Page 68 of Carver
“Technically, since we’re in this property deal together, it didn’t hurt that I was here.”
“Yes,” I snort. “Technically.” I glance up at the ceiling, where right above me, Kael has her studio. “Are you heading up to see Kael?”
“I thought I’d do that, since I’m here already.” You have to know Dravin to understand his dry, sarcastic wit. It’s another way we’re so similar.
“Just remember that the walls aren’t paper thin, but they’re thin enough. If I hear any Daddy Dravin’s getting screamed out, I’m going to rent that dozer I was talking about for my house andbring it here and wreck this space, just so I won’t ever have to encounter that again.”
“That’s slightly extreme.”
“Is it?”
He laughs. “I’ll leave you to your work. The way you grabbed up that sketchpad tells me that you’ve had some inspiration for that stone over there.”
“They speak to me. Sometimes, I just have to touch them to find what they want to become. Other times, I just have to look, and they pop into my brain as fully formed ideas. This one was a bit of a struggle, but I think I’ve got it now.”
Dravin heads for the side door. “Mind if I go up this way?” There’s a set of stairs to Kael’s studio, but she has a door at the top that she can keep locked or unlocked, just like mine.
“I don’t mind. And I won’t actually bulldoze the space. I’ll just never stop calling you Daddy Dravin at the worst of times. Only between us though. As a special sort of punishment. Will someone accidentally overhear me one day? Won’t they? It will be a special brand of suspenseful hell…”
This time, he gets going with the full belly laugh that causes him to double over at the waist. “If you had noise cancelling headphones, this wouldn’t be an issue.”
“I have a record player.”
“Very good.” He slaps his thigh and disappears through the door and up the stairs. His boots bang on the treads as he goes up.
The first thing I do is slap my sketchbook down on my workbench and head straight for the record player. I put on some music and get it cranked loud, deciding that somepunk will drown out any noise. The snarly, slightly angry and strangely upbeat notes bounce off all the concrete and stone. The place has good acoustics. I’ve never been more thankful for Bronte’s gift of this player and all these records than I am now.
Chapter 19
Bronte
Ihave to tell him.
It’s too late to undo what I’ve done. The land has already been sold. The papers were signed last week, the money deposited into Dom’s account a few days after that, his share of the business with Dravin and Kael paid for.
It’s not that Dom regrets it. He doesn’t. He was never pressured to sell. He didn’t do it because he had to. He did it because he thought it was right.
I did what I did for the same reasons. It was the right thing to do, or at least I felt it was, but the guilt of having to lie to Dom again has turned into anxiety and it’s grown so bad that it’s hard to eat and nearly impossible to sleep.
I’m struggling with this the same way I struggled with telling him about Ellie. I’m never going to be sure if I made the right call about not letting him be a part of the pregnancy until after, when all I had to offer were memories and videos.
I talked to my parents this morning and let them know that I was going to tell Dom about his land. They’ve been supportive of everything I’ve done. They assured me that they’d done it just for me and for Dom, and if I needed to tell him, then that was the right thing to do.
I’ve waited all day, until I can’t wait any longer.
We’re going to Raiden and Ella’s house for dinner. Tyrant, Lark, and their daughter, Penny, are all going to be there. Themeeting is about prospecting, but it was kind of them to include the whole family in their invitation.
Dinner is at six, and we’ll probably be there for a while, so I made sure that I put Elowen down for a nap. We’re leaving in an hour. In thirty minutes, I’ll wake her up and get her ready. I’ve already curled my hair into waves and done some sun-kissed inspired makeup. I wish the sun would come out. For the past week, it’s pretty much been a lot of rainy gloom. I dressed summery too, in a soft pink floral dress, but I paired it with a fluffy pink cardigan for warmth.
I’m down in the kitchen, quietly assembling Ellie’s bag of snacks, extra diapers, and a change of clothes to take with us. We were told we didn’t have to bring anything, but there was no way that I could show up empty handed. I made my family’s favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
Dominic is super quiet creeping down the stairs after getting changed in our room. My heart is already beating fast, but now it picks up, racing so fast that I need to shed the cardigan on the back of a kitchen chair, so I don’t sweat through it.
He went to Tarynn’s salon yesterday for a haircut. It’s shorter than it’s been in a long time. She told him she could give him something preppy, or one of the ever-popular styles that recent period TV shows have made famous, but barbers have perfected for a century.
He picked the fade. Dom always looks dazzling. Hands down, he’s always going to be the most attractive man in any room to me. He takes my breath away, even in a black t-shirt and jeans.
When Dom asked me last week what I thought about him prospecting, and what my family would think, I could honestly tell him that I could honestly say that I’d never met such a rare group of beautiful, selfless, wonderful people in my life, and I’d be proud for us to be a part of that.
