Page 19 of Sweet Shots

When I round the corner into the area behind the living room, I’m shocked at what I see. Hanging on the center wall behind the stairs are frames. One is filled with coins, one with stamps, and one with sports cards. I step closer to get a better look, and off the top of my head I have no idea what these thingsare or what they mean, but considering they’re hung on a wall and being shown off, I can assume they’re worth something.

So, he’s a collector. Not much I can do with that. Not unless I find shrunken heads or used underwear. I move across the room and browse a bookshelf. Again, don’t know much about these things, but they look like—

“First editions.”

I turn to face Dominic, who is walking toward me. His swagger is… annoyingly distracting. The fact he’s in sweatpants only makes it worse.

“All of them,” he adds. “Cool, huh?”

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Sure?” he gapes. “Some of these books are extremely rare.”

“That’s… nice.”

He huffs, reaching in and pulling out a book. “This is a first edition signed copy of Charlotte’s Web.”

“That’s the one about the spider, right?” I ask.

He slow-blinks. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I’m not much of a reader.”

“They made a movie.”

“Don’t like those either.”

I will not admit that the reason I don’t know much about it is because, growing up, we didn’t have a TV or electricity half the time. I had a library card for a short time, but one of the books went missing and I owed the library money that I couldn’t pay off, so I wasn’t able to get more books after that.

Truthfully, I did enjoy reading, and maybe I’d even enjoy it now too, but it’s one of those things that brings me back to my childhood and causes me anxiety. Instead of trying to work through it, I push it down with the rest of my trauma.

He slips the book back onto the shelf. “Okay, well, food’s almost done. Do you want coffee?”

“No, thanks,” I say, following him into the kitchen. I stand back and watch as he puts together our omelets. He has everything set up in little dishes and works so flawlessly as he cooks. How does he do that?

“So, you buy a lot of things?” I ask, not sure why I’m making conversation. I don’t like him.

He smirks. “I like to collect things, yeah.”

“Isn’t that pointless?”

“Isn’t having a cat pointless?” he asks.

I don’t bother answering, because yeah, kind of. Especially mine because he’s an asshole.

“Do you have any tea?” I ask.

“Oh, so you’re one of those. Should have known.” He points to a cabinet by the sink.

“I’m going to ignore that comment.” I rummage through the cabinet that is in complete disarray and find a crumpled box of green tea in the back. I pull it out. It’ll have to do.

“Might be expired,” he says.

I pull a bag from the box, noting it looks fine. “I’m sure I’ll live.”

“Hope so. I need youto get 100k.”

“Looks like you have that in books alone,” I comment, going to his coffee machine and helping myself. There’s an option for single serve, and it allows me to do just hot water.

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