10. SUNDAY
DOMINIC
Her body presses down, warm on top of me. Pandora sleeps like the dead with every muscle as relaxed as a newborn’s. At some point during the night, she must have shifted from that almost-polite embrace into this: using me as an extra mattress.
She’s light, and it’s more unexpected than uncomfortable. Judging by the creaking in my joints, we’ve been passed out in this position for a while.
Another part of me has been awake longer. No surprise since I’m snuggly nestled at the V of her thighs. A quick rock of my hips, and I’d be in heaven. Thank God she’s still wearing that little nightie.
The devil’s spawn wiggles languidly against me, like she can read my mind. Inhaling deeply, she comes to, and the hands resting along my sides fold around my neck.
“Mmm,” she hums. “You didn’t desert me?”
I link an arm around her waist while I play with the long, blonde locks she’s swathed us with. Pandora blows out a happy sigh I won’t forget anytime soon.
“I didn’t want to take off before you woke up.”
“Good.” Her voice holds a smile, and I squeeze her. On instinct, my crotch juts up, intensifying the pressure between my dick and her honeypot.
“Ah,” she moans. “Remember?”
Oh hell yes, I remember.
“Are you always this straightforward?” I ask. “But to answer your question, I do remember—and thanks to you, I’m heading to the gym now. Either that, or I’d use up every last drop of freezing water in your shower.”
She giggles out a retort when the roaring of a truck engine reaches us from the floor; it’s my uncle’s ringtone, so I instantly worry. Jesus, at seven a.m. on a Sunday? I roll Pandora off me, lunge for my phone, and answer.
“Alan?” I prompt.
“Dominic. She wandered off again.”
“How can you let her wander off? She’s your fucking mom!” I can’t help spewing out what I always tell him. “You need to move in with her, all right? Just do me that favor. I’ve got one measly year left, and I’ll be back, dude. Did you find her? Where is she?”
“Dominic, calm down. I’ve got her. We’re at the hospital now. She was dehydrated so she’s getting fluids.”
“You… Fuck, Alan!” I shout. I get up and pace the room. “How often do you even check on her? Can’t you at least spend your time with her before and after work?”
I feel like I’m the fifty-five-year-old, here, not him. For months, we’ve had conversations of this type. At least he has stopped berating me for swearing at him.
I flick a glance at Pandora, who has flipped over on a hip. With a cheek resting in one hand, her eyes are on me.
“Sorry,” I mutter. Pandora nods like she understands. She doesn’t, of course. This is my life.
“Can I talk to her?” I ask my uncle.
“She’s asleep now.”
I’m so frustrated—he knows I need to hear every detail about her. What’s with these short-ass replies? “Will you at least fucking tell me what’s going on, Alan?”
He remains quiet for a moment before he answers. “When I caught up with her, she’d wandered under the bridge. She thought she was five years old, Dominic. Do you understand? We need to look for assisted living.”
“No!” I yell.
I need to fight with Alan somewhere else, but he twists the knife in me before I can get out. “Dominic, your grandma was making mud cakes.”
The cool surface of Pandora’s bedroom window loans relief as I lean in, an alien sort of sob pressing out of me.
I flinch at first when small hands surround my waist from behind. She’s holding me, not saying anything and making everything worse.
“Are you there, son?”
“I’m not your son. If I’m anyone’s son, Alan, it’s Grandma’s. She raised me. Not you.”
“Dominic, listen—”
“No, you listen. One fucking year and I’m back, okay? Ten months! Step up for once and take care of her. She raised you too.”
I punch the phone off and hurl it across the room. The damn thing dents the corner of a framed poster. Behind me, Pandora lets out a surprised yelp.
“Sorry,” I say again. “Sorry.”
And all I can do is grab my shit and take off.
No one’s at the gym this early on Sundays, which suits me fine. Rob arches a brow at me when I stride into the weight room with the same, damp workout clothes from the night before. I’m becoming predictable.
“Dude, that girl get to you again?” He chortles.
“Naw, family.” I finish taping my hands before tightening the gloves around my wrists.
“Shit yeah.” He nods. “Family, man—I’m telling you.”
“Yeah.”
