“No, c’mon. You’re freezing. You need a shower.” I took his hand and eased him toward the bathroom.
“Will you stay with me?”
The answer was so clear in my mind that my breath caught. Always. I couldn’t even process it, and it was too intense to say aloud. So I smiled and said instead, “You never have to persuade me to have a shower with you, Dominic.”
I turned the water on and let the bathroom start steaming up as we finished undressing then led the way into the spacious shower stall. It was easily twice the size of Dominic’s, and we could have had a lot of fun in here under different circumstances, but tonight was for warming up and washing away the strain and stress of the day.
By the time I was done cleaning his hair, Dominic was out on his feet, swaying under the hot water so badly I worried I might have to carry him back to bed. “C’mon, almost done.” Forget drying off, forget brushing teeth—everything else could wait. I helped him out of the shower and back into the bedroom, where he fell onto the bed and burrowed under the covers until just his head was sticking out of the blanket.
“Rest well,” I murmured, giving in to temptation and kissing his lips then his forehead before standing up. He was asleep before I was done dressing.
…
Christmas Eve’s dinner was a muted affair of leftovers from our splurging earlier in the week, and most of the good stuff was claimed by the time I got back downstairs. I made myself a turkey sandwich and spent a half hour picking at it while reassuring the girls that their uncle Nicky was okay.
“For real?” Hal asked quietly at one point when the girls were distracted.
Dominic hadn’t been all right back at the church, but by the time he went to sleep, I was pretty sure he was just tired, not reliving a nightmare. “Yeah. He’s just resting.”
The girls didn’t want to go to bed—they were excited from the tips of their fingers to the ends of their toes—but Hal made the perennial parent argument that the sooner they fell asleep, the sooner it would be Christmas morning.
It worked, amazingly, and the girls got ready quietly enough, although after they were in bed, there was still quite a lot of giggling.
Hal listened to it with a half smile on his face, both of us sitting on the couch in the living room, close to the bottom of the stairs. “Steph’s really started to open up more lately.”
I nodded. “She’s talked to me a few times now.”
He clapped me on the shoulder before I gathered my courage. “She likes you. Stick around long enough, she’ll be calling you Uncle Max.”
Wouldn’t that be nice? I’d never thought I’d be anyone’s uncle, but with the girls here, with Dominic here, it was…tempting to try. But that was wanting too much. “I doubt it. Besides, I do have a job to get back to after this vacation, you know.”
Hal leaned back and looked at me skeptically. “Funny, you never say things like ‘I have a life to go back to’ or ‘I have friends to go back to.’ Every time New York comes up, it’s all about your job.”
“I like my job,” I protested, but it sounded weak to my ears. “And shut up, I have friends in New York.”
“You have guys you compete with at the office. Guys you go up against in court. Guys you beat down playing squash or whatever the fuck fancy shit you lawyers do at the gym.” Hal tilted his head. “How many of them actually qualify as friends?”
Definitely some of…well, at least two of…maybe one of them? Shit. “Fine, I have acquaintances in New York, but that’ll change once I move up the ladder and get a little more time to myself.”
“Really? Is it that way with your boss? Has his time freed up the higher up the ladder he goes?”
“Marcus is a named partner. It’s his firm,” I exclaimed, and when Hal glanced at the stairs, I lowered my voice. “My situation is different.”
“Is it, though?” Hal asked, as gentle and ruthless as only my best friend could be. “Or are you gonna be in the same spot as him a few years from now, only without the wife and kids helping you keep up an appearance of normalcy?”
I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hug him. I picked the middle road. “Fuck you.”
“I’m not bringing any of this up to hurt you,” he said, and he was so damn earnest it was hard to hold onto my anger with him. “I’m just sayin’, I think you should consider all your options.”
“Options like what?”
“Coming back to Edgewood.”
I sighed. “Hal…I don’t think—”
“What happened tonight with your dad had nothing to do with you. Yeah, people will always talk shit, but forget them. You’re nothing like the guy. That’s obvious as soon as someone meets you. And we’d love to have you here.” He nodded toward the upstairs. “The girls adore you, more every day. You’re my best friend, not to mention I’d kill for you to stick around through basketball season. Nicky is terrible about setting his brackets. And Nicky…” Hal looked a little uncomfortable now, but he forged ahead. “You gotta see what you meant to him.”
My chest ached at the thought of meaning more to Dominic, but I shook my head again. “We haven’t known each other long enough for me to mean much to him.”
Hal made a pfft noise. “You’re kidding yourself now. Just think about it, okay? There’s a place here for you, whether you ever take us up on it or not. There’s always gonna be a place for you.”
Jesus Christ. I did not deserve Hal, not in any way, shape, or form. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, yeah, now get out of my sight.” I got off the couch and headed for the stairs. “And Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you, man.”
I didn’t need to be thanked for anything. I didn’t press the point, though, just nodded and headed upstairs. I was quiet entering the guest room, but Dominic was out so hard he didn’t even stir while I got ready for bed. Sliding in next to him, I rolled onto my side and stared at the back of his head. It would be so easy to lean forward and kiss him there. The urge to wrap my arm around his waist was almost overwhelming, and not even because I wanted him to wake up and fool around, just because I wanted to hold him. What would it be like to do this every night?
My throat tightened.
Was Hal right? Was there really a place for me here in Edgewood? Everything I’d worked toward for the last three rigorous years was in New York, but was that really going to be enough to satisfy me?
I didn’t know anymore.
…