5 Days of Midnight Heat - Day 3

Life has taught Dominic a few hard lessons. The biggest: that the things you loved most could be lost or taken away so it’s best to keep your distance. However, Rebecca, is worth fighting for. He has to make things right between them. Clueless as to how to go about it, he turns to some old friends…

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“So, you do want to work things out with her?” Isabeau asked. “Because, we’ve talked about this before and still you never called her. I take it staring down a semi and winning made you realize something was missing?”

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Dominic had come up from the basement looking for a woman’s point of view. He’d wanted to speak with Isa alone, but instead found her and Noah together in the oversized lounge chair that fit the two of them perfectly. Noah’s arm was around her, Isabeau leaning against him as much as the chair back. “I knew something was missing before the accident,” he admitted. “But seeing her again…cemented it.”

Isabeau smiled, effectively but silently telling him she was pleased. “You want Rebecca, go get her.”

He rolled his eyes. “Wow, thanks. I’ve never heard that before.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me…I don’t bloody know! Tell me the secret.”

She looked up at him with a confused stare that failed to reassure. “What secret? What makes you think I know a secret?”

Dominic gestured to the chair, the two of them sitting as one. Connected. “This secret! How do I get to this?” Honestly, it was a little painful to look at them. “You two…you make it seem so easy.”

“Sure, it’s easy now, but getting here? You were there with us, how can you think it was easy?” Isabeau scooted to the front edge of the chair, separating herself from Noah, moving closer to the couch where Dominic sat. “Dom, you shared things with me once, things I don’t think you’ve ever shared with anyone before. About your childhood fears.”

She went straight for the jugular, didn’t she?

“Why did you tell me? Why me?”

He’d wanted to tell someone. As a way to let loose, to exorcise the demons in his head that never let up. Never went away no matter the passage of time. Why he’d chosen her, remained a mystery. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. It wasn’t that I’m safe. I could leave you, just like everyone else in your life has done at one time or another, even Noah.”

Dominic opened his mouth, prepared to defend his friend, then shut it. Noah had left him. At a time when he’d needed him most.

Noah startled. “I’ve never—”

“Yes you did, Noah,” Isabeau said, cutting off his argument. “After Danny died. You didn’t plan to, but you did, you left them all. Didn’t he, Dominic? He abandoned the band. He abandoned you.”

“Jesus,” Noah muttered.

Shit. This wasn’t the conversation Dom had in mind when he’d searched out Isabeau tonight.

“You wanted to trust someone,” she said, her expression softening along with her tone. “You wanted to trust me, so you did. I love you, Dom, like the brother I always wanted. But the person you need to open up to is Rebecca.”

All he could do was stare at her, his thoughts in a whirl.

“I know what you’re running from. I also know you’re tired of running.” He was. God, he was. “So, stop. Stop running, please. You want what Noah and I have, and you deserve it. But you can’t have it, you’ll never have it, until you stop running and talk to her. Trust her, Dom.”

He was just a musician who’d clawed his way out of the shit he’d been born in. Rebecca was smart, educated, with a good job, good breeding and a family. She deserved a guy who stayed in one place, with a home, a career, stability. She deserved the white picket fence.

He wasn’t that guy. He didn’t know how to be that guy.