And I shouldn’t expect anything from him. Worse, I shouldn’t want anything from him. He’s not what I need.
I need stability. I need a five-year plan. I need someone that can raise a family and give me and my future babies a solid foundation. He’s none of that. I’m not even sure he’s capable of it. Worst of all, he’s made it obvious he doesn’t want it.
He doesn’t even want to integrate me into his life or be interwoven into mine. He doesn’t want me at the gym, at Nate’s bar, and he’s not about to go to the Farm for Sunday dinner. As wonderful as he is when we’re together, he has a way of making it clear there’s a line between my world and his, and that line will remain. I’m an interesting addition to his collection of women, and while I know he likes being with me, I also know there’s nothing between us that will last forever.
It can’t. All of those dreams I want to come true aren’t possible with him.
“Uh,” I grumble, trying to get comfortable.
My stomach sours as I imagine working him into my life. Explaining to my family the man I love fights for a living. Can barely pay his rent. Is related to Nolan—the man that tried to ruin Barrett’s entire career.
Closing my eyes, it’s the memory of his face that greets me. I imagine he’s behind me, his chin resting on my head the way he does when he’s waiting for me to fall asleep. It’s this feeling, this warmth, that makes me want to blur the line he so carefully creates so I don’t have to eventually let it go.
Dominic
CLIMBING OUT THE SHOWER AND wrapping a towel around my waist, I rub the fog off the bathroom mirror. There’s a small cut over my right eye that shouldn’t look too bad by morning. My face lights up in the glass as I picture Camilla’s reaction to the scrape if she were here.
She hates me fighting. It seems barbaric to her on some level. She can’t imagine someone being so down and out that they would willingly go into a brawl to get a payday. I tried to explain it to her the first time it came up in conversation, but that was the last time I wasted my effort. She won’t get it. How could she? She just swipes a card if she wants something or asks her brother for the money from her trust fund if it’s over a certain amount.
That’s what I can’t imagine—letting someone else control my shit. They control everything about her from where her money goes to who she dates to what she does with her afternoons. It’s wild.
It’s also one of the reasons why this little thing we have going on is temporary. It’s carried on a little longer than I expected it to, but that doesn’t mean an expiration date isn’t stamped on it somewhere. Her world isn’t just the other side of the tracks; it may as well be the other side of the fucking universe. My side? It’s no place for a girl like her, a girl that not only nails that fifty-one percent, but aces the other forty-nine. A girl that’s way outta my league.
My phone rings in the bedroom and I shut the light off behind me before heading across the hallway. It’s buzzing on my nightstand when I pick it up.
A little drop of disappointment hits me when I realize it’s not Cam. “Hey, Nate,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What’s up?”
“Just got Ryder to bed. Chrissy let him have way too much sugar tonight and he wouldn’t settle down. It was rough, man. I pulled out all the stops, even singing that twinkle star song.” He laughs. “Hell, before it was over, I was singing the old Oscar Meyer hot dog commercial theme.”
“What a way to spend a night,” I laugh.
“Yeah, but fuck it, Dom. I mean, what else is there, really? I had three chicks on the bar tonight, basically doing a strip show by the time we closed. Juicy asses, big titties, lips carved to wrap around a cock. There was a time in my life when that was the end to a great day. Now, I just wanted to get home before Ryder went to sleep.”
“I get that. He’s your boy.”
“Yeah,” he sighs through the phone. “I don’t know. It’s more than that. It’s . . . Remember Dad not being home? Hell, half the time Mom wasn’t either? We’d let ourselves in after school and pour some shredded cheese on some stale tortilla chips and watch television? I want to give him something more, something better than what we had growing up.”
“You’re doing that,” I say, running a hand over my damp hair. “He never has to worry about where his next meal is coming from. That’s more than we had a lot of the time.”
“I was thinking . . . maybe when
the loan goes through, and I get everything caught up, maybe I can start thinking about changing the atmosphere in The Gold Room.”
“To what?”
“Something more respectable, I guess.”
“You’re going yuppie on me, aren’t you?”
He barks a fit of laughter through the phone. “Fuck, no. I just mean clean the place up some. Change our reputation a little. Maybe pull in a different group of customers, ones that have more money than Joe and Copper.”
“So you mean ones that have any money?”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Joe ever paid his tab?”
“Nope.”