“You didn’t have to get me anything, either, but you did.”
“It’s different.”
“How?” I asked—pressed, maybe, but I wanted to know. “How is it any different?”
“Because…” Dominic swallowed. “Because of how I feel about you.”
My breath caught in my chest, and I froze. Was it possible that…Dominic felt the same things for me that I felt for him? “How do you feel?” I murmured.
He bit his lower lip, making me want to pull it out of his teeth and—God, kiss it, kiss him, right here in front of the girls and Hal. He finally opened his mouth and—
My phone rang.
“Shit,” I said, reaching for my pocket. If this was the office, I wasn’t going to bother answering it, they could go and—
Ariel Bell.
Fuck.
Oh, fuck.
I could feel the blood rushing down my face, leaving me dizzy as I stared at her name. I’d forgotten she was calling. I’d forgotten to tell Hal.
“Who is it?” Dominic asked.
I stared from the phone to him then to the girls. They were looking at me now, too, the newly named Baby sandwiched between them on the floor with her tongue lolling out.
Five rings. Six.
She’d go to voicemail soon.
I couldn’t let that happen, not after I’d promised.
I picked up. “Hey,” I said hoarsely.
“Hi,” Ariel said, tentative. “Merry Christmas, Max.”
“Right, um, Merry Christmas to you, too.”
“So.” She paused for a moment. “Is this time still okay? Are the girls there? Did you—did you clear this with Hal?”
“Yeah, they’re here, but I, uh, I kind of forgot to mention this to—”
Steph bolted to her feet and ran across the carpet to me, throwing herself against my side. “Is it Mommy?” she demanded. “Is it my mommy?”
I saw Hal stiffen out of the corner of my eye.
I screwed up. I totally screwed up.
“Yeah, it is,” I said, because I was shit at lying, and what the hell, the jig was already up. Marnie joined us a second later, her dark eyes wide and hopeful. “Do you girls want to talk to her?”
Even as they both shrieked, “Yes!” Hal got up from the carpet and stalked off to the kitchen. A moment later, the back door slammed. I handed the phone to Marnie, who immediately clutched it to her ear then got up to follow him.
Dominic caught my arm before I went more than ten feet. “What the hell?” he whispered, all the tenderness gone from his expression. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
Well, I hadn’t known that I was going to handle it this badly, but… “Yes.” I held up my hands in placation. “I meant to talk to Hal about it and make sure it was okay, but with everything else going on, I completely forgot about it.”
Dominic pulled me around the corner into the kitchen. “You forgot about setting up a call on Christmas Day with the woman who abandoned her husband and children? You fucking forgot?”
“You think I wanted this? For you and Hal to get pissed at me? Shocker—it isn’t.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry. I really was going to tell Hal, but I got caught up with you and—”
“No, don’t you make me your excuse,” Dominic snapped and then took a step back. That he wanted distance from me hurt more than his words. “You weren’t here when she left, okay? You weren’t here for any of it. You didn’t see any of it. You didn’t have to watch my brother try to hold his kids’ lives together while his own was falling apart. He and Ariel had been together for over a decade, and she just left him. No warning, no clue, nothing.”
“I know, and that’s awful, but when we were standing in line for Santa, Steph had me write down that all she wanted this year was her mommy. And that couldn’t happen, there’s no way, I know that, but at least she and Marnie could talk to her.”
Dominic’s expression was entirely closed off.
But I forged ahead. “They miss their mother, and it sucks that she hasn’t done anything to really deserve being missed, but that’s not the girls’ fault. They shouldn’t have to suffer because Ariel made bad decisions.”
“God, you still don’t get it.” Dominic exhaled harshly and stepped back further. “They’re going to suffer more now. Can’t you see that? Because you took it upon yourself to open a door that Hal went through a lot of time and effort to shut. He was getting them over her. He had conditions for her to meet first, conditions that were put there to protect the girls, and you blew right through them so they could have this heartwarming Christmas phone call with her. The girls are going to hope for a change now, but there’s no change coming, Max.”
I didn’t believe that. I couldn’t.
“I hated my father for what he did,” I said as levelly as I could manage. “I hated that he destroyed a family, and I hated that he destroyed himself and our family along with it. I hated that, but even after my mother and I left, I still would have appreciated hearing from him. A call, a note, anything. Instead, I had nightmares over what might happen to him without us.”
Those had stopped long ago, when I realized that he was never going to reach out and take responsibility, but Ariel wasn’t my father. She was trying.
“This call with Ariel isn’t a panacea, Dominic, and maybe it’ll give the girls some ideas, but they wanted to talk to her. Isn’t there some wiggle room in the rules when it comes to making them happy with this?”
Dominic shook his head. “Maybe there could have been if you’d bothered to talk to Hal first.” The coldness in his voice carried a finality to it that I couldn’t evade.
“Dom—”
“I think you should leave for a while.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and handed them to me. “You can take my Jeep, I don’t care, but go. Hal needs some space right now.” He sighed, and now I could see emotion in his eyes again, and it was nothing but regret. “I need some space, too.”
Oh fuck.
“I’ll…” Where was open on Christmas Day? I’d have to drive to a bigger city to find a hotel that would take me…and shit, I needed to pack up. How could I pack without letting the girls know what was the matter? “Can you—distract them, um, while I go and…”
“What—no!” Now Dominic looked horrified again, in a different way. “Jesus, no, you don’t have to leave leave, just—a few hours is all. Fuck.” He ran his hand through his hair, pulling at it distractedly. “Max, it’s not like that.”