"You too,” Dominic replied, with a warmth that was genuine.
By the following week, Dominic was asking Eric about the chess club, and Eric was explaining Mason's latest tactical innovation. Charlotte was watching from her classroom doorway thinking:How did this become my life?
Kate was the harder sell.
Kate had built a wall around Charlotte that made Charlotte's own defenses look like tissue paper. She'd carried Charlotte out of the Whitley Hotel, driven her to Astoria, held her while she sobbed, threatened to call the police on Dominic when he sat outside her building. Kate didn't forgive easily, and she didn'ttrust men who'd hurt her best friend. She regarded Dominic's reformation with skepticism. At first.
The thaw started at the showcase prep meeting. Dominic had stayed late to help Charlotte and Kate assemble display boards for the student artwork — actual manual labor, cutting poster board, taping labels, arranging Oliver's dragons in chronological order. Kate had been ignoring him, a frostiness that could've chilled the room, until Dominic held up one of Oliver's early drawings — the dragon with sneakers — and said, "This one's my favorite. He told me the sneakers are Jordans because his cousin has Jordans."
Kate looked at Dominic. "Oliver told you about his cousin?"
"He told me his cousin's name is DeShawn, lives in the Bronx and he's going to play for the Knicks. Oliver's words, not mine."
Kate was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "DeShawn's a good kid. He came to Oliver's birthday party last year and organized a whole basketball tournament in the backyard."
"Oliver mentioned that too."
Kate studied him. Charlotte held her breath.
"You actually listen to them," Kate said slowly.
"I'm learning to."
Kate nodded and went back to cutting poster board. But the frostiness had dropped by several degrees, and by the end of the evening, she'd accepted coffee from Dominic's thermos without comment, which in Kate's language was practically an embrace.
Over the weeks that followed, Kate graduated from cold tolerance to cautious neutrality to something approaching warmth. She started including Dominic in faculty lounge conversations. She asked his opinion on a fundraiser sponsorship pitch. She even laughed at one of his jokes, then immediately looked annoyed at herself for laughing.
Charlotte watched it happen, smiling. He was indeed courting her. This was patient, deliberate, unhurried. He wasalso learning her. Learning the people she loved and letting them learn him.
It was a Thursday, late afternoon, the school emptying around them. They were in the conference room finishing up the final showcase logistics. Charlotte was making notes about student transportation when Dominic said, casually, as if he were mentioning the weather:
"I talked to your parents."
Her pen stopped.
"I called your dad. Kate gave me his number." Dominic paused, and for the first time all afternoon, he looked uncertain. "I asked if I could come by. To talk to them. To apologize."
Charlotte set the pen down. "You called my father."
"I did."
"My father. The man who was half out of his seat at the wedding ready to come after you."
"That's the one." Dominic's jaw worked. "I told him I owed them both an apology. A real one. Face to face. Not a letter, not a message through you. I need to sit across from the people who watched me humiliate their daughter and tell them I'm sorry."
Charlotte stared at the table. "What did he say?" she asked finally.
"He was quiet for a long time. Then he said, 'Sunday. Five o'clock. Don't be late.' And hung up."
"That's it?"
"That's it. No small talk. Just the address and the time." He met her eyes. "I know they might not forgive me. I know your dad might spend the whole evening looking at me like he wants to throw me through a wall. But I can't build something with you while the people who love you most are carrying what I did. They deserve to hear me say it. To my face. Where I can't hide behind a card or a voicemail."
She was quiet. The conference room hummed with its fluorescent light, its faint smell of dry-erase markers, its cargo of weeks and weeks of Thursdays.
"He'll be tough on you," she said.
"I'd be worried if he wasn't."
