Chapter Eighteen

~McKenna~

I had slept surprisingly well for getting home after six am and washing up to the sounds of the rest of my neighbors getting ready for work. Despite my every intention to sleep in, I found myself waking up just after eleven, feeling fully rested and satisfied.

I guess that week vacation really had done wonders to reset my body. Of course, not having the stress of waiting for a paycheck or being fired certainly helped. All in all, the day felt brighter, and for once it didn’t seem like there was a guillotine hanging above my head.

Until my phone beeped, that was.

I recognized the sound as my email going off and a wave of cold dread washed over me. The last time I had received an email from work, it had sent my life tail spinning in a direction that I had not expected. I didn’t even want to think what it could possibly contain.

I tried to ignore it, tried to just roll over and forget than anything had happened, but my mind wouldn’t let me. Rolling over, I grabbed my phone and decided to face the music.

It was from Rafael. I couldn’t believe it! A week with no contact and now he was going to email me, of all things? It had to be something good then. Or at least I hoped so. If it was a booty call, I was going to drop kick him into a new eon.

I supposed that I should open it up before leaping to conclusions, so I did. My eyes quickly skimmed over it and I saw that Dom had specifically asked to hang out with me. Rafael had told him I’d probably be busy, but he promised to ask anyways.

My heart melted a bit at that. I remembered how lonely Dom had seemed when his parents were fighting and how happy he had been our entire meal together. He was such a sweet, smart boy. It was clear he didn’t have a lot of people who understood the kind of things he was into, and like most bookworms, I could guess that he didn’t exactly have a ton of friends his own age.

How could I say no? That would be punishing the son for the sins of the father. Quickly, I typed up an answer and told him I would be there in an hour and a half after I showered and caught the bus.

For a moment I was worried that Rafael would offer to pay for a cab or something like that, but thankfully, he did not. I didn’t like the idea of being in his debt, or not knowing how to get to his place. The only thing the CEO did was send me his address and that was that.

I took my time getting ready, being choosy about what I wore. I didn’t want to send the wrong idea, so I chose the most casual clothes I had; a loose sweater and some old jeans, then threw my hair into a ponytail and headed out.

Despite the caution that was nagging at my mind, I was still excited to go. Part of me tried to argue that I was just happy to see Dom again, but part of me also knew that was total bull. I wanted to see Rafael. Too much of him was wrapped in mystery for me and I just wanted to dig back at all those layers and find out just who he was.

The bus ride gave me plenty of time to mentally put together the greeting I wanted to say, and then overthink it about twenty times over. It wasn’t the first time I wished my mind didn’t work like a hamster on a wheel, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Thankfully, there was still a fifteen-minute walk between the stop and Rafael’s place. Of course, he lived in the upper part of the city where they didn’t rely on such banal public transportation like buses, but I didn’t mind the trek. The physical exertion got me out of my head, and by the time I reached the lobby, I was only mildly sick from the whirlwind in my own head.

The room was incredibly beautiful, all high ceilings and gold embellishment. It was like something out of a movie and I couldn’t help but feel incredibly out of place.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

I looked to see a man behind a large marble desk in the center of the room looking to me. I just stared blankly at him for a moment before realizing that he was talking to me.

“Oh! I’m here to see Mr. Barbos.” I said, walking up to him and trying to look like I belonged.

“Mr. Barbos? Let me see if he sent word of any visitors. I just started my shift, so I have a few messages left by the previous helper.” He typed a few things into the computer in front of him and I felt my stomach twist.

What a bizarre reaction. Rafael had asked me here himself, I had absolutely nothing to worry about. I didn’t know what it was about the stunningly handsome man that made me doubt everything about myself.

“Ah yes! I see a Miss Maxine Grady! Thank you for your patience, I’ll buzz the elevator down for you.”

Buzz the elevator down? I didn’t quite get what he meant until I actually went over to the lift and saw that there was no call button at all. Oh. That was an interesting security measure.