“So, you over the chick, yet?” Rob’s too nosy for comfort.
“I better be. I’ve got too much crap going on.”
He cackles at me. “Uh-huh. Not done, then? You with her last night or somethin’?”
“Back off, Rob.”
He lifts his hands, palms toward me, but what he says doesn’t support the gesture of surrender. “Sounds like you were to me. So—I’ve found me a chick too, dude.”
“You have?” I fill water while he chatters.
“Yup, she came in here yesterday. Gorgeous little thing. Had a friend with her, a redhead. She was hot too, but this one? She had some killer jugs and a great ass.”
I roll my eyes. Rob knows how to describe the ladies. My mood lifts fractionally, though.
“Should’ve seen her wiggle that ass on the elliptical.” He grins.
I can’t hold back a smirk as I head over to do bicep curls. He follows me, handing me the towel I forgot at his station.
“I’ll introduce you to the redhead,” he promises. “Next time she comes, I’m asking Blondie out.”
“All right.”
Rob cackles again, another big smile stretching over his face. “We’ll do a double date. For the meal, at least. You know what I mean? Huh?” He waggles his eyebrows like the idiot he is. “Then, I’ll have her for dessert! All night.”
I snort into a laugh. “You horn dog.”
When he leaves me to my music, I stuff the earplugs in and let my mind whirl. For the fifth time today, I recount the months remaining until I’m finished with this degree and can pick up work at Uncle Alan’s.
I wish I could trust someone else with my grandmother until I’m done in Deepsilver. I wonder about Melissa. My ex was the only other female around the house during my high school years. Grandma and Melissa would bake, scrapbook, and discuss my flaws and virtues behind my back. Their bonding was cute and obnoxious at once.
But heartbroken high school sweethearts don’t dole out favors. What an ass I was to her back then. It’s been half a decade, though, I think to myself. For a brief moment, I play with the idea of asking her. Until I remember some of her more creative revenges. Like when she left my brand new cell phone to die in a margarita glass filled with fish oil.
I drop it to think about Alan. Once I move back home, it’ll be a pisser to work with him. My uncle isn’t a bad guy, just fucking clueless when it comes to people. He’s an old bachelor with no kids, so the only relationships he has to maintain besides his clients are with my grandma and me. Which is difficult enough for him.
It’s therapeutic to work my body into exhaustion. A couple of hours later, I’ve downed a protein bar and three Gatorades from the machine in the hallway. My hair drips sweat into my eyes, and my T-shirt is soaked.
“You mind if I take my shirt off?” I yell at Rob.
“Nah, no one’s here yet, so that’s fine.”
The fan against my bare skin cools me down, and I do broomstick twists with hand weights until fire shoots up my obliques.
I let my mind rewind to Grandma. Besides staying in touch every day, I can’t do much about the situation until I return. Once I’m there, though, I’m moving back into her house—my childhood home. I’ll look after her. Not only has she taken care of me my whole life, she also spent her savings on my first year in college. I owe this beautiful lady everything.
My thoughts flow to Pandora. She was a mess yesterday, and the look on Leon’s face as he cleaned her up still bothers me. I drop the weights to rub my face.
Yeah, Pandora caught Leon’s eye last night, which is anything but good. She has barely arrived, and I bet she’s got a full four years to go. He could get to her. Form her into one of his… “companions.”
Sure, Christian swears he’s an awesome boss. But his girlfriends? A jab pierces my solar plexus.
I could shield her. Doesn’t mean I have to plunge face first into some sort of thing with her. I’ve got the missus over at Elysium. Ha, perhaps I’ll take Rob up on setting me up with the redhead. It wouldn’t surprise me if he scored a date with the new girl at the gym.
I exhale, relieved. A peek at my watch shows ten a.m. As I stand to fetch my stuff, two new customers enter.
It’s a redhead and a blondie.
Shannon and Pandora.
And Rob? Is fawning all over them.
Pandora makes it onto an elliptical before Rob reaches her. He’s trying to lean on the console, which is too high up.
“Good morning, ladies!” His gaze goes to Pandora. “What’s your name again?”
“Pandora, and this is Shannon,” she volunteers.
