Page 107 of Whiskey Throttle
“You two do whatever the hell you want,” he suddenly says, as an afterthought. “Just don’t flaunt it like that fucking bastard does with his prostitutes, and I don’t want to see it. I don’t like the idea of you two together, but Marlowe said I shouldn’t judge. It’s hard not to. It’s weird. Fucking grosses me out, but whatever.”
He stares each of us for a few seconds, shakes his head, and walks out of the room. Sucking the air out along with him. I blink, staring after him and trying to absorb everything that has just occurred.
“That was . . .” Hollister mutters, moving closer to me.
I don’t look at him. Don’t even know what to say to him after all the emotional revelations spewed forth. Leaving us standing in the wreckage after the storm, bewildered as to how to begin picking up the pieces.
“Dominic,” I finish, breathing in his cologne that makes me a bit relieved.
“I meant you.”
His voice drops lower, rougher, almost reverent.
“I don’t even have the words for what that was, Barbara.”
I finally lift my eyes to his, having nothing left in me to hide behind false pretenses. He witnessed everything firsthand. Looks completely wrecked and tender in a way I didn’t expect. No humor left. No smirk to defuse the tension. Just him. Stripped down and serious.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”
He steps closer, slow and careful, like I might shatter under the weight of one more word.
“You didn’t flinch. You sat there and took every blow he threw, and you didn’t run. You didn’t deflect. You didn’t make it about you. You just stayed.”
I try to speak, but I can’t. My throat burns from the hurt in my chest. Tears well again.
“You’ve been carrying all that. All of it. Alone.”
His brow creases, jaw ticking as he searches my face. I press my lips together, trying not to fall apart completely. Not to collapse on the chair and bawl like a baby.
“Damn, Babs.”
He shakes his head, eyes glassy. As if he’s about to start crying too.
“Dom has plenty of people who love him. He might not see it that way, but he does. But who do you have?”
Something inside me breaks. A dam thrown open for all the years I had to go it alone, single and in my marriage. Relying on others, I pay to be there for me, therapists, doctors, my staff, hell, even my daughter’s allowance.
If I didn’t pay people to be in my universe, would they still be here? Who, aside from my friends, cares about me? And even they don’t know the tsunami of pain and sorrow between my son and me. His question is so dangerous, leading me down untraveled roads I’ve never wanted to traverse.
“And I don’t mean in bed,” he says gently, treading lightly as if he’s afraid to press me. “I mean, with situations like this? When you’re carrying everything yourself, and it gets too heavy. When you’re scared, worried, or lonely?”
His voice breaks a little.
A plea.
“Who’s holding you, Barbara?”
“No one,” I whisper, through a watery gaze that I can’t blink away. They are swelling and falling so fast. His knuckle slides across my cheek to wipe them away. I lean into it, needing whatever sliver of comfort he’s providing.
“I want to. If you’ll let me.”
He doesn’t reach for my hand or my waist. He just stands there, offering himself. No conditions. No demands. Not even asking me to say yes. Just waiting for me.
My whole body trembles. But for the first time in a long time, I don’t have to go through this alone.
“What about Dominic?”
He reaches for me, wrapping me so tightly into his body, and I sigh. My arms tuck into the space between our bodies. My cheek against his chest, wetting the material.
