Page 131 of By A Thread

“Why are you so nice to me?” I wondered out loud. “I’m an asshole, and you’re all like ‘I’ll walk your dog.’”

“Brownie isn’t responsible for his father’s personality,” she pointed out.

I felt like there was a deeper truth ringing around in those words, but I was distracted by her red dress and that light lemony scent that followed her everywhere.

I led the way into the kitchen and brushed off Ally’s concerns about me falling and hitting my head in the backyard. “Pfft. I have perfect balance,” I scoffed.

I tripped over a table leg and barely managed to stop myself from taking a header off the deck.

My backyard was a neatly landscaped scrap of—now dead—grass enclosed by a fence tall enough that my enthusiastic dog couldn’t vault over. He’d certainly tried since the Vargases next door got their beagle, Cornelius. Brownie trotted out to the middle of the grass to do his good dog business, and since I was here and a man, I joined him in a communal pissing.

Back inside, I found Ally plating up burgers in the kitchen.

“You’ve got a nice place here, Dom,” she said, sliding a tall glass of water in my direction.

Of course I did.

“You’re so beautiful,” I sighed, sinking down on a stool. “Not just because you’re in that dumb guy’s dress. But like all the time. You just light up every room you walk into. It’s like the sun coming up. Every time I see you, I feel better. I love it when you walk into a room.”

“Dom.”

“I’m super drunk, Ally. You can’t hold any of this against me.”

“I know,” she said and stroked a hand through my hair. “We’ll never speak of this again.”

She took the stool next to me, and we ate greasy burgers in companionable silence in my kitchen. It might have been the scotch talking, but it felt right. I wanted more of this. More of Ally Morales in my home.

Finished, she put our plates in the sink, topped off Brownie’s water, and returned to me.

“Let’s get you upstairs,” she said.

“’Kay.”

She helped me up two flights of stairs and put up with me stopping to rest with my face in her hair every few steps. I was in excellent condition. But being embarrassingly intoxicated provided the perfect excuse for me to sniff her hair.

She didn’t need directions to my room. And I hoped that meant she’d spent as much time thinking about that night that she’d been here as I had.

“Stay?” I breathed when I flopped down on the bed. My eyelids were so heavy.

She flicked on the bedside lamp, and I felt her move around the mattress.

She untied one of my shoes. “Dom, I can’t do that. And you don’t want me to do that.”

But I really, really did.“This bed is so big. And Jersey is so far.”

“Yeah, well, I’m taking your car,” she said.

“You can have anything you want,” I offered. I was a magnanimous drunk guy. Especially when it came to the woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Just not you,” she said. I was too drunk to tell if she was teasing or serious.

“Just not me,” I agreed. “I can’t be like him. I mean, not more than I already am.”

“Who?” she asked.

“My dad. He sucks. Hate ’im.”

“I know,” she said, and I felt the shoe slide off my foot.