I was very pleased that it arrived quickly, the golden doors parting to let me inside. But then I was surprised once more when I saw there was no floor pad inside either. Instead, the doors just closed and whisked me upwards.

Was this a thing? Did rich people really need to hire someone because they were too lazy to actually press and elevator button? Or was it more about showing off their wealth? Or was it some sort of luxurious hook the building used to convince rich people to live here instead of the other exorbitantly expensive penthouse across the street?

I didn’t know. As much as I stressed about money and paying the bills, I didn’t really lust after the life of the mega-wealthy either. Rafael, for the amazing, incredible things he had, didn’t seem that much happier than me.

The elevator finally came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal a single landing and just one door. Did Rafael really have the entire floor just for his apartment? That seemed…unimaginable.

I thought about emailing him that I was here, but what if he wasn’t by his computer? I only had my work email hooked up to my phone because I didn’t own a desktop or laptop. I guessed I would just have to suck it up and knock.

Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I strode forward and rapped on the door. I didn’t see any sort of bell, but I guessed that with the desk worker below, no one was going to come up that Rafael didn’t know was already on their way,

I heard footsteps approach the door, light and quick, then a second later it flew open to show Dom’s smiling face.

“McKenna!” He said, practically bouncing up and down. What I had done to make this little kid so enraptured with me, I would never know, but the smile he gave me was absolutely heartwarming. “You came!”

“That I did, little man,” I said, borrowing his father’s term for him. I hoped that wasn’t creepy. I certainly wasn’t going for that. “And I brought a few things too!” I gestured to the messenger bag on my hip and stepped inside.

Looking around, I did see a shoe rack and a selection of different sneakers on the floor, so I quickly slipped my own off and set them to the side. It made me feel strangely vulnerable to be walking around in just my socks, but I didn’t want to be a bad guest and scuff up their undoubtedly expensive floors.

Not that I didn’t know how to buff that out, of course. The plus side of working as an overnight janitor was that I learned about a dozen different ways to spot clean at a low cost.

Of course, what I really was looking for was Rafael. I spotted him standing in the kitchen, sipping at a cup of coffee. Normally I would ask for a cup myself, but I really didn’t need to be more wired.

“What did you bring, what did you bring?”

“Oh, nothing too exciting, just some figurines and one of my favorite movies.”

“I wanna see!”

He grabbed my hand and led me over to the plush couch. It looked so nice that I was almost afraid to sit on it, but Dom was pretty insistent in his tugging.

Conceding, I let myself down onto the thick, velvety cushions, pulling my legs up under me. Instantly, I was surrounded by comfort, and support. Was this some sort of memory-foam couch? It was better than my own bed!

Granted, my bed was a ten-year-old mattress on the floor of my room with an even older box spring. Maybe one day I could afford an upgrade, but that definitely wasn’t today.

Dom clapped his little hands as I unzipped my backpack. Reaching in, I made a great show of pulling out my first trinket.

According to his point of view though, it probably just looked like I lifted out a small, dingy hand towel. I noticed the disappointment that flashed across his face, but that would just make my reveal that much better.

“So this,” I said, finding the edge of the cloth. “Is one of my oldest kaiju figures.” With a flourish of my hand, I finally revealed the hunk of plastic. I had gone through a major Japanese cinema phase when I was a teenager and, although my passion had cooled considerably since then, I still had a lot of my old collection for nostalgia’s sake. It was one of the few things I consistently brought with me on my multiple escapes.

“Wow! That’s so cool!”

“You wanna hold it?” I asked, handing it over to him.

He looked like I had just offered him the holy grail, and he nodded solemnly. Laughing, I watched as he recently took it, turning it this way and that to see all the details. I knew that many people liked to keep things in their original packaging to preserve their value, but I was all about playing with my toys. I liked to look at them, hold them, and just generally interact with them. What was the point of keeping things in boxes forever? No great memories were going to be build that way.

