DOMINIC TOOK HIS SWEET TIME LEAVING MY ROOM. He’d barely pulled up his pants by the time Marta showed up. I tried to shove him in the bathroom, but he opened the door for her like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
“Morning, Mar.”
He backed away to let her inside. She had a slight sneer on her face, but when she looked at me, she smiled.
“Good morning to Claire and Claire only.” She gave him an appraising once-over. “At least I didn’t have to see your ass.”
He hooked his arm around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “You would have enjoyed it if you had.”
She elbowed him off her. “Mmmhmmm. That’s why I’ve been working for you all these years. Just biding my time until I could catch a peek.”
Dominic actually laughed. It wasn’t loud, and it didn’t last, but it was a true laugh he didn’t cover. My stomach flipped at the sight of the crinkles around his eyes and the flash of his white teeth. Not because he was gorgeous—he was—but because I often thought Dominic carried sorrow with him like a flak jacket, and for just a few seconds, he’d let down his guard, allowing a bit of happiness to seep in.
“Are we cool, Mar?” He shrugged on his shirt, eyebrow raised as he buttoned it.
She waved him off. “I thought my girl had better taste, but yeah, we’re cool. Now, go away so C and I can have breakfast. We see enough of you at work.”
“No breakfast for me?”
She narrowed her eyes on him. “Being delivered to your room momentarily, as always. Go before it gets cold.”
He shoved his shoes on and gave me the barest of smiles. “All right. I’ll head out. We’re gonna have to rethink the breakfast situation, though. I’m not going to be kicked out of bed for the rest of this tour so you can hang out with Claire.” He took my hand and clamped his teeth on the meaty part of my palm by my thumb. “You drive me crazy,” he murmured.
“I’m innocent,” I whispered back through the flutters his teeth on my flesh never failed to induce.
“I know. Which is exactly why I’m going out of my mind.” He laid one hard kiss on the inside of my wrist, then headed for the door, tossing a wave over his shoulder.
Once he was gone, I dug into the bag Marta brought with her while she made coffee. After doctoring up a bagel, I settled against the headboard of my bed.
Marta handed me a paper cup full of steaming coffee. It probably tasted like piss, but I’d take it. She sat cross-legged on my padded desk chair, swiveling in my direction. I swallowed down the bite of bagel in my mouth.
“Are you thoroughly disappointed in me?” I asked.
She grinned, shaking her head. “No. Dominic did what Dominic always does.” She sipped her coffee with a grimace. “But what the hell did he mean by the rest of the tour? This isn’t a hit-it-and-quit-it situation?”
“Well, we’ve been messing around for a couple weeks and—”
She sat up straight, slamming her empty hand down on the arm of her chair. “A couple weeks? Where the hell have I been?”
“I guess we’ve been discreet. I certainly didn’t want anyone to know. It’s just sex, so it’s not like we’re going to be walking around holding hands to announce we’re a thing.”
Her head tilted. “But are you a thing?”
“We’re a thing for the rest of the tour, then we’ll both walk away. Believe me, when Dominic brought it up last night, I was skeptical. And I still am. But we’ll see how it goes.”
Marta knocked on her forehead like she was trying to physically push my words inside. “This does not compute with the man I know. Besides Izzy, he doesn’t have regular lays. I mean…” she made an hourglass shape with her hands, “I get it. You’re fine as hell and undemanding and probably not looking to be tied down since you’re going through a divorce…”
“First, thank you for the compliment. It means so much. Second, Dominic and Isabela still hook up?”
Marta winced. “Yeah. I don’t know when the last time was, but she’s always slithering around. The woman cheated on him and left him in the middle of a tour. She’s a ridiculous creature. I can’t stand that he keeps allowing her back into his life in any capacity.”
It was my turn to rub my head. “That’s a lot of brand-new information.”
I’d known Isabela and Dominic had been married several years ago, but I had no idea they were still something to each other. That made this whole thing…uncomfortable. More untoward. I certainly didn’t want to get in between their entanglement. I would never be that girl—the man poacher, the toe stepper.
The smile Marta gave me was apologetic. “Sorry, I normally don’t run my mouth, but I’m so thrown off by everything.”
“Thanks for being cool about this. I was really worried last night.”
She shook her head. “Nah, girl. Sometimes it takes me a while to process surprises, but I’m not mad at you for getting while the getting’s good. Honestly, Dominic’s probably the ideal post-divorce hookup. He locked away his heart a long time ago. It’s probably all withered and dry like a raisin at this point. You know he won’t catch feels and it can just be an uncomplicated fling. Any other man, I’d be worried, because you’re immensely loveable.” The wink she gave me softened the truth of who Dominic was.
“You really do know all the right things to say.” I crossed the space between us, bending down to give her a tight hug. In the short time I’d known her, I’d formed a kinship with her I didn’t see ending after the tour. “Now, you have to tell me about your night. I need all the tea to be spilled.”
I sat down in front of her on the edge of my bed. She set her coffee on the desk and wiped her palms on her jeans.