“Great, wonderful. Glad to see you girls back! So any soreness after yesterday?” Rob drawls the last words out into an unwarranted innuendo.
Pandora is still pale. Headache, I’m guessing. If so, she doesn’t need a chipper trainer with his brain on half-mast.
“No, I’m okay,” she clips out, and I walk over, ready to save her. Recognition brightens her eyes when she discovers me. Then, they darken. “Yeah. No soreness. None!”
Hmm, was that one aimed at me?
Even pouting, she’s damn adorable. Rob’s forehead furrows, his attention following hers to me, and I chuckle. She took my abstinence in stride last night, but I could swear she’s mad at me now.
“You’re a cat,” I tell her, referring to her ever-changing moods. She crosses her arms and glares at me.
“No, you are. A scaredy-cat. You run off every time.”
“Hey, I stayed all night.”
She’s got a lock of hair out of place. It’s long, golden, and hangs over a boob. I don’t stare, because I’m not Rob. But I can’t help brushing it away from her face.
“Um.” Rob scratches his head, his eyes flicking between us. “You guys know each other?”
Pandora and I answer simultaneously.
“Yes,” I say.
“No,” is her verdict.
“I wouldn’t have slept over if I didn’t know you.”
“Unless it’s stranger sex,” Shannon chimes in.
“Or unless he’s, like, NOT having sex.”
Goodness. She’s straight out pissy.
“You were okay with it a few hours ago, babe. Why are you upset now?”
She climbs off the elliptical and starts to walk away. When I grab her elbow, she shakes me off and keeps moving.
Behind us, Rob tells Shannon, “Ha, they don’t fool me. They know each other. This?” He points to his head. “Is not just a hat rack.”
Pandora must not be paying attention to where she’s going, because she backs herself into a corner where the glass walls meet in a red steel beam. She’s fucking edible with her chest heaving.
“And plus?” she begins, her voice going up as if she’s starting in on a question. “You’re not entitled to call me ‘babe.’”
“I’m not?”
“No, only people who sleep with me when I want it…” Her lip starts quivering at the corner, like she’s trying to contain a smile.
God, she’s so—
I lean my forearms against the walls around her. Taking a step in, I push our bodies together. Since Pandora doesn’t put up a fight, I deliver a quick kiss. “You were drunk, Panda,” I murmur.
The smack of a second kiss fills the air and vanishes.
“Not when we woke up, I wasn’t,” she whispers.
“My uncle called and pissed me off.”
“See? Exactly,” she starts, confusing me. Small hands push against me, causing me to back up, but I’m not removing my arms.
“Dominic, you got mad and ran off instead of telling me about it. I’d have cooked you, like, breakfast, while you talked.”
Her brain does leaps I can’t follow, so I ask, “Are you done, babe?”
She frowns in response. Clearly, I asked the wrong question. I try again. “Another kiss?”
Pandora looks like she’ll say no, so I dive in before she can. Despite the displeased expression, she opens for me. Soft. Warm.
“Don’t,” she mumbles while her arms drape over my shoulders. Her mixed messages give me a serious hard-on, and I can’t think straight.
Deep in my chest, it’s there, premonition-style; this—she—has the power to destroy me. Pandora. She’s a wild child, and yet I want to be around her. Make her smile. Moan.
Fuck.
This is a fleeting sensation, though, because I’m focused. I know my future, and I’ll bow out of this. Return to my all-studies-and-work routine.
I kiss her again. Press her lithe body into mine.
Just for another second.
“How’s Scheuermann?” I ask.
“Pretty good…” She sighs like we’re not talking about her back. I keep her still so I can tap around the spine. The knots along her column are barely noticeable at the moment.
Pandora arches into me during my swift examination. Her head falls to a side, revealing her neck. I prod again, higher up this time, but while I do, I taste the white skin at her throat.
“Told you!” Rob shouts from across the room to Shannon. “And guess what else, that, I betcha she’s the reason Dom’s working out nonstop lately. I mean day and night. I said to him the other day…” He trails off, and I wonder if he’s actually censoring himself.
“Rob.” Shannon’s voice is sweet. “You might be right.”