When I saw Dominic again on Monday, everything was normal. Same went for Tuesday and Wednesday. He’d relieve me at the end of each day, we’d share a few anecdotes about our days—surface details only—and then I’d be on my way with a wave and a smile.
Thursday, Heather was the one to relieve me come 5:30, and that went about as well as anyone would expect. A quick flick of her wrist and a ‘You can go,’ and I was out the door.
I made it all the way until Friday before my week of normal turned anything but.
And it started with a broken door lock.
The thing had been on its last legs for weeks, and this morning it finally bit the bullet.
I called up the lock repair service on my drive to work after I dropped Charlotte off at Mrs. Sharon’s and crossed all my extremities that they’d lowered their prices.
Mrs. Sharon was at the tail end of six months in her pregnancy, and I knew I’d have to find a replacement sitter soon. She told me she’d go until she had the baby, but realistically, I knew that probably wasn’t true.
Thankfully, with a bit of extra cash coming in, I could afford a few months of paid babysitting.
That was, if shit around this house would stop breaking.
“200 bucks for a lock repair? Are you serious?”
“Yes ma’am. That’s standard for this kind of service.”
This guy. This fucking customer service guy on the other end of the phone sounded so smug, and I’d bet anything he was a prick in real life. My fingers squeezed around my steering wheel, and I imagined it was his puny little neck.
“It’s replacing a lock, not brain surgery. How can it be so expensive?”
A staticky pause hung over the line. Then he went on like he didn’t even hear me.
“Would you like to book for today? We can come out to your residence around Noon.”
Even if I could get Kathy to wake up long enough to let the repair guy in, she didn’t have the money to pay him. All of our money was my money, and I wasn’t naïve enough to hand her a dime of it. It would be shoved in her arm or between her toes just like the money my grandparents left behind until that was all dried up.
I didn’t know how or where she got the money for her habit now, and down to my blackened soul, I did not wanna know.
“I can’t make it work today or for that price.”
“That’s the only price we have to offer, ma’am.”
Frustration rumbled in my throat as I pulled into the Reed’s expansive driveway, setting my car in park. I sounded untamed—animalistic—and I felt that way too. Jittering and ticking and furious at the world.
“You know what? I have tomorrow off. I’ll fix it my own damn self.”
“Sounds grand. Best of luck.”
And the line cut dead.
I yanked my phone away from my ear, staring down at the screen. “Motherfucker.”
Guess I’m fixing a lock tomorrow.
Closing my eyes, I breathed deep and fisted the steering wheel, pressing all of my early-morning rage into it. Bits of dried up rubber flaked off in my palms, and I rolled my eyes at it before dusting both hands together over the passenger seat carpet.
What a shitty start to the day.
Things could only go up from here, right?
Wrong.
Someone should have hit me over the head as soon as I thought the cliche phrase. Even thinking it practically ensured I just jinxed myself.
As I entered the Reed residence that day, that theory was proven right.
The door was open like usual—because this was that type of swanky neighborhood where you could do that—but I always flipped the lock once I was in for the day. My ears perked as soon as I stepped foot in the entryway, angry voices echoing down the stairs.
“She shouldn’t have been in there in the first place!”
“She’s a kid, Heather. Kids are messy by nature.”
Okay, so both wife and husband were home this morning. Joy.
A short, fiery scream came from Heather. “That’s so typical of you, Dominic. Take everyone’s side but mine every time.”
“She’s my daughter,” he bellowed back.
“And I am your wife. I am so sick and fucking tired of you never having my back. Not once!”
“Not when you’re screaming at Maya and calling her an idiot over spilt milk. You’re losing your goddamn mind over literal spilt milk, Heather.”
“All over my work documents!”
“So reprint them,” Dominic spoke pointedly.
An awkward shiver walked up my spine as I shut the front door behind me. I didn’t want to listen to this. This fight was absolutely none of my business. I just needed to keep my head down, my mouth shut, and find Maya.
Tiptoeing to the living room first, I peered around every corner, searching out the head of brown ringlet curls. Maya was usually downstairs in the kitchen with either Dominic or Heather, but I didn’t see her anywhere.
I walked in careful steps up the stairs, worry beginning to pulsate in my chest for where she was and exactly how much of this fight she was hearing. If she was in her bedroom, she was hearing all of it. Every single resentful word her parents threw at each other.
My heart thumped harder at the thought.
