Helena
We spent the better part of the afternoon working in the nursery, stopping occasionally for more mind-blowing sex whenever the urges once again became too much to ignore.
Or…maybe we spent the afternoon having mind-blowing sex, forcing ourselves to take little breaks in the nursery so that we didn't burn the house down from all the heat that must've been pouring off of us.
Either way, by late afternoon two things had become abundantly clear.
One, the storage room had a promising future as the new nursery.
Two, my relationship with Dominick had an equally promising future. The worst of my fears had been thoroughly drained away, quieted by the man's obvious warmth and devotion. His determination to help was inspiring, and the connection we shared was profound.
Also, the mind-blowing sex.
That helped, too.
Was it really worth mentioning the sex so many times?
Fuck yes it was.
In any case, a few more hours with him had been good for the soul. We'd cleaned house not just physically, but emotionally as well. Ali still wouldn't be back until dinner, and I felt more relaxed than I had been in a long time. The sun was bright, the air tasted sweet, and the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders. I'd been living in worry and guilt over hiding the pregnancy for so long that it simply breathing felt good.
Things were good. Really, really good. Ordinarily, it would've been around now that I started to wonder what horrible thing would happen and cause the other shoe to drop, except this time that negativity was nowhere to be found. I wasn't going to let pessimism steal away my newfound happiness, not a chance.
Dominick had actually managed to pound some sense into me, easing my hangups and anxiety with a day of…well, you know.
In fact, I was feeling downright playful.
Cloying, even.
"This is crazy, you know," I said, suppressing a giggle as I mixed together a large bowl of batter.
"No, pancakes for dinner is crazy. Pancakes as a late lunch is just delightfully eccentric. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere," Dominick said, carefully heating the cast-iron griddle he'd found while up in the attic. "Besides, I think we're both in the mood for something sweet."
I gave an enthusiastic nod. I'd been craving pancakes all day, but making such an indulgent meal any time past noon just felt wrong. I could probably thank my job for that; every year I saw a new batch of students and watched as the freshman fifteen claimed at least half of them. Apparently, switching over to a diet of pure sugar, caffeine, pizza, and alcohol was not the best choice.
Thankfully, Dominick had saved me from my own stuffiness. Just because a bunch of teenagers went overboard with syrupy goodness did not mean I had to abstain completely, and so now we were making pancakes without a care in the world.
"Ali is going to be excited, to say the least," I said, chuckling at the thought.
"So were you, when I brought that grille down."
"Well, yeah. I'd been wanting something like that for a while, and then you just pull one practically out of thin air? I had no idea it was even up there," I said with a smile. "You didn't happen to see any other treasures up there, did you?"
"Nope," Dominick said. "Not unless you count that undiscovered Van Gogh painting, anyway."
"Oh? I have one of those?" I asked, picking up on Dominick's playful mood and hoping to out-cutesy him.
Lord help us all.
"Well, you did," Dominick began slowly. "But, see, it was covered in a lot of dust."
"The dust destroyed it?"
"No. But it did give me a sneezing fit. While that was going on, I bumped into this shelf that was full of marbles. One of the marbles rolled a loooong way, into a bunch of mousetraps, which then…you know, I'll just save us both a lot of time here and cut to the end. The portrait fell into a puddle of paint stripper. It was a total loss. Sorry about that."
"There was a puddle of paint stripper in my attic?" I laughed, playing along.
"Yeah, someone had suspended a can of it from the rafters with an old length of fraying twine. Damnedest thing," Dominick said with a shrug.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're painfully sweet?" I asked, giving Dominick a kiss for being so adorable. "Like, actually painful. I think between your sense of humor and the pancakes, I'm going to end up with diabetes."
"I've been called a lot of things, but overly sweet is definitely not one of them," Dominick said. "In fact, if Alton saw me acting like this, I'm pretty sure he would think you were brainwashing me somehow."
"Who says I'm not?" I asked.
"Who says I'd care if you were?"
"Okay, now you're just trying to give me diabetes," I laughed.
"Is it working?"
"Yes. And if anyone else heard us talk like this, we'd be that couple in about two seconds," I said, and then my heart made a sudden sharp ka-thump in my chest.
I'd called us a couple.
Could I even do that?
Time slowed down and the next moment felt like an hour, waiting to see Dominick's reaction to my Freudian slip.
"Maybe we're already that couple," Dominick said quietly. "And our friends just don't know it yet."