carmen was more than happy to go to the movies with me on Saturday. We had lunch and then saw a sappy chick flick, which I wasn't much of a fan of. I preferred action movies, but she wasn't interested in anything like that, and our friendship was still too new for me to chance risking it by being selfish. Maybe next time we could see what I wanted to see.

  On Sunday, I decided to do something nice for Dominick to pay him back for everything he had done for me. Since I didn't have any money, and he wasn't at home for me to cook him a special meal, I thought that giving his condo a thorough cleaning from top to bottom would do the trick. He probably wouldn't even notice, but I'd make sure he knew what I had done. Hopefully, he'd appreciate it.

  I started the day early, putting on some clothes I didn't mind if they got filthy and tying back my long curly brown hair. It was wild as usual, but it didn't really matter today. Not like anyone was going to see me.

  I spent the day scrubbing the floors and counters and toilets until everything was sparkling clean. Then I washed all the windows that I could reach and vacuumed. When I was finished, I was absolutely exhausted.

  I took a shower and settled down to watch television, though there wasn't anything good on. Being alone was boring, and I found myself getting curious. This was the first time I had ever really been alone in Dominick's condo. Sure, he went to the gym from time to time, but I never knew when he would return, and I didn't want to get caught in his business. This time was different though. He was going to be gone until Tuesday, so I could snoop around without the fear of being caught.