Chapter 38
Nothing
“I don’t want to call you Nothing anymore,” she said.
It was late, I’d come back to the Captain’s place after one seriously agonizing long day painting a house two towns over. I’d stopped at my house to grab some more clothes and had spent a long few minutes staring into my guest bathroom. At the stark walls, and empty shower curtain rod, leaning in the bathtub.
I didn’t really have the money, but I needed to redo it. The bathroom, I mean. I didn’t want to bring Charity back into my house until I did. I wanted to erase every aspect of the horror she’d had to endure in that bathroom and start fresh. My mind made up, I’d called a couple of the guys to see if they could help me out.
Now, Charity and I were stretched out in her bed, getting ready to sleep after yet another mind blowing round of sex. She had her chin propped on her hand, which was flat on my chest, her bright, inquisitive eyes, boring into my own.
“It’s my name, Baby. I have to earn ‘Galahad’ back, and that’s going to take some time.”
I smoothed a hand over her golden hair and her eyes slipped shut in simple pleasure, “I know that,” she said, “But, it’s not who you are anymore. I get that you felt that way, and I get that you felt that way for a really long time and that you may be used to it, but it’s not right.” She opened her eyes and I could see something akin to hurt in them, as if she ached for me, and it was all over a stupid name… so I humored her.
“There’s always Shepard, Shep, or Dominic,” I murmured, “Corrine always used to call me Dominic, she hated Galahad,” I said with a wry twist of lips. I’d hated it too for a while, but had eventually grown used to it.
Charity smirked, “Dom it is, then,” she said and leave it to her to put her own twist to things. I smiled and gave a nod, once up and once down.
“Dom it is,” I agreed and she leaned forward and kissed me.
I wondered vaguely if it would ever stop feeling brand new when she did it. Every time her lips met mine, I felt that pleasing little jolt in the center of my chest. Like when you’re in a car and you crest a hill and go over the other side, that funny feeling you get in your stomach as gravity does its thing where it suspends and everything inside you feels like it lifts, going buoyant for that split second before gravity catches up to things. Usually you felt it in your stomach, but when Charity kissed me, it was higher up, around the center of my chest, like my heart fluttered or sprouted wings. It was a feeling I thoroughly enjoyed, and I secretly hoped that it never went away.
I slowed Charity down before she got too heated on me, I had another long day the next day in a bid to catch up on work, and the sultry, sexy as hell whimper she let out when I drew back damn near did me in for saying ‘fuck it’ and going in for a round two. My dick throbbed beneath the top sheet and let me know its opinion on the matter, and I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t regret this act of adulting by way of a set of Smurf balls the next morning.
Charity cuddled into my side, and I held her close, a content and complete feeling overtaking me.
“Night, Baby,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head and she sighed out, a contented happy noise that put me on cloud fuckin’ nine.
“Good night, Dom,” she murmured and I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. I liked the sound of my name on her lips, even shortened as it was. Something, for the most part, that was uniquely hers.
***
The next morning was almost a new ritual, we got up, Charity made us coffee, we talked for a bit and I left for work. I finished up the edging and brushwork on that house, painting the trim around the windows and doorways, as well as up under the eaves, then headed home to meet up with Lightning and Gator to deal with demolition on the bathroom. Gator was waiting in my driveway with his pickup truck and I parked on the street, hitting the switch for the garage door.
“Aw, shit,” I called out, coming up the drive, “I totally forgot that I was holding Charity’s Jeep hostage over here.”
“You got the key?” Gator asked.
“Nope, but if I’m lucky…” I went in and tried the handle, “Ha! Unlocked and it’s a stick, we can push it.”
“Sweet.”
We got vehicles swapped, and Gator’s Toyota pickup backed into the garage. The bathroom was across the hall and adjacent to the doorway leading into the garage, so that worked out for us.
“How far you thinking about tearing down?” Gator asked, standing in the door way with me.
“All of it, man. I was thinking vanity, sink, shower wrap, floor… Toilet is meh, floor is just shitty linoleum from whoever owned the house before. I figure if I’m gonna do it, I might as well do it right.”
“I hear that.”
“Yo, Nothing!” Gator and I turned back towards the garage.
“Yeah, Lightning! In here.”
“Hey, what’re we doing,” Gator saved me from having to repeat myself by repeating it for me. Lightning looked the bathroom over.
“You know this is all still in pretty good shape, man. Why you doing this?”
“Don’t want to bring Charity back over here, you know? Want to fix it. I can’t take the memories out of her head but I can change the whole room, you know? Make it so they aren’t as biting.”
“You’re really gone on Hope’s sister, ain’t you?” Lightning asked, his wide grin taking most of the bite out of it.
“Shut up,” I said, and he laughed.
“Alright, let’s do it,” he said and the three of us got to take some frustration out on ripping my bathroom to shreds.
We got the vanity out, the shower wrap, and ripped up the floor in short order, and I was kind of glad we did when Lightning let out a low whistle. I saw exactly what he meant.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Blessing in disguise,” Gator said bitterly.
“Yep, now we just need to find the leak,” Lightning started looking and I started poking at the subflooring.
“Son of a bitch, this is all going to have to be replaced. Goddamnit!”
“Who’s going under the house?” Gator asked.
“Since you volunteered, you are,” Lightning said and Gator shrugged.
“I’ll get a flashlight.”
The good news was, the joists under the house were still sound, the bad news? All of the subflooring needed to be replaced. The leak was a pain in the ass to locate, but it was a relatively easy fix too. It was just going to have to be done another day, we were out of time and daylight for today.
“Same bat time, same bat channel?” Lightning asked.