Besides, the pure joy on Dom’s face was more than worth it.

“This is so cool,” he said, holding it close enough to his face that I could almost see his reflection in the figure’s eye gloss. “It’s older than me.”

“Honey, this figure is older than me and then some.”

“Wow.” He continued to fiddle with the thing, his attention one hundred percent captured, which allowed me to look for Rafael once again. It seemed that he was trying to give his son and me space while still being a good parent and keeping an eye on his child. I appreciated it. I had no idea how to interact with the man, or how he wanted to interact with me, so distance really was for the best.

“Come, I wanna show you my collection!”

Suddenly we were off the couch and heading towards his room. Dom’s behavior pretty much confirmed all of my suspicions about him being lonely. It seemed, although Rafael was obviously trying his best, Dom had a lot of social needs that weren’t being fulfilled. Mostly to do with books and nerdy stuff.

I knew how he felt, in a way. Although my parents were usually wonderfully supportive, they were never really into all of the niche things that I was into. They wouldn’t go to the movies with me, they never went to premiers. They existed on the very fringes of my interests and that was about it.

So, I let Dom take me to his room, and I responded with enthusiasm to each and every thing he showed me. It helped that he actually did have a very impressive set up in his room. It was the type of hang out space I had always dreamed of as a kid. There was a large bookcase that went almost to the ceiling, packed with dozens and dozens of novels and comics, ranging from fantasy to sci-fi, to autobiographies on famous special effects make up artists and I think I even saw some behind the scenes novels on several popular space operas.

Next to that was an impressive toy display. Yeah, the kid had his own toy display. And that wasn’t counting the large toy bin right next to it. I saw the latest figures, some of them that I knew cost several hundred dollars, and even a few that were incredibly difficult to build.

“Did you put these together yourself?” I asked, not hiding how impressed I was.

“Dad helped! We try to do one a month, but there haven’t really been any good ones since last July.”

“Oh really? That’s sad. I guess I haven’t really been keeping up with merch.” For the last ten years. I finished in my own head.

“That’s okay, you’re not missing anything.” He said, shrugging nonchalantly. From there he went on to show me all of his gaming equipment, his posters and everything else he considered a prize possession. By the time we were actually sitting down and playing one of his many board games, at least an hour had gone by.

It was obvious that Rafael got his son pretty much anything that he wanted, but the boy was far from spoiled. From what I could tell, he appreciated everything he had and was fiercely proud of all of them. If I had a child, I would hope that they could be like Dom.

But after long enough, my mouth grew dry and my stomach began to rumble. A quick look at my phone revealed that it was already past noon, and I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.

Like he could read my mind, I heard a gentle knock at the door. It was open, so I knew that Rafael wasn’t asking for permission to enter, but rather trying to catch our attention. Huh, I had been so wrapped up in learning the rules of the new game that I had completely forgotten that the handsome man was there. It was possibly the first time he had been out of my mind for a week.

“Hey, the pizza guy’s in the lobby and heading up. Are either of you thirsty?”

“I’d love some water,” I tried to say it with a normal tone, but I had the feeling that I still sounded like a nervous little mouse caught by the cat.

“Hey, why don’t we watch a movie while we eat?” Dom asked. “You said you brought a movie!”

“That I did,” I looked nervously to Rafael and he looked just as uncertain. “But I’m not sure it’s the kind your dad would like.”

“Please, Dad likes anything we watch together, as long as I don’t ask too many questions during it.”

“That’s true,” Rafael said with the faintest of smirks. It seemed even our strangeness around each other couldn’t dull his love of his son.

“Well then, let’s go watch some wanton destruction, shall we?”

“Yeah!” Dom jumped up, fist in the air. “Dad, will you grab plates n’ all that and I’ll put the DVD in.” He stopped short and looked at me uncertainly. “It… it is a DVD, right?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yes, it’s a DVD, Dom. Even though I’m old as dirt to you, I wouldn’t have brought a VHS.”