“So…we went out to dinner. Rodrigo, Iris, and me. Some Mexican joint, good chips, terrible everything else. Anyway, they had a live band, so obviously we danced. Roddy went to the bathroom at some point, and Iris took the opportunity to kiss me.”
I squealed and kicked my feet. “Oh my god! How was it?”
She flattened her hand and wobbled it back and forth. “We were both two margaritas deep, so it was a little sloppy. There weren’t the fireworks I was hoping for, but she has nice lips.”
“Okay, I can work with that. So, she’s gay?”
Marta bit the corner of her lip. “Not confirmed.”
That made me laugh. “I guess sloppy margarita kisses aren’t confirmation. Are you going to pursue or just see what happens?”
“I don’t even know. I’ve had a crush on her forever. Now that it might actually happen, I can’t decide if I’m more into the idea of her or her. I mean, she’s like this hardcore goddess. Do I really want to be another one of her worshippers?”
“Sounds like cold feet, lady.”
Her eyes rolled, but she grinned. “I know. I’m never like this with women, but Iris…”
“She’s something else,” I finished.
“She is. Anyway, she didn’t pursue me after the kiss, so it might have just been the margs talking.”
I groaned. “Is this seriously what dating’s going to be like? Do people not just talk to each other?”
Marta chuckled. “Oh, girl. I don’t know what straight dating’s like, but shit ain’t easy out there. You’d think cutting men out of the equation would make things easier, but it doesn’t. Women still play games, cheat, fall in and out of love in a blink. I’m not saying I’m innocent either.”
“God, I thought I’d really lucked out. Derrick and I were just together, you know? Pretty much from the start, we were a couple. We said we liked each other, and that was it. Granted, we were nineteen…” I knotted my T-shirt around my fingers. “I can’t believe I’m here. Being single again, starting from scratch…it’s just the last place I ever imagined myself.”
I could have kicked myself for the tears welling in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
“Baby,” Marta soothed. “You’re so upbeat, I keep forgetting you’re going through it right now.” She sat beside me on the bed, circling her arm around my shoulders. “Can I ask what ended your marriage or is that off-limits?”
Releasing a heavy breath, I let my head fall on her shoulder for a moment, then I gathered myself and twisted to face her. “I figured out he’d been cheating on me. He admitted it had been going on for over a year, then begged me to stay. The second I knew he’d cheated, my mind was made up. I was leaving, no matter how hard he tried to fight me.”
Marta looked ready to throw down, and she didn’t even know the half of it. “Fuck him. I already know this guy is a total fucking waste of space. I’m glad you’re done with him, C.”
“Me too. He got rough with me when I told him I was leaving, and I’d like to say I saw the monster he was then, but when I think back, he’d always been a monster. He hid it most of the time, and he’d never physically hurt me before, but he’s awful. Controlling and angry. I didn’t work because he wanted me home. He presented it as loving me so much, he wanted me to always be there when he came home in the evenings, but looking back, it’s so easy to see it for what it was.”
I hadn’t intended on telling Marta any of this, but once I started, it was like an avalanche, each secret picked up another, then another, tumbling out until I was wiped clean. For her part, Marta listened intently, holding my hand in hers.
“Did that asshole go to jail?” she asked, her tone much milder than her words.
“No. I didn’t report him. I just wanted to be done with him.” I waved thoughts of Derrick away. “I’ve figured out I settled with him. I thought he was as good as I could get, so I settled. Next time, if there is a next time, I won’t. I’ll wait for the man who sees me as his equal.”
Marta tipped her chin, giving me a pointed look. “And one who worships you like a fucking warrior queen, Claire.”
“Right.” I grinned at her. “A warrior queen. I’ll remember that.”
She hugged me tight, gently stroking the back of my hair. “I’m so sorry he hurt you, baby. My deadbeat dad used to beat on my mom, and since he was a U.S. citizen and she wasn’t, she felt like she couldn’t leave. She waited until she was a permanent resident, then got my brother and me out of there.” Marta pulled back, patting my cheeks twice. “Being hurt by the man who’s supposed to love you doesn’t mean you’re not a strong woman. It means the man is weak.”
Nodding, I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I’d have to remember that too. Derrick’s abuse would never mean I was a weak woman. He was the weak one. My only fault was not seeing it sooner.
“Thank you, M. I’m really glad I met you.”
“Me too, C.” She took me by the shoulders, giving me a shake. “Now, I’m going to be rooting for you to get all the no-strings dick you can on this tour. Obviously, I’ll train my brain to forget it’s Dominic’s dick you’ll be getting, but…”
Laughing hard, I fell back on the bed. “By the way, he told me about the condom that forged the start of your friendship.”
Marta flopped down beside me. “Wow, Dominic actually told you something personal? And he wants you all to himself for the rest of the tour? That’s practically a marriage proposal.”
“Oh, no, don’t say that. I’ll have to end it right now.”
“No, don’t do that. I take it back”
It worried me, just a little, that the idea of ending this crazy, outlandish thing with Dominic early filled me with bubbles of panic. I pushed it away. It didn’t matter when it ended. We both knew it would, and that was the important thing to hang on to.
