He looked at his watch and knew that she should be home by now. He hadn’t wanted to risk inviting her to dinner in case she refused so he’d picked up some Chinese on his way. As luck would have it, when he stepped from his apartment to go to Gwen’s, he saw Shannon standing in her doorway. As he drew closer, he heard her say, “Sorry about dinner. Any other time the girls and I would have loved to go out, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to meet Cameron, with them at my parents’ house tonight.” As the other woman pulled the door shut behind her, she turned and almost plowed into him. “Eek!” she squeaked before recognizing him.
“Sorry about that, Shannon,” he apologized. “Didn’t mean to startle you.” Pretending he didn’t hear what she’d just said to Gwen, he asked, “Where’s Maddy and Megan?” He couldn’t resist throwing in, “They aren’t visiting with their friend, Bastard, are they?”
Shannon dropped her head before giggling softly. “Oh God, I have no idea where they get half the stuff they say. I thought I’d lost the ability to be embarrassed by them long ago, but they just keep proving me wrong.”
Dominic reached out to pat her shoulder as he said, “Don’t ever try to change them. They are hilarious. If only they could stay that innocent all their lives.”
Shannon raised a skeptical brow, saying, “I wouldn’t exactly call them innocent, but I know what you mean. I may cringe sometimes, but I know I’ll remember those moments forever.” As he smiled and nodded his agreement, she suddenly looked over her shoulder at Gwen’s door before lowering her voice. “Did you . . . mess up or something with Gwen?”
He felt his stomach clench as she gave voice to the same question he had asked himself throughout the day. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who had noticed something was amiss. He pondered just making some joke and brushing it off, but instead he found himself saying honestly, “I have no clue why, but I think I have. Did she . . . say something about it to you?” Damn, that question sounded so high school. He couldn’t believe he was pumping Gwen’s friend for information. He tried to console himself with the fact that she had started the whole thing.
Checking to make sure they were still alone, Shannon moved closer to him, saying, “It’s not so much that she’s said anything to me. It’s just that since you two have been together, she’s been all about you in her spare time. Tonight she was waiting for me when I walked down the hallway and seemed almost desperate to have a reason to get out of her apartment. I asked her if she wasn’t seeing you tonight, and she started fidgeting like the girls do when they’re guilty of something. I felt really bad when I told her that I already had plans. I would have canceled them since Gwen does so much for me, but I really want to see Cameron. Crap,” she sighed, “I’m a horrible friend, aren’t I? Shouldn’t I put her before some guy?”
“No,” Dominic blurted out quickly, before adding, “I mean, I know that she understands. And you’re doing me a favor because, apparently, I screwed up somehow and I need to fix it. I think Gwen was hoping to avoid me tonight, which she tried to do earlier today, and now she won’t be able to. Hey, do you think you could knock on her door? She might not answer for me.”
Shannon held up her hand, waiting expectantly for him to fist bump her. He chuckled as he made a new ally before rapping knuckles with the cool single mom. Megan and Maddy were lucky to have her. Knocking on Gwen’s door, Shannon whispered to him, “You know, you’re all right, Dominic.”
He was on the verge of returning the compliment when Gwen slung open her door saying, “I thought you had plans . . .” before she noticed him standing to the side. “Dominic, what’re you doing here?”
Shannon pointed to the food bags in his hand. “I saw he had his hands full, so I volunteered to knock for him.” Before her friend could reply, she gave a jaunty wave and walked off—quickly.
Dominic pushed past a bemused Gwen and walked straight to her kitchen. He set the bags on the table and made himself at home, pulling out plates for them. “Hey, baby.” He smiled as she once again started moving around nervously as she drew near. “I hope you’re hungry. I got a little bit of everything. I even made them throw in some extra fortune cookies since I know how much you love those things.” He moved to drop a kiss on her lips as he normally would, and he was relieved when she let him without moving away. That was a good sign, right?
“I’m not really that hungry,” she said right before the growling sounds of her stomach filled the room. When he cocked a brow at her, she admitted, “Well, maybe I am, after all. I was going to watch a movie tonight, so I’ll understand if you’d rather have yours at home.”
Dominic’s hands stalled in the process of opening the fried rice. He knew a brush-off when he heard one and apparently they were right back to that again. Well, he’d be damned if he was going anywhere before he knew what was going on with her. “Nah, that’s okay, babe. I’m fine with anything you want to watch. We can take our cartons to the coffee table and eat while we watch your movie.”
“But, you don’t even know what it is,” she blurted out, looking more than a little rattled.
“Doesn’t matter, baby. I don’t have to be in control all of the time. If you have something you want to watch, then that’s what we’ll do. I like most anything.” She wrinkled her nose up in a way that told him that she was stumped as to what to do next. He just ignored her plight and started taking their food to the coffee table. “Can you bring some drinks with you, babe?” he called over his shoulder. He was a little concerned about her sudden change in behavior, but he was also amused over her less than subtle attempts to get rid of him. She really should have figured out by now that he was more than a match for her in the stubborn category.
A few moments later, she settled next to him on the floor. Without a word, she picked up the television remote and flipped to one of the women’s channels. He managed to choke back a groan. He wouldn’t give her the pleasure of knowing that his hair was officially standing up. No self-respecting man watched that shit. As luck would have it, the movie was just starting so he was in for two hours of something called Monster-in-Law. “I just love this movie,” Gwen enthused from next to him.
“If you’ve already seen it before, maybe we should watch something new,” he suggested, hoping to God that she would agree.
When she turned those big eyes on him, he knew he was screwed. He’d do anything she wanted when she looked at him like that. “Or we can watch it,” he relented. “I mean there are probably parts you missed when you watched it before.”
“You’re right,” Gwen said around a mouthful of Kung Pao chicken. “I must have seen this like fifty times, and I always catch something new.”
Fifty times? What the fuck? Dominic looked down at his can of Diet Coke and knew he was going to need something stronger. “Baby, I’m going to run to my place and get a couple of beers.”
As he stood to leave, Gwen pulled her eyes from the movie and said, “I bought some for you at the market the other day. They’re in the refrigerator.” She seemed to wince as the words left her mouth as if she’d said the wrong thing to admit that she’d been thinking of him. What was going on with her? Maybe she was having a bad case of PMS, which would pretty much answer his question about the baby possibility. Before they went to bed tonight, if she let him stay, he’d ask her. Not the PMS question because he valued his nuts, but if she’d taken a test. If Gage was right, then she might know by now.
He walked back over to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Thank you, baby, I appreciate that.” Truer words were never spoken, he thought as he twisted the top off his Heineken. Hell, maybe he should have brought the whole six-pack back to the table. It appeared that Gwen was already ticked at him over something so looking like an alcoholic probably wasn’t going to hurt his case much more. “Hey, isn’t that Jennifer Lopez?” He pointed his chopsticks toward the television screen.