The further I made it up the stairs, the louder and clearer the booming voices became, and the sharper the ache in my chest felt. By the time I made it to Maya’s bedroom, both the ache and voices were screaming.
“You’re way too easy on her!” Heather peaked in her rage. “You have to punish her when she screws up like this. Not coddle her!”
“She spilled her morning milk, for god’s sake. That’s it.”
“All over my work documents! The work that pays for our life, for this house—”
“Christ. Don’t bring up the house again.”
Maya’s bedroom door was shut, and it was hard to hear over the sound of her parents biting each other’s heads off, but as I pressed my ear against the wood, the noise on the inside and the crack in my heart were undeniable.
Sorrow dropped my breath into my stomach as I twisted her door open and pushed my way in. My heart wailed as the once muffled cries popped with clarity, soft sobs drenching the room.
Watery eyes leapt up as I entered, big teardrops welling and falling over even faster as Maya saw me. “Ms. Kat, I—” She hiccuped. “I didn’t mean to.”
Her lips trembled in guilt that was not hers to own, and my throbbing heart dropped me to my knees and gathered her up in my arms in seconds. “Oh, I know. I know. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She pushed her head into the crook of my neck, pouring sobs and tears into it. A loud cry ripped out of her chest that was so anguished, my hold around her closed tighter as if I could squeeze out the pain.
“I was just play-playing,” she cried, tiny body shaking.
“I know, kiddo. We’ve all knocked our fair share of drinks over. Trust me, I know I have.”
She sucked back a quivering breath against my neck. “R-really?”
“Oh, for sure. I’m a total klutz. Always falling over, knocking things over. You name it, I’ve probably broken it.”
I started rocking us back and forth on the floor, trying to sooth her cries and calm her breathing. After a few seconds of slowing sniffles, she whispered, “Why do they always have to fight?”
My head fell back against the wall, kicked back by the blow of sadness in her small voice.
Fury engulfed me as I held her, knowing she shouldn’t even be capable of such a degree of despair as a child. That shouldn’t be possible. That wasn’t fucking right. I pulled my face back down to hug my cheek against the top of her head, rocking her still.
“I don’t know, but I can promise you it’s not your fault. Your mom and dad are just angry with each other right now. Not you.”
Maya rubbed her hands over her eyes before tangling them in my shirt, holding herself closer. Wisps of her baby hairs tickled the tip of my nose, but I didn’t move.
Not even as there was a creak by her bedroom door, and someone came into the room with us. I felt his guilty presence sitting like a shadow in the corner of the room, watching over us.
Maya shifted in my lap as Dominic’s footsteps made the floorboards moan, lip quivering as her father came close. I didn’t take my eyes off of Maya’s face long enough to spare him any attention. Her tear-stained face broke as he knelt next to us, opening his arms wide for her to jump in.
She did, no questions asked.
“Daddy, I’m sorry!” she wailed, throwing herself into his chest. Dominic caught her and held her tight, remorse slanting his whole expression downward. “I didn’t mean to make you or Mommy mad.”
“Baby, you didn’t.” He shushed her, rubbing his hand over the back of her curls. “It was an accident and accidents happen. It’s nothing to cry over.”
Those last five words of his inflamed my temper, chest burning hot with fire I wanted to spit at him. She wasn’t crying because of the goddamn milk, and the detective should have known that.
Maybe Maya would grow up with daddy issues after all.
He continued stroking Maya’s hair lovingly. “Do you want me to read you a story?”
She sniffled, pulling back a stuttering breath. “No, I want Ms. Kat to.”
“Oh.” Dominic’s voice was light with shock that read just as vividly on his face as Maya wiggled out of his arms and came back over to me. Feeling especially protective, I pulled her in and picked her up, sitting her on my waist as I stood. She hugged her arms around my neck, and Dominic’s face fell.
“Okay.”
Maybe on a different day I would have felt bad for him, would have suggested he stay and we read her a story together. I’d have done whatever I could to erase the rejection raining in his sky gray eyes. Today, all I cared about were the raindrops streaming down puffy red cheeks, and I couldn’t find one ounce of sympathy for the man that helped put them there.
I wasn’t hiding how pissed off I was at him very well either. Or at least, that’s what the flinch in Dominic’s composure told me as soon as he locked himself in my sightline.
