“Will you sleep it off with me?” I tried to wink and show her my underused flirtatious side.
“Are your eyes bothering you?” she asked.
I tried the wink again. “No.”
“You’re blinking weird.”
“I’m not blinking. I’m winking.”
Brownie drew our attention with a whimpery noise. “Hafta to go out, boy?” I climbed to my feet and grandly opened the door for dog and woman.
“I can take him for a walk,” Ally volunteered.
“Why are you so nice to me?” I wondered out loud. “I’m an asshole, and you’re all like ‘I’ll walk your dog.’”
“Brownie isn’t responsible for his father’s personality,” she pointed out.
I felt like there was a deeper truth ringing around in those words, but I was distracted by her red dress and that light lemony scent that followed her everywhere.
I led the way into the kitchen and brushed off Ally’s concerns about me falling and hitting my head in the backyard. “Pfft. I have perfect balance,” I scoffed.
I tripped over a table leg and barely managed to stop myself from taking a header off the deck.
My backyard was a neatly landscaped scrap of—now dead—grass enclosed by a fence tall enough that my enthusiastic dog couldn’t vault over. He’d certainly tried since the Vargases next door got their beagle, Cornelius. Brownie trotted out to the middle of the grass to do his good dog business, and since I was here and a man, I joined him in a communal pissing.
Back inside, I found Ally plating up burgers in the kitchen.
“You’ve got a nice place here, Dom,” she said, sliding a tall glass of water in my direction.
Of course I did.
“You’re so beautiful,” I sighed, sinking down on a stool. “Not just because you’re in that dumb guy’s dress. But like all the time. You just light up every room you walk into. It’s like the sun coming up. Every time I see you, I feel better. I love it when you walk into a room.”
“Dom.”
“I’m super drunk, Ally. You can’t hold any of this against me.”
“I know,” she said and stroked a hand through my hair. “We’ll never speak of this again.”
She took the stool next to me, and we ate greasy burgers in companionable silence in my kitchen. It might have been the scotch talking, but it felt right. I wanted more of this. More of Ally Morales in my home.
Finished, she put our plates in the sink, topped off Brownie’s water, and returned to me.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” she said.
“’Kay.”
She helped me up two flights of stairs and put up with me stopping to rest with my face in her hair every few steps. I was in excellent condition. But being embarrassingly intoxicated provided the perfect excuse for me to sniff her hair.
She didn’t need directions to my room. And I hoped that meant she’d spent as much time thinking about that night that she’d been here as I had.
“Stay?” I breathed when I flopped down on the bed. My eyelids were so heavy.
She flicked on the bedside lamp, and I felt her move around the mattress.
She untied one of my shoes. “Dom, I can’t do that. And you don’t want me to do that.”
But I really, really did. “This bed is so big. And Jersey is so far.”
“Yeah, well, I’m taking your car,” she said.
“You can have anything you want,” I offered. I was a magnanimous drunk guy. Especially when it came to the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Just not you,” she said. I was too drunk to tell if she was teasing or serious.
“Just not me,” I agreed. “I can’t be like him. I mean, not more than I already am.”
“Who?” she asked.
“My dad. He sucks. Hate ’im.”
“I know,” she said, and I felt the shoe slide off my foot.
“I’m my father’s son,” I slurred.
My other shoe disappeared.
“You’re also your mother’s son. And last time I checked, you happen to be your own man. You make your own decisions.”
“Yeah, well, I decide I don’t want to be anything like him. I can’t sleep with you, Ally. No matter how much I want to. No matter how much I like you. No matter how many times I pictured you spread out right here under me. I want you so much, but I can’t have you.”
“Why not, Dom?” Her voice was so soft, and she was playing with my hair again. I decided that was my new favorite physical sensation. Ally’s fingers in my hair.
“’Cause he would have taken you. Take take take. Whatever he wanted. I don’t want to be him.”
“Oh, honey. You’re not.” I liked her voice. Liked how she called me honey.
“You say that. But I’m ’zactly like him. I jerk off in the bathroom thinking about you. Well, not anymore.”
She was quiet for a beat, and then her fingers were on my necktie. “Why not?”
“Doesn’t seem right. You’re right outside the door. It’s disrep—disruh—dis-re-spect-ful,” I enunciated clearly. I was so fucking tired.
“You’re not responsible for your father’s actions. What he did isn’t your fault.”
I covered my face with my hands. “Yes, it is. It’s my fault he was there to do the things he did.”
“Why?”
“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” I told her. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It made me sad and sick, and I just wanted to feel good. Even if I didn’t deserve it. “’Sides. I don’t deserve you anyway.”
My tie loosened, then vanished, and those glorious fingers were working the buttons on my shirt free. I really liked that.
“Dom?”
“Yeah?”
“Open your eyes for a second.”
I did as my Angel Ally asked.
“You’re nothing like your father. You never have been, and you never will be. You’re a good man. You take care of people who need it. You protect them and build them up. You’re going to make some woman very lucky someday.”
“Wish it was you.”
She cupped my face in her cool hand, and I rubbed my jaw shamelessly against it. That easy, physical affection Ally gave was something I had no idea I needed. And I was going to have to go back to living without it.
“Get some sleep, honey,” she said softly.
My eyes wouldn’t open anymore. I felt the weight of the blanket she pulled over me, the bounce of Brownie jumping onto the bed.
“Thanks for taking care of me, Ally.”
“Back at you, Dom.”
45
Ally
My feet and my brain were numb.
Prancing around on pinchy stilettos had probably permanently damaged the nerves in my toes. And as for my brain, my boss had rendered it useless.
I eased his Range Rover into the driveway and sat in the dark. Images from the night flashed on a loop through my mind.
The dress.
The runway.
Dominic “Alcohol as Truth Serum” Russo.
I had a lot of confusing, conflicting thoughts. But it all came back to one thing. He didn’t want to be like his father. It was as simple and complex as that.