Beautiful Graves(30)
When he was sick.
I feel even more overjoyed when we walk inside and the innkeeper, a woman named Dana, shows us to our room. Dom and I follow her, holding hands. I’m pretty sure I’m grinning like an idiot when I notice how she looks at us. With quiet approval. He tells her he’s been here many times, and she shares that this is her first year running the place. Before she leaves, she hands us a brochure. Dom takes it and promises to try at least two of the things she suggests we do. He pushes the door open. The room is small but gorgeous. With crown moldings, oriental carpets, and nautical art. The balcony overlooks a golf course.
Dom walks over to the nightstand and picks up a small wooden ship. A smile touches his lips. I wrap my arms around him from behind, resting my head against his back.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hello.”
“What’s up, the World’s Most Perfect Guy?”
“Please stop calling me that. You make me sound like Chris Evans, and he looks like a douche.” He puts the small woodwork down, turning around to gather me in his arms. “See that little ship I was holding?”
“Yeah.” I peek behind his shoulder to take a better look at it. It’s handcrafted, made from rosewood, with a long mast and yellow linen.
“When Seph and I were small and we used to come here, we would play with that ship all the time. In this specific room, actually. That’s why I asked for it. We had this thing where we always tried to steal the ship when it was time to leave, and my mom always caught us and made us put it back. It was exasperating.” He lets out a little laugh.
“And adorable,” I add.
“Sure. The first decade. We did it until I was a junior in college.”
Laughing, I kiss his chin. “And you couldn’t find a replica?”
He shakes his head. “Apparently, hundreds of hours are required to complete one model, and the design belongs to this woodturner who died decades ago. I found models that came close, but never an identical. And anyway, it’s about the nostalgia. This ship symbolizes cartwheels on the beach, lobster rolls, and Mom and Dad making out when they thought we weren’t looking.” He shudders comically.
Jealousy sinks its claws into me when I picture his family. They sound like a normal happy family. I remind myself that they’ve had their fair share of disasters. That I, too, have precious memories with my family. Even if they’re now tainted by what I’ve done.
“So what do you wanna do tonight?” I ask, giving Dom my back so I can unpack, but also because I don’t want him to see whatever’s on my face.
“You,” he deadpans. “Kidding. There’s a place down the road. You’re going to love it. They have the best stuffed quahog. And then we’ll have lobster ice cream.”
I can’t unhear Dom’s joke. It’s not like it hasn’t occurred to me. That he brought us here so he could seal the deal. A Sean Dunham move, only with more finesse. This is not the Ritz-Carlton after a couple of weeks of fooling around but a charming, nostalgic inn after four weeks. Still . . . I don’t know if I like that the decision for us to have sex was one sided.
“Lobster ice cream?” I gag. “Is that a thing?”
“It’s a thing, and it’s the best idea since sliced bread,” he assures me, then falls on the mattress and makes a snow angel on it.
“Just don’t get bummed if I puke publicly when I taste it.” I unzip my suitcase, only to find out that Nora stuffed it with an unholy amount of lingerie that does not belong to me. The tags are still attached. Some of these items have holes in places no one has business touching in the human body. I feel my ears pinking. I quickly zip the suitcase before Dom sees it. Subtlety is definitely not my roommate’s forte.
“You won’t,” Dom reassures me. “We get each other.”
“Do you think we get each other?” I turn to him.
He tilts his head from his position on the bed to look at me. “Of course. Mark my words, lobster ice cream is going to be your favorite thing in the world by the end of tonight.”
The lobster ice cream tastes awful.
Like cookie dough ice cream, but with fishy parts instead of Oreos. It reminds me of football field–frosted cakes. Exactly the kind of dessert debauchery that inspires trust issues between humans and food.
The stuffed quahog wasn’t anything to write home about either. This is more than a simple culinary disappointment. It’s a thumb-in-nose moment for our entire relationship. Dom and I are supposed to get each other. No soulmate of mine can ever accept a travesty such as lobster ice cream as a legitimate dessert. I’m still trying to get over Nickelback.
Listen to yourself, Ever. Does this sound like a sane person to you?
So I focus on the good parts. There is magic. As we walk back to the inn from Main Street, holding hands, I notice that the air is extra crisp. That the ocean twinkles in the dark like tiny black diamonds. That the man nuzzling my neck looks like a Disney prince. And I’m not talking Kristoff or Prince Ferdinand. Dom is Prince Eric or Prince Naveen hot.
I remind myself that Dom is giving me an introduction to his childhood, to his family, to the DNA of his soul. Of course he loves seafood and questionable ice cream flavors and Nickelback. Each of these things has a nostalgic weight attached to it. I try to think what it would feel like if Dom told me he hated the Painted Ladies of San Francisco, or Oasis, or Apple Jacks. I would wrestle him to the floor until he took it back.