Page 25 of The Bad Girl List

The Trunk

TREVOR

The page from the sketchbook rustles between my fingers as Dominique hands it to me. I can’t stop staring at it. There’s a boulder in my gut, and it has nothing to do with the amount of wine I’ve consumed.

Is this really how I look? Is that miserable, haggard face really what my family sees every time they look at me?

No wonder they’re on my ass about moving on, about finding the elusive happiness they’re so sure my dead fiancée wants me to have. Looking at that drawing makes me look at the past two years in an entirely new light.

Dom is staring at me like a deer in headlights, like she’s trying to figure out if she’s offended me. There’s a sweetness in her dark eyes that draws me in.

When I’d first seen her profile in the bar, she had reminded me of Elle. It’s what had initially grabbed my attention, but she doesn’t look like Elle at all. Dom is Chinese like Elle was, but that’s where the similarity ends. The shape of her face is different, her nose is different–everything about her is different.

She looks so damn sexy in my shirt. Not in a we-should-go-back-into-the-bar way. It’s a I’d-love-to-see-her-walking-around-my-house-like-that way.

This is the first time I’ve felt attracted to a woman since the accident, and it’s not because she’s beautiful. There are beautiful women all over the place.

Dom is different. I feel seen in a way I don’t entirely understand. She doesn’t know me, but she couldn’t have drawn that picture of me if some part of her didn’t get me.

“Look, I drew other people, not just you.” Her voice is nervous when she talks, making me realize I’ve been staring at her in silence this entire time.

She flips a page in her sketchbook and points. It’s a picture of Gramps and his buddies playing gin at their favorite table as they sip their tumblers of whiskey.

“That’s my gramps.” I point to the page.

“That’s your grandpa?”

“Yeah. He and his friends love to play cards here.”

“How did I miss that?” Her eyes shift from me to the drawing. “You’re the younger version of him. You guys even dress alike.”

“Does that mean you want to see him in your porn mag, too?”

I mean it as a joke, but the words leave me feeling uneasy. I haven’t cracked a joke in months, except for tonight with Dom. It’s like trying to stretch a muscle you haven’t used.

I relax when she giggles. “I prefer guys in my porn mags to be a little less wrinkled. No offense to wrinkles.”

“I’m sure his wrinkles would understand.” I realize my hand lightly rests atop hers as we look down at her picture. I like the feel of her, so I leave it there. “Was this on your list?”

It takes her a second to track the meaning of my question. From the way she jerks her eyes away from our hands, I know where her mind was. She doesn’t move her hand away, either.

“You asked me that already. No, drawing random strangers in a bar isn’t on my Bad Girl List.”

“Your what list?”

“The Bad Girl List. Crap, did I just say that out loud?” She winces. I get the feeling she suppresses a lot of her words when she isn’t trying to drink herself sick.

“You can’t spill something like that and not share details.”

She squirms, pulling away to press her notebook against her chest. I’m reminded that she’s braless under there. There’s a slight breeze out here tonight, just enough so the hard pebbles of her nipples show through my shirt.

“My cousin is trying to push me out of my comfort zone on vacation. She came up with this list of things I’d never do.”

“Like drinking until you get sick?”

“Exactly.”

“Why did you draw a picture of me?”

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