“Whew, good. I was worried you might have brought a box tape. You set the DVDs by the couch, right?”

“Right,” I said to him before mouthing box tapes to Rafael.

The man just shrugged, a half-smile on his face, and offered me a hand up while his son rushed to the TV. In just a few minutes, he and I were sitting on either side of the couch, pizza in our laps while Dom happily sat between us, staring at the screen with rapt attention.

I was struck once more about how easily someone who didn’t know the situation could walk in and assume we were a family. Technically, our worlds never should have crossed, yet here I was, sitting and eating some of the best deep-dish pizza I had ever had.

By the time the movie ended, I was feeling much more comfortable. But when the credits were finally rolling, Rafael didn’t seem very happy.

“Hey, little man, your mother will be here in about an hour or two. It’s time for you to get packed.”

But Dom just shrugged, taking our plates and heading towards the kitchen. “She’s always late anyways. I think we can play one more board game before she comes. Two if it’s a bad day.”

Wow. What a terrible thing to hear a kid say. But he sounded so resigned to it that it almost made it seem like it was normal. But it was never normal to have a child so used to being a second thought to a parent.

“You don’t know that now, Dom.”

“Yeah I do.” He finished shoveling things into the trash and looked at us with wide eyes. “Please, just one game? I never get to play any of my three-people ones so this is the perfect chance.”

Rafael looked to me a bit guiltily and it was just too amusing. As dominating as he was, he would always be putty around his son’s fingers.

“Alright,” I said, standing and wiping my hands. “I’m game if you are.”

And that was how the three of us ended up sprawled across the living room floor, us adults struggling to learn a new set of rules on some game about candy while Dom was completely creaming us.

Perhaps it should have been embarrassing to be beaten by a five-year-old, but I was having way too much fun. When was the last time I had time to play a board game? When was the last time I had a friend circle large enough to be able to play a board game? Both of the answers were depressing, so I just focused on the moment and the warm happiness flowing through me.

One round passed. Then another. And then we were trying a new game entirely. By the time Rafael actually got a call from the front desk that Dom’s mother was here, it was already dark.

By my guess, she was two hours late with no call to explain why. There was no excuse for that and my temper began to flare.

Dom was just utterly wonderful, and I was clear that Rafael was trying not to trash his child’s mother in front of him. He had more strength than I did. I hadn’t felt like I had belonged in ages, but here with Dom and Rafael, I couldn’t help but feel welcome. They were both so kind, so fun. While the CEO was certainly plenty intimidating at work, he was basically one big ball of butter around his son.

“Hey,” he said softly as Dom grabbed his backpack and other supplies. “Do you mind waiting up here for a moment? I don’t want her trying to cause trouble in court because she things I have strange women over.”

Ugh, of course she would. I was beginning to think that she didn’t care about Dom at all, and the little boy was just a means for her to control Rafael. I hated things like that. It was so damn harmful to the psyche of children and could damage them into adulthood.

“Yeah, no problem. It’ll give me a chance to pack up.”

He smiled gratefully then returned to helping his son. They really were a pair, those two. I hoped that things worked out for them.

I basically was pretty much fully packed once they were ready to go, but I made an excuse about needing to use the restroom. To my great surprise, Dom ran over and threw his arms around me, squeezing tightly.

“Thank you for coming, McKenna. I had the bestest time!”

“Me too, Dom,” I said, patting his head. “Me too.”

I made the mistake of looking up at Rafael, only to see that he was staring quite intensely at me. There was no malice in the gaze, but the sheer amount of emotion behind them was immense, and I could feel myself withering slightly under it.

But then the moment was over and the two of them were heading out. I leaned against the couch, a bit breathless, and wondered what the hell had happened.

But strange stare or not, there was no denying that I had a lot of fun with the pair. More than I had ever expected. It seemed like I was totally in the wrong about dreading everything.

Who knew, maybe I could continue to be wrong about things. I kinda liked how It was turning out.