Questions clouded his gaze, and his confusion jacked my temper up to a hundred and one. A brutal cocktail of a sneer and an eye roll were Dominic’s exit music played by yours truly.
I did both and spun away from him, taking his still teary-eyed daughter with me in search of a cheerful story to read her to distract from the hardship of her own.
Maya fell asleep a little before her early afternoon nap time. Probably exhausted from all the crying. I didn’t cry much, but whenever I did, it was a monsoon strong enough to knock me out cold for hours.
The last time I cried that hard was about two years ago.
Mom’s first overdose.
My heart still felt heavy as I slumped down the stairs after putting Maya down. This morning brought up a slew of nasty memories I’d rather drink away than ever have to remember. Alas, it was only noon, and I was still at work.
Padding into the kitchen, I reapplied my strawberry chapstick that I’d chewed off during the heated morning and plucked the banana I’d brought with me from my purse. My eyes shut, and I munched off a bite, sighing as the sweetness rolled around my mouth.
“Ms. Sanders.”
Jesus. Did he have to say my name like that? Like he’d struck the lowest key on a piano and resonated the note to the tune of my name.
I rolled my eyes open, finding him standing in front of me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his tan slacks. He was dressed for work, the detectiving kind, and his hard stare was waiting for mine.
“What’re you still doing here?” I asked, snapping off another bite of banana.
Dominic moved his eyes to his wingtip shoes. “I worked the night patrol shift yesterday. Got in at 6am. I’m headed back out soon. I just wanted to see how Maya was.”
“She’s sleeping, so she’s fine.”
He gave a slow nod, peeking up at me beneath thick brows. “She go down easy?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s good.”
All I gave him was a short hum in response. A hum to say, ‘It is. Now leave me the fuck alone so I don’t snap at you’. I wasn’t used to holding my tongue when I had an opinion. Martie never had the balls to punish me for anything I did or said until the day he fired me. My parents breezed by the whole discipline lesson when I was growing up, and it showed fantastically.
My tongue was wild and my teeth were sharp, and if I had an opinion, I wanted you to know it. Though, this job was different. It had to be different if I wanted to keep it long enough to pay for the babysitting Charlotte was going to need soon.
I had to be good and bite my tongue instead of bite his head clean off.
Unfortunately for me, Dominic Reed made it so damn hard to be good.
“Are you mad at me?” he asked suddenly.
I nearly choked on my banana. My eyes bugged just a bit as I swallowed it down, smoothing my palm over my chest. Throat cleared, I lied. “No.”
Not even three seconds passed before—
“You’re lying.”
An inaudible sigh pushed past my nose as I rolled the peel of my banana between my fist. How did he always know?
I stalked away from him, tossing the peel in the trash. “So I’m lying. What does it matter?”
Heavy footsteps tracked my path behind me, pushing my steps faster and my anger hotter. My feet carried me all the way around their kitchen, rounding the corner that led back into their living room. I was literally avoiding him, running away in an attempt to save myself from exploding, and it was like he was tailing me with a lit match, wanting to watch it happen.
“Ms. Sanders—” Dominic cut me off, swooping up from behind me and planting himself firmly in front of me. “I’d like to know why you’re mad.”
Not-so-simmering rage jazzed my body into a barely contained frenzy as I pulled my lips to the side and scoffed a humorless laugh.
“Boy, you must really love fighting.”
“No, I like communicating,” he replied explicitly.
I barked a real, disgusting laugh this time. “Loudly. Really, really loudly.”
Dominic crossed his arms over his wide chest, staring me down over the straight bridge of his nose. “So this is about the fight.”
“Of course it’s about the fight.”
The middle of his forehead turned to a frown, matching the one pulling at his mouth. He sent his gaze back to the stairs where his daughter slept and where I’d heard his wife’s clacking heels not too long ago. “I didn’t think Maya would hear it.”
“Yeah, well she did.”
Thundering eyes flashed with warning. “Clearly we weren’t thinking about how loud we were.”
The beast inside slammed forward, cracking my defense wall and allowing a line of poison to ooze out. “No, clearly you weren’t thinking about your daughter in the other room.”
“Ms. Sanders.” My name was a punishment in strict syllables. “That’s too far.”
I stopped to exhale and save myself from saying anything else stupid. Deep breaths. Deep. Fucking. Breaths. Snapping my eyes back to him, I said, “You’re the one who wanted to know why I was pissed at you.”
