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“Hardware store.” She glanced over her shoulder. “He needed screws. Apparently the six thousand he already owns weren’t the right ones.”
A breath escaped Gavin that almost passed for a laugh.
“Did you sleep?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She cut the sandwich in half and brought it over with a glass of lemonade. “Eat.”
Gavin picked up a half, and for a while, she let him do that without asking anything else, but he knew she was dying to ask more about Dom.
“I texted him,” he said eventually. She closed her book over her hand and looked at him expectantly. “He hasn’t answered.”
“How long has it been?”
Gavin glanced at the clock above the stove. “Half an hour.”
She looked at him over her glasses.
“I know,” he muttered.
His mother reached across the table and brushed a crumb from his sleeve. “Do you have any pictures? I’d like to see them.”
He’d left the phone upstairs so he would stop checking it. Now he went to get it, checked it anyway, and came back with the photo he’d taken a few mornings earlier already pulled up on the screen. Dom was sitting at the kitchen island with Lucia in his lap, his hair sticking up on one side. She had one hand wrapped around his finger and the other planted against his chin. He was wearing one of Gavin’s shirts and smiling down at Lucia. His mother took the phone carefully.
“Oh, look at her.” Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “She looks like him.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s very handsome,” she said approvingly.
“He knows,” Gavin said with a laugh. She smiled at that, and Gavin found himself leaning closer to swipe through the other pictures. “She’s got a strong grip. You have to watch your shirt. And your hair.”
His mother moved the phone and swiped back a picture, tilting her head to study it. Gavin was asleep on Dom’s couch with Lucia stretched along his chest, her head tucked beneath his chin. Dom had sent it to him with a complaint about both of them abandoning him before he’d picked a movie.
“Who took this one?” she asked.
“Dom.”
“Can you send it to me?” Gavin looked at her. “What? I’d like to have it.”
Gavin rolled his eyes but sent the picture just as his father walked into the kitchen. His mother gestured to his phone.
“Show your father the pictures.”
Gavin unlocked his phone and handed it over. His father took it, his expression shifting into recognition.
“Wait,” he said. He looked up at Gavin. “Your Dominic is Dominic Rizzo?”
“Who’s Dominic Rizzo?” His mother looked confused.
His father turned the phone toward her and pointed at it. “Dominic Rizzo. The baseball player.”
His mother leaned closer. “Okay. I guess he looks familiar.”
Gavin snorted, and his father continued to look from the phone to Gavin, still looking surprised. “You’re dating Dominic Rizzo?”
Gavin rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
