Page 41 of Better Left Unsaid

“Really? Grown-ups do that?” She flicked her eyes from Maria to me.

I nodded, not sure I knew where this was going, but a time-out for Maria might just be a good thing for me (if you were following). “Sure do.”

“Some grown-ups get time-outs more than others,” Maria teased, her eyes roaming to me. “Right, Dom?”

I shook my head. I’d show Maria my version of a time-out later. “I wouldn’t know, personally, but yes, that’s true.”

As we were staring at each other and having a conversation within a conversation, Isabella obviously got bored, so she turned her attention to something else—namely, seashell hunting on the beach. Finally, she bent down and picked something up that warranted her attention. “Look, I found a seashell,” she announced, her voice filled with joy as she showed off her treasure.

Because Isabella allowed me to hold it, I took it in my hand and spun it around. “This, Peanut, is not a seashell. Some might say it’s far more special.”

Her pouty lip popped out. “Then what is it?” Then she turned to Maria who was fussing with Isabella’s hair, flipping her ponytail over in her hand.

“Yeah, Uncle Dom, tell us what it is,” Maria pleaded on her daughter’s behalf.

I brought my brows together and looked at Maria for just a beat, smiling before I answered Isabella. “It’s a sand dollar.”

“A sand dollar?” she echoed my words, her lips forming a straight line as she seemed to be pondering it. “Can I use it to buy an ice cream?”

This girl and her ice cream—she loved it like little else in this world. I bent down and tucked it in Isabella’s small hand. “Nope. But you sure can save it.”

Turning to Maria, she announced, “I wanted to find a seashell.”

Maria tapped the tip of her nose, and I scooped Isabella up in my arms and put her on my shoulders. “I have no doubt you will, but sand dollars are very pretty, don’t you think?”

“I guess.” She sighed. “Can you take us to where seashells are?” Isabella asked, tugging on the ends of my hair.

Maria laughed. “Absolutely. We’ll collect a whole bunch and put them in a jar in your room. How does that sound?”

Kicking her ankles against my chest, Isabella was the definition of giddy. “Oooh! Okay!”

I turned around and eyed Maria. “Race us down there?”

Maria smiled and nodded. “You’re on.”

On the count of three, I was off like a shot, running Isabella to the shoreline where I knew she’d find dozens upon dozens of seashells and could pick her favorites. And it didn’t hurt matters that if the seashell mission was a bust, Isabella would be plenty content down there because I spotted Brady and Allegra setting Gina up with baby floaties on her arms to carry her to the edge of the water. Isabella loved nothing more than playing big sister to her baby cousin.

* * *

Maria

I never felt more out of place than I did in a night club. There was something about the scene, you know the environment on a whole. I felt like I didn’t belong. It’d always been this way for me. In that regard, I wished I could be more like Bianca or Allie, because they always looked in their element, whether they were at a hair salon, night club, or lecture hall. Basically, they never looked like fish out of water. I, on the other hand, appeared uncomfortable—I knew I did because they’d told me so many times before, and, truth be told, I felt that way.

“Hey, beautiful,” Dom whispered in my ear, the sensation against the shell of it practically making the hairs on my arms stand up. How was it that he always managed to ignite something in me that felt otherwise dead?

I continued to nurse my first drink of the night—a cosmopolitan. “Are you flirting with me?” I asked, trying to get a read on him out of the corner of my eye. Was that flirting? I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. No man had ever openly flirted with me before. I supposed it was my aura. I gave off a certain bitch vibe. I blamed it on my resting bitch face.

He inched closer to me on the velvet, emerald-green couch I was sitting in the middle of—more like holding my spot on because it beat getting out on the dance floor and making a fool of myself. Let’s just say I did not know how to dance in a night club. Not that there was a specific way to do it, but my hips weren’t as loose and fluid as, well, every other woman’s. Mine didn’t know what to do, and I was more likely to pull a muscle than make fun memories.

“So what if I am?” he finally broke the silence, pushing into me. Dom was clearly not only having a good time, but also very in his element. But he was always like that—supremely comfortable in his own skin. In that way, he was just like my sisters. “You have to get up before men get the wrong idea.”

My head shot up from looking down at my lap and turned so fast I feared it might fly right off my neck. I had to hear this one. “And what idea would that be?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to see what he was getting at because I wasn’t entirely sure.

He cleared his throat, backing off now. “Just that none of these men get to feel your lips on theirs because I don’t share. Not like that.”

I studied him closely, the chiseled lines of his jaw, the way it twitched whenever he talked—or apparently thought—about us being sexually exclusive in this friends-with-benefits situation. I got close and pressed the back of my hand to his forehead. “Just trying to see if you’re running a fever.” I pulled back, resting it in my lap again before he stopped me midway. “You’re not hot. Must be the early stages of whatever asinineness you picked up.”

He let my hand go, but not before pulling me close and whispering in my ear once again. “You can date, but you can’t have a one-night stand, which basically means everyone here is off-limits.”

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