“Yes, but—”
“And I won’t fight about it in here.” I pinned him with a hard stare. “If you want to continue this conversation, we go outside.”
The backs of his jawline clicked as he loomed over me, stiff lines angling his features extra sharp. I stood my ground below him despite how menacing he looked, puffing my chest out to match his as much as possible. Our gazes battled, thunder vs. lightning; a storm worth sheltering from.
Though, it was Dominic who let out a buckling exhale seconds in. Glimpsing over my head, he sent a stiff nod towards the back of his house. “Come on.”
Dominic moved first, placing a heated hand on the small of my back to guide me. My brain registered the gesture and how nonchalant it was, and that was all I allowed it to acknowledge. Not how heavy a presence it was on my body, or how I had to literally fight off the urge to lean into it.
He led us to the back patio I’d only been to once when Maya was giving me a tour of her house. It sat against a sizable, and mostly empty backyard save for a lonely tree and a tool shed. The patio wasn’t exactly an area designed for kids with its sharp, iron-made table and chairs, woodfire pizza oven, and the cobblestone-faced bar area loaded up with breakable—and probably expensive—glassware.
It was a place built for parties and wine nights and fancy get-togethers, but every surface was caked in layers of dust. The only place that looked like it got any use at all was the bar, and I imagined a lot of lonely drinks being had out here by the man in front of me.
He crossed those masculine arms over themselves and got right down to it.
“Okay, we’re outside.”
During the walk back here, my temper had actually slipped into hibernation. I’d been distracted by his strong hand on my back and judging the patio that rarely saw any action.
His demand—his two word demand—brought it creeping back.
I narrowed my stare on him, and everything about Dominic tightened and hunched together from his face to his posture, as if to protect himself from whatever I would say next. As if his ropes of muscles and hardened expression were armor from my lacerating words.
I folded my arms to match his, filtering through my brain for the appropriate set of words.
“How often do you and Heather fight like that?” I asked evenly.
The strength in his stare lost its standing and dropped, like I’d cut him down to half his size with one question. With his arms crossed and his sleeves rolled to his elbows, I could see every perfect indent of his veins standing out beneath his forearms as he flexed his own temper.
He lowered his voice just as he lowered his gaze.
“Often.”
Slowly, I nodded, taking a single step towards him. “And how many times has Maya been in the house during those fights?”
At that, his jaw set to the side like it always did when he was anything less than laughing. He ground his teeth together in a bone-tingling way and carved holes in the porch patio with his eyes of the same color.
“And where do you expect me and my wife to fight if not in our own home?”
My eyebrows shifted up in challenge, and I took another step closer to him. Another point to drill home. “Did your parents ever fight in front of you?”
Dominic’s chest inflated with a sharp sigh. “Not that I heard.”
“And I assume you lived in the same house as them?”
The rolling storm in his eyes grew darker. “I understand your point.”
“Do you though? Do you understand what it’s like to sit in your bedroom and listen to your parents scream and scream for hours, thinking it’s because of you?” Dominic went to speak and I cut him off with malice. “Because I do, and you can see what a peach I turned out to be.”
Swarthy eyebrows dove together, and his mouth pinched in disapproval as I took a swing at myself. Sarcastic self-deprivation was what all the cool kids were doing nowadays, right?
He didn’t correct me or comment. Just stayed stiff as stone, slow-realization chipping dents in his exterior. I knew I had a hammer in my words too, in my less-than-ideal childhood that would help knock some brutal reality into him.
“Do you want me to tell you what Maya’s feeling every time she hears her parents fight?”
Nothing in Dominic’s face seemed like he wanted to know, but out of regret or responsibility, he solemnly nodded.
I steadied myself and my voice, eyes fixed on him. “Guilt. Like if she were a better daughter, you two wouldn’t be fighting.”
There went the first split in his composure. Agony cracked a clear line down his handsome face. Dominic watched me, eyes bright as my anger morphed into something fragile. Something I’d rather have stayed forgotten.
“She’s thinking that maybe if she hadn’t spilled that drink or played too loudly or cleaned up her toys like she was asked that Dad wouldn’t be so mad and maybe Mom would stop crying.”
Heather clearly wasn’t crying, but both he and I knew I wasn’t just talking about Maya anymore.
His entire face fell, and he shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“You know that. She doesn’t. Kids are stellar at blaming themselves. Trust me,” I mumbled.
