Page 17 of Carver
“We didn’t play board games because my dad was a drunk.” Dom drops that flat out and straight up. My hand turns into a claw under the table, fingers biting into his thigh muscles. “He was either blitzed or passed out. He liked to ruin things, not build them up.”
I gape at him, giving him a whole lot ofwhat are we doing here? Truth telling? Therapy? Are you trying to piss this lovely woman off or do you feel safe enough to talk about your past here?
He gives me nothing in response. Just the flat voice and the expressionless façade he’s perfected.
Kael clears her throat. Her fist bangs down on the table, startling me. “I’m glad he’s dead. First degree murder wouldn’t suit me.” She shakes her hand out while I try to process that. “The club could probably make it look like an accident, but they don’t truck with that kind of shit. I’m not even sure I could pull it off. You’d hate me too, so there’s that.”
I can freaking feel how big my eyes are. I try to close them, but I seem to be having an eyelid problem. A hearing problem too. Because did Dom really just say what he said and did Kael just respond the way she did?
I’ve been tempted to say exactly that a thousand times, but I’ve also pushed reason up against my feelings and wild thoughts. Dom’s father might have been a piece of work, but I didn’t understand anything about his past or know why he was the way he was. Why did he choose alcohol over his own son? What drove him to try to find oblivion day after day? What was it about his life that had hurt him so badly? Where was Dominic’s mother? I asked him those questions a few times, when I was particularly brave, after days that I knew were hell for him, but he had no answers.
Not because he didn’t want to tell me, but because he just didn’t know.
My parents taught me to be kind, but some days, I wished that Dom’s dad and uncles were just… gone. I didn’t truly meandead. It just felt so fundamentally wrong to wish another person out of existence. More than anything, I wanted the damage done to Dom in every way to stop. I tried to take him out of it, offering to let him come live with us since he was sixteen, but he wouldn’t leave.
“I wouldn’t hate you,” Dom mumbles, but he’s looking at me, like he’s tracking my thoughts exactly.
My mind blanks. I don’t know how to respond to that. Luckily, Kael does. “If we’re telling truths, my brother was in a biker club down in LA. He wasn’t in it, actually. He was leading it. They crossed the wrong people, and he was murdered.”
My gasp stops Kael momentarily, but after chugging back almost the full glass of water in front of her, she continues.
“Before that, he killed people. As a soldier and as—” she stops for a moment. I can fill in the blanks.. She continues, “Dravin was a SEAL. He can’t tell me, but I know he lives with plenty of ghosts. There are lots of ex-soldiers at the club and men who have had to do things in the past.” She traces the tabletop with her finger. “The club is a good one and it’s filled with truly good men. The last thing I wanted to do was come here, but I truly believe that now.”
She’s a way better salesman than Dravin is, and she’s not nearly finished yet.
“Their women are the most remarkable people. We’re like a club ourselves, without the leather. It’s like a sisterhood. I was wrong about Hart and the club. They’re nothing like how most clubs are. Even if you don’t join or ever come back to Hart, you’re family now, Dom.” Her eyes trace over the two of us together, like we’re a package deal.
I wish we were a package deal.
What would that look like out here? Dominic would never leave his land. Hart isn’t that far from my family, but it’s still further than I’ve been since college. I can’t think about little houses with a white picket fence. That’s not something I ever dreamed of. Scratch the fence. Scratch anything and everything I might have wanted. I couldn’t have seen this coming. I couldn’t have known that Dom would meet Dravin, and all of this would filter down to us sitting here in this moment. Together.
“You’ve been family since Dravin came to buy some scrap because he saw how beautiful it could be,” Kael continues. “Everyone here has a story, and most of it is messy, gritty, raw, and painful, but we’re here to support each other and pull each other through it. We all have secrets and demons and that’s okay.”
Dravin’s always been so solitary, but the crazy thing is, I could see him fitting here. I don’t know how, but the limits of my imagination shouldn’t restrict him.
Us.
Kael stands up, pressing both her hands on the table. It’s clear that the invitation extends to me as well. Me, with my loving family and my vanilla background and the only adventures I’ve truly had happening within the pages of a book.
I want to tell her that I wouldn’t fit. I don’t have secrets. I haven’t known tragedy.
That’s not true. Not true at all.
“Board games really are fun. Dravin has this huge closet full. I found out he’s a game geek and a total nerd at heart, so I’ve been buying anything that looks good. There’s this one about trains. Itdoesn’t have much of a learning curve. I’m wicked addicted. Do you want to play?”
I have this crazy urge to laugh at the wild swing in topic. I’m scared what it would sound like if I did, so I stuff it back down and sit in silence. Dom doesn’t say anything either. I slide my hand from his thigh and tuck it back into my lap.
“Okay. Great. I’m so pumped that you’re both really into this. You need more than two people and it just doesn’t hit the same on the tablet so… I’ll go get it.”
She leaves, but she’s fast, back within a minute carrying that train game she was talking about. I didn’t even have time to look at Dom for some kind of affirmation.
What answers can he give me when he doesn’t know the truth?
He needs to know.
Tonight.
My palms start to sweat and within a minute of Kael popping open the box and starting to set up something that looks very much like it has a high learning curve and will take four hours to play through, my clothes are stuck to my body.
