Page 24 of Graves

“What did I do to deserve this?” I practically moan.

“You worked hard today, baby. Has no one ever rubbed your feet?”

“Never.” I laugh immediately, causing him to apply more pressure to a spot that apparently is extremely sore. I moan and groan in pleasure as Dominic chuckles to himself but silently keeps working at me.

I’m practically a pliable mess in bed when I speak before thinking about it. “I don’t know anything about you,” I blurt.

His movements stall for a moment before he speaks. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything, everything,” I say as my eyes collide with his.

They look so shielded, so guarded. I wonder if mine looks the same as his. I’m asking for him to let it all down for me, but I’m sitting here unwilling to do the same. So, I lean my head against the mattress, closing my eyes as I let out a slow breath.

“My parents died when I was six,” I say.

Dominic is still for three more seconds before he begins massaging my feet once more, as if he were trying to coax the words out of me.

“My father got drunk one night, not out of the norm by any means, and confronted my mother. I guess she had been having an affair. I was upstairs while they were down in the kitchen. I didn’t hear everything. All I heard was screaming, such loud screaming. I heard hitting like punches, and then I heard a gunshot.”

I swallow as the pop from the gun, followed by the ringing, still plays in my head.

“I got up from my room and went downstairs to see what was happening when I heard a thunk. When I crested the corner downstairs, I heard another gunshot, followed by another thunk. This time I knew what it was. My father’s body fell to the floor in front of me, his eyes wide and…blood. So much blood,” I choke out, doing my best to remain composed.

I feel my throat tighten and tears beg to be let free, but I won’t allow them. Instead, I breathe through it, risking a glance at Dominic. He’s watching me with a steady gaze. It isn’t necessarily pity in his expression, but it’s definitely empathetic. It’s a look that makes me feel seen, yet not victimized.

“I was young, you know. I didn’t fully understand what hadhappened, and there was just so much blood. I wanted to help, and so I tried scooping it up and pushing it back into their bodies. It didn’t work, obviously, and when the police found me, I was sitting there just…soaked in their blood. Apparently I didn’t talk for a few weeks after that. I don’t really remember much after that night until I was adopted on my seventh birthday.”

“Were they good to you? Your adoptive parents?” Dominic asks.

I smile sadly as I remember Mr. and Mrs. Harrison.

“They were until they passed away. Car accident.”

Wow. Way to trauma dump, Blake. I would have been happy learning his favorite color or if he had any childhood animals. I didn’t need to unload one of the darkest moments of my life like that. Oh well, at least I kept the darker memories to myself, the ones I never allow the light of day to see, the ones I never will.

We’re silent for several moments before he speaks.

“My parents died when I was nine. Drug bust gone wrong. They were junkies, but they tried. My mom always sang to me before bed. Fleetwood Mac because it was the only songs her fried brain could remember,” he says with a tone akin to fondness. “She swore she sounded just like Stevie Nicks, and I humored her because if she was singing to me, she wasn’t fighting with my dad or doing worse in the living room.”

I’m stunned into silence. I expected him to be sympathetic. Apologize because no one ever knows what to say in these situations and move on or get the hell out. I definitely didn’t expect him to open up. I’m afraid to even breathe in risk ofspooking him, so instead, I sit quietly and listen.

“Whenever they needed their fix, they would drop me off at the neighbor’s apartment and head down the road. One night, they didn’t come back to pick me up, and the cops knocked on the neighbor’s door.” He ends it with a casual shrug and an impassive face.

I frown at that. “You didn’t have family? Anyone to take you in?”

“I had an uncle. He died,” he says flatly.

“And then you went into the system,” I guess.

He nods. “I was adopted shortly after their funeral and stayed at that house until I was eighteen.”

“You were one of the lucky ones,” I say wistfully, but my small smile dies when I see the look on his face. He doesn’t agree or disagree, but something in me tells me there is way more to the story. But I’ve pushed him enough for one night, and I climb into his lap, wrapping my arms around him.

I feel him hesitate, as if he were still trapped in those memories, but reluctantly, he wraps his arms around me, squeezing me tight as if I could vanish out of thin air at any moment.

Chapter Twelve

DOMINIC

---