I’d gotten good at it. I’d gotten so good at blaming myself, in fact, that as an adult, I had zero gauge for faults of my own. I was either completely to blame for everything going wrong, or you’d have to break all my teeth to get an apology to spill out.
There was nowhere in between. I was either stubborn or terminally apologetic.
Dominic shut his eyes, passing a hand over his long face. He stopped to press his fingers against his eye sockets, a soft groan humming in his throat. “I guess I just always hoped the walls were thick enough.”
“That’s a shitty excuse.”
His hand fell from his face, those unique eyes worn with shame. “Maybe I’m a shitty father.”
I couldn’t help it as my eyes turned with exasperation.
“Don’t throw a pity party. You know you’re a good dad. You just fucked up. You have time to fix it though.”
Maya was young. If her parents stopped their public fighting now, who knows? Maybe her immature brain would repress all the bad shit and all she’d remember was the good shit from her childhood. That was the hope, at least.
Dominic cast me a heavy glance, arms hanging loose at his sides. “Whenever Heather and I argue, it’s like I have tunnel vision. All I can think about is how upset I am.”
Exhaustion mounted on top of Dominic’s shoulders that was so palpable, I felt weak just staring at him. Every line on his face grew deeper, the bags under his eyes darker. A pang of loss hit my chest as I took him in and wished for the younger looking version of him I’d seen when he was sleeping.
Or his dimples. I wanted the dimples from when he laughed so hard, his cheeks literally winked in joy.
Dominic took his gaze out to the iron gate fence around their backyard. “I think that might be the difference with my parents,” he said, adrift in his head again. “They were happy.”
Oof.
This took an unexpected turn. I hadn’t given it much thought since our night in his patrol car three weeks ago, but Dominic had mentioned his marriage then too. His worries and woes. Now looking at him, the man was practically drowning standing up on dry land.
Again, it wasn’t my business, but—
“How long have you been unhappy?”
With his head angled to the side, I saw perfectly when that infamous tick of his jaw snapped into place. He chided me in a thick voice.
“This is probably a ‘line’ moment.”
“Probably.”
Silent seconds ticked past that I let slide by without calling attention to it or forcing some type of noise. The moment was his, and I did my very best to patiently wait and watch as the easy breeze rustled one pesky strand of hair at the peak of his hairline while he orchestrated his thoughts.
When he finally did speak, his voice was low. So low, I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t the wind’s lonely whisper instead.
“I’ve tried for a long time to be happy. A long time…”
Damn. I wasn’t a hugger type of person, save for Charlotte and sometimes Layla, but every muscle in my body fritzed with energy trying to make me go over and hug him. He was so impossibly sad. A man broken by love, and all I could think about was that someone should have warned him.
Love was not something you could win.
Love would chew you up and use your broken heart to pick its teeth.
“I guess that’s the takeaway from this then,” I said, hoping to change the subject and awful mood. “Even in your worst moments, it’s still your responsibility to save Maya from them. As parents, it’s your job to protect and love your kids even… if you stop loving each other.”
Dominic’s eyes heaved shut, a sullen sigh pushing through his nose.
Seemed like he already knew that last bit.
Just hadn’t heard it anywhere but inside his head.
After a few tense seconds, Dominic swiveled his focus back to me, sealing his misery back up behind those eyes of stone. “Your sister is really lucky to have you.”
“Eh. We’ll see when she’s fifteen and hates me.”
Dominic released a puff of a laugh. “Teenage females terrify me.”
“As they should. We’re a wild bunch.”
He cut me a quick side-eye. “You’re twenty. You don’t classify as a teenager anymore.”
“Are you calling me old, old man?”
“No,” he regaled, pointing his stare up at the sky. “I’m saying it for my own peace of mind.”
Before I could respond, the police radio attached to his hip sputtered to life and cut me off.
“All units, we have a break in at address 1357 Oakwood Drive. Reported mother and child on scene. Units respond.”
Any teasing humor held on my face dropped. Shattered. Ice rippled through my veins, freezing my blood, freezing my thoughts, freezing my heart to a dead stop.
Horror held my eyes wide open, locking on Dominic as acute caution drew in his features as he took me in. My lip trembled. My breath hitched. My heart fucking obliterated logic as it screamed so loudly, the freeze encasing it exploded in every direction, cutting my vocal cords free.
“That’s my address,” I whispered.
