Page 97 of When Morning Comes Around

She looked at Dom, and he nodded. “I wanted to talk to Harvey for a minute, too.”

“Then I guess I’ll excuse myself to the kitchen while the menfolk talk, like a good little woman.”

Dom opened his mouth to speak, but her dad beat him to it. “You know it’s not like that. Don’t go making Dom feel bad – you know you won’t make me feel bad.”

“Sorry.” She went and kissed his cheek and touched Dom’s arm before she left the room, closing the door behind her. She didn’t mind. How could she? She was living in her dad’s house like she had when she was a teenager – why should she expect him to treat her boyfriend any differently than he had back then? It wasn’t as though Dom would mind, she knew that.

~ ~ ~

There weren’t any empty spaces in the square at the resort when they arrived. Dom circled twice, hoping that someone might pull out and leave, but they didn’t.

Sadie pointed to a side street. “If we park down there, we can cut across the beach and go in the back way.”

“Yeah? I didn’t realize that.”

She shrugged happily. “I grew up here, remember?”

He found a space near the top of the steps that led down to the beach. When they got out of his SUV, he looked her over. “We can walk around, if you prefer?”

She was already slipping off her shoes. “Why would we do that, when there’s a lovely beach down there that I haven’t seen in a while?”

He chuckled. “When you put it that way, there’s no reason at all. I didn’t know if you’d want to walk on the beach in your heels.”

She held her shoes up with a smile. “I don’t, but that’s easily fixed.”

She set out down the steps, and he followed. He took her hand as they walked across the sand. She was in good spirits tonight – then again, it seemed as though she almost always was. Nothing got her down.

She squeezed his hand as they walked. “Are you okay?” She gave him a puzzled smile. “Would you rather have walked back up the street? Are you prissy about getting sand in your shoes?”

“No, it’s not a problem.” He drew her closer and slung his arm around her shoulders. “If you want to know the truth, Polly would never have walked along the beach like this.”

Her smile faded, and he felt bad. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring her up at the beginning of our night out.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. You should bring her up whenever you want to. If you’d like to talk about her, I’d like to hear whatever you have to say.”

He shook his head. “Maybe there’ll be a time when it feels right to tell you more about her. Tonight isn’t that time. I guess, if anything, what I meant was…”

He sucked in a deep breath. Not so long ago, he would’ve felt disloyal to Polly even thinking it. Now, the need to explain himself to Sadie overrode that.

“… You’re more easy-going than she was, and I like it.”

She bit down on her bottom lip but didn’t say anything.

He hugged her closer to his side. “It’s okay. I’m paying you a compliment.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want a compliment at Polly’s expense.”

A rush of warmth filled his chest. “And that right there is what makes it okay. You’d never try to take anything away from her memory.”

She shook her head adamantly. “No, I wouldn’t. I can’t say that I know how you feel, but I respect it.”

He cleared his throat. “Thanks. Just let me explain myself, and then we can drop it. You asked if I was prissy about getting sand in my shoes. Polly was prissy about a lot of things. It wasjust who she was. Mostly it didn’t bother me, but sometimes it did. Just like some things about me bothered her.” He smiled. “I’m sure you’ll discover things about me that bother you, too.”

She smiled. “I want to disagree with you, but I’m not going to. This is real life. That’s how it goes.”

“Yeah. We’ll no doubt discover our little niggles, but I guess the whole point of this was me wanting to say that I love how easy-going you are.”

“Thanks. I love how open you are. I love that you tell me what you’re thinking. I love that you listen when I tell you what I’m thinking. I love that you can be kind of bossy, but only because you’re looking out for me.”

---