Page 58 of Kiss Me Tonight

My gaze shoots up to meet his.

Behind the wide breadth of his shoulders, the sun has begun its descent. Pinks and mauves mar the horizon, turning the sky into my favorite color-painted mural. The sunsets in Pittsburgh never once came close to those here in my hometown.

In and out.

More clean, crisp air filtering in and out of my lungs. Fueling my soul.

“Dominic?”

Disappointment is swift and merciless as his hand drops to his side and he falls back a step. “I had you all wrong,” is all he says cryptically, like that’s supposed to make sense to me.

It doesn’t.

I clutch my laptop to my chest. Turn away to head back into the house through the open French doors. “Topher said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

“It had to do with the team but . . . it can wait.”

I look over at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s not urgent.”

He only makes it a few steps before he whirls around, hips squared off and his Adam’s apple bobbing down the length of his throat. “I lied.”

I blink. “About . . .?”

“Having plans tonight. I didn’t—Idon’t.”

My arms tighten around my laptop. “I mean, I figured that was the case.” I force a light chuckle in hope of easing his strained expression. “It’s okay, Dominic. We’re not going to hold it against you, even though I am a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself.”

“I needed today and your kid . . . you were right.” As if agitated, he rakes his fingers through his hair. “I came by because I wanted to say thank you. For giving me exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know.” With the smallest of smiles, he adds, “I hit a home run.”

I hit a home run.

I know exactly what he means—Topher did that for him, made Dominic laugh the way he’s always kept me seeing the good in people all these years.

Before I have the chance to respond, Dominic is striding through my living room to the front door like he’s some good civilian letting himself out when we both know he could have just hopped the hedge between our yards and called it a day.

And then I sit on my sofa and open my laptop. I’m quick to click out of the role-play porno, but hesitate over the next tab. The one with an article dated to 2014, a year before Dominic’s exit from the NFL.

I skim the headline once more and feel my insides twist with sympathy.

From Rags to Riches: NFL Player Dominic DaSilva (Tight End for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) Looks Back on a Youth Spent in Juvenile Detention.

Although I already read the article minutes before Willow showed up, I find myself scanning through again, searching out Dominic’s quotes that have been highlighted:

“Football is the reason I’m where I am today, no questions asked. It saved me when I had nothing and gave me a reason to live.”

“No, I don’t know what happened to the boys I was with in juvie. It’s not exactly a place for bonding. You all did wrong. You all messed up. Time to pay your penance and do better once you’re out—unless you don’t learn your lesson the first time around . . . which, clearly, I didn’t.”

“I created Junior Buccaneers because those kids need a reason to get up in the morning and feel excited about life. They need someone on their side—so, yeah, I know what that’s like. I guess I finally learned how to do better.”

“I guess I learned how to do better,” I whisper to myself, staring at the black-and-white photo the article has provided of Dominic in his Bucs jersey. The number twelve is printed across the front, half-hidden by the football he’s holding. But when I take in his black eyes, I hear only the words he told me on the Wildcats football field a week ago:I’m something of a work in progress.

In the deepest, most secret parts of my soul, I can’t help but wonder what Dominic might accomplish if his driving force wasn’t ambition or a fear of predictability . . . but love.

16

Dominic

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