“Yeah, but not tomorrow, day after tomorrow works though. I’m going to have to get some houses done if I’m gonna be able to afford this.”
“Fifteen bucks an hour under the table and I’ll come help you paint,” Gator offered.
I considered it, and nodded, “You’re on.”
“Sweet! See you at the Captain’s house.”
“Six o’clock,” I said and his face fell. I laughed, “You wanna work; you get your ass up.” He gave me a salute and we went out to switch the cars around.
“Let me know how much I owe you for dumping this crap,” I told Gator, giving Lightning a handshake.
“Don’t worry about it, man. I got a guy at the transfer station, he lets me dump shit for free.”
“Awesome! That’s a big help.”
“Yeah, my old man was good for something, who knew?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Trash collector, my guy might as well have been my uncle all growing up.”
“Ah.”
“Anyways, see you tomorrow, might want to get home to your little missus,” he jibed.
“Yeah, fuck you. No wedding bells in our future yet, I need to make sure she can deal with me for real.”
“Probably a good idea not rushing it this time,” Lightning observed. I nodded, my mood crashing and smoldering a bit. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that, honest,” he grimaced, “Just put my foot in my mouth hard, didn’t I?”
“It’s okay, you’re not exactly wrong, dude. It’s just still a new truth for me and the truth’s a bitch.”
He nodded and we parted ways, I made a mental note to get Charity’s keys from her so I could bring the Jeep back to her. I didn’t want her over here until I finished the house. For some reason it was important that I keep this a surprise. I felt a little bad, almost like I was lying, but I think it had more to do with keeping anything from her after promising that we were done with that. Still, I convinced myself that this was different, and it was.
I left the bike and her Jeep in the garage, and locked everything up tight. It’s was high past beer-thirty in the afternoon and I just wanted to kick my boots off and chill in the sand with a cold one. It was that kind of an evening. I was hoping Char was up for watching the sunset and having a drink. I was after low-key, and I think all of us could use it after all the ridiculous excitement of the last few weeks.
When I pulled up to the house, it was to an empty driveway, when I let myself into the place, it was full on empty; a rare occurrence as of late. I went to the fridge and pulled out a couple of beers, cracking one open, and saving the other in the event I ran across Charity. I started upstairs in the bedroom, but no dice, so my next logical stop was out back. I found her lounging in the sun down the beach a ways on a lounge chair covered by a towel. Not going to lie, I was kind of tickled at the empty one beside her but didn’t want to get too excited. Faith might be out here, or Hope, and it might belong to one of them.
“Hey, stranger!” she called to me and she patted the towel on the lounge chair next to her, “Saved you a spot.”
I handed her down the open beer I had yet to drink from and she smiled, “Brought you a drink.” I cracked open the second one, using the hem of my shirt to twist off the cap, and dropped onto the towel and chair next to her, leaning over for a quick kiss.
“How was your day?” she asked and it warmed me from the inside even as the sun toasted my shoulders through my shirt.
“Same shit, different day,” I said, taking a mouthful of beer. I picked at the laces on my work boots and toed them off, stripping off my socks and stuffing them down into them. Felt damn good to dig my toes into the sand to either side of my seat.
“Looks like it was pretty adventurous to me. What’d you do? Some interior painting today?” I looked down at myself and some of the plaster dust from my bathroom.
“Yeah, doesn’t come along very often, but when it does, it’s nice to be in out of the sun.” I felt a pang about how easy the lie came, but I really, really wanted to do this for her.
“What about you? Anything on the job front?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Put in six more applications today, received a call back from a plastic surgeon’s office but I really would rather help people who need it, you know? Somehow dealing with Muffy and Stuffy who just want bigger titties just doesn’t seem like the right job for me.” I laughed a little and she sighed, “I know! I’m being a judgy little bitch, and I probably can’t afford to be too picky…”
“Hey, no, I get it, trust me, I get it. Still, why don’t you go do the interview anyways, it’ll be good practice for the ones that count, and if they offer you the job, you can always take it until something better shows up, or if something better shows up first, you can always turn it down.”
“You are a wise master of adulting,” she said and held out her bottle. I clicked the neck of my beer against hers and snorted.
“Yeah, I could argue that point and so, probably, would the rest of the guys.”
“Meh, fuck what they think, my opinion is the only one that matters,” she said it so deadpan and she gave me a dazzling smile before taking a drink of her beer I had to laugh.
“So,” she said after my laughter died down, “What do you want to do?”
“Actually, this right here. It was a long day, and I was really just looking forward to a chill evening on the beach, catching the sunset with you.”
“Sounds good to me,” she declared and we lounged, talking while the sun dipped lower in the sky.
“Where is everybody?” I asked and she looked back over her shoulder at the house.
“Hope had Cutter take her to the airport; she should be back the day after tomorrow. She headed out to do an assessment, or whatever it is she does, up north somewhere. Marlin took Faith with him on some kind of fishing trip, and everyone else; who knows?” She waved her hands in the air, “Cutter and Pyro are doing whatever their thing is, so I just came out here after my daily job search to relax and wait for you.”
“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“Nope, you were right on time,” she said and her smile made her glow. “You getting hungry?” she asked.
“Yeah, I could eat, what’d you have in mind?”
“I raided the fridge and freezer; the chicken should be done marinating soon, so no worries, I got this.”
“You’re making me dinner?” I asked, kind of surprised.
“You worked all day, I didn’t, seems only fair.”
“I think I love you,” I said, spur of the moment, out of the blue, and immediately wished I could take it back, afraid it might weird her out, but not regretting it at the same time.
She held out her beer for another cheers, “That makes two of us, Dom. That makes two of us,” she said and I could definitely drink to that, relief flooding my system.