Page 88 of The Bad Girl List

The ride back to the park is strained. Annika and Thomas occasionally giggle in the back, but Dom sits in potent silence.

Shit. I royally screwed up tonight. How do I fix things?

Do I want to fix things? Are things better off this way?

When we get back to Thomas’s Tesla, I get out without saying anything. Even if I had the mental capacity to form an apology, to explain what happened, I don’t think words are enough.

Thomas says something that makes the girls laugh. He waves goodbye as they drive away. Then he turns, gives me a look, and gets into the driver’s seat.

Thomas doesn’t say a word the whole way home. He doesn’t have to. I can feel his disapproval.

Well, fuck him. He’s never lost someone the way I have. He doesn't understand. No one understands.

Dom does. The words niggle at the back of my mind. She kept her distance as soon as I told her about Elle. She never once pushed things. In fact, if I’d let her, she would have walked out of my life and never looked back.

Everything that’s happened since then has been on me. The night of Twenty Questions at Platitude. The fake dinner date. Almost screwing her in the vineyard after the family dinner. Even in the pool, I’d touched her first. I kissed her under the redwood trees.

This realization makes me feel sick and miserable. I can feel the weight of Elle’s body in my lap as she died.

When Thomas pulls up in front of the bungalow, he turns to me.

I hold up a hand as I get out of the car. “I don’t want to hear it.”

He just looks at me.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I repeat.

“What is it you don’t want to hear?” Thomas replies. “That you finally met a girl who makes you feel something again, and you’re fucking it all up? I don’t know what happened back there, but I saw Dom’s face. You hurt her, bro.”

“You’re right, I’m fucking it up. She needs to stay away from me.”

“Great idea. When you’re old and lonely with only the ashes of a three-legged dog to keep you company, don’t come whining to me.” With that, he throws the Tesla into reverse and drives off in a spew of dust.

I storm inside. Tequila comes out of her crate, tail wagging as she hops in a circle around my feet. I absently pat her on the head before stomping over to my nightstand.

“I still love Elle,” I tell my dog.

Her tail stops wagging and her eyebrows droop. I can see the reprimand in her eyes.

“Dad, you blew your chance with my second favorite person tonight,” I say in my high-pitched Tequila voice. “What were you thinking?”

“You’re not helping,” I tell my dog.

The sketch of Super Tequila and my superhero truck is still propped in front of the framed picture of me and Elle. Seeing the drawing makes me feel like I have a thousand pounds on my chest. I open the drawer and fling it inside.

My eyes land on the bottle of lube I keep there. I hadn’t thought of it until now, but it’s exactly what I need to get Dom out of my system.

I unzip my jeans. My dick is still semi-hard from being in such close proximity to her naked body all night. I pour some lube on my hand and start to stroke myself, picking up the picture of me and Elle from the nightstand.

I have used this picture for this purpose plenty of times in the past two years. Elle in her bikini never fails to get me off.

But it’s different tonight. As I stare at it, trying to relieve the pressure that’s been building since the night I met Dom, my mind keeps wandering. The photograph might be right in front of me, but what I see is Dom’s naked body on the pool deck at Skyview Villa. Her perky breasts, the curve of her hips, and her long hair. Even that fucking saran wrap around her middle was sexy as hell.

My nostrils flare as I remember how wet she was when I slid my fingers inside her, how she tasted when I kissed her mouth. My blood heats and my heart rate rises.

I try to focus on the picture of Elle, but every time I do, the world dissolves into memories of Dom. The way she felt against my chest when I held her in the pool. The way she looks when she’s lost in one of her drawings, what it felt like to have her hands on me under the redwood trees.

When I finally come, it’s Dom’s smile that hangs in front of me.

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