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Shiloh let out another strained laugh, but instead of pulling back, he took Dom’s hand in his. “No, you never have. But I want you to promise that if there’s ever a time you need to prioritize someone else over me…”
“Won’t ever happen,” Dom vowed.
Shiloh tugged on his hand hard enough to hurt. “I’m being serious. If there’s ever a time where you need to—where you meet someone who makes you want to—then you’ll tell me.”
It was an easy promise to make because Dom knew already that would never be the case. “I swear on this bakery that I would tell you.”
Shiloh sniffed, then looked past him toward the hallway. “Are you working?”
“Hiding from my feelings and my empty house,” Dom confessed.
Shiloh rolled his eyes and pulled Dom toward the front door. “Come on, you fucking lunatic. Dad made spagbol from a jar, and it’s not a Friday night unless I can hear you complaining about how shit it tastes.”
Dom laughed, allowing Shiloh to pull him out of the shop. Their fingers tangled as they started up the road, and for the first time since Shiloh had left him by the sea, he felt like everything was going to be okay.
Ten
Shiloh was tipping milk into his third cup of tea that afternoon when a body darkened his doorway. He looked up, half expecting some irate helicopter parent or maybe the headmaster there to finally tell him that he was sacked because he was shit at teaching small children.
Instead, he found Sarah, who was looking a bit green around the edges. She offered him a small smile as she shut the door behind her, then took one of the chairs from the desk nearest to Shiloh’s and sat down.
“Tea?” he offered. He was still a bit cross with her for meddling in Dom’s life, but he’d come to accept that as one of her personality flaws. And it wasn’t like he was marrying her anyway.
She shook her head, then bit down on her thumbnail before spitting it out and quickly rubbing at the varnish, which looked freshly done. “Can I ask you something?”
“Even if I said no, would that stop you?”
Her bottom lip wobbled, and he felt a surge of panic. She’d never reacted to snark with emotion before unless extreme sarcasm counted.
“Sarah?”
“God, I really am a fucking monster, aren’t I?”
He blinked at her. “Darling, what are you talking about? What’s happened?”
“Jules told his mum he was going to propose to me, and she started crying. Literally, like heaving sobs I could hear through his phone.” She swallowed thickly, and he could tell she was genuinely upset. “She went on this long tirade about how I’m going to ruin his life. That she hoped he’d outgrow this need to be rebellious by bringing someone like me home. And I figured it was just because I’m poor, you know?”
Shiloh hated that he understood, but he did. Jules’s parents had never come around. Ever. And Shiloh knew there was a reason why. “It wasn’t that?”
“No. That wouldn’t bother me. I’ve been bullied about secondhand clothes and being abandoned for most of my life.” She waved it off, and he hated that she felt like it was nothing.
“So what was her reason?”
“That I’m cruel. That I’m unkind. That I’ve made Jules feel like shit about himself. She said I don’t take anything seriously to the point that he’s having a faux wedding with me because if he tried the real thing, I’d laugh in his face and make him feel stupid.”
Shiloh said nothing because he wasn’t entirely sure those criticisms were a lie. Jules loved her, but Sarah had more than once in the past made him feel like shit. In the beginning, she’d been insecure about his money and his upbringing. She pushed him harder and harder, believing she could drive him off before he left her broken hearted, and it took years to get over that.
She wasn’t that way anymore, but he could see why Jules’s mum might hold a grudge.
And she was absolutely right about the wedding. The only difference was, Shiloh didn’t think Jules actually cared about the legal part of being married. He just wanted Sarah.
“I’ve been mean to you and Dom,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “It’s not just Jules. I’m such a raging bitch to the people I love, and…and I don’t know why I just realized it. But fuck me. I’m going to lose you, aren’t I?”
Shiloh quickly stood, coming around the desk to pull her into a hug. He rocked her as she cried and tried to figure out what to say because while she wasn’t going to lose them, she did make it hard to be around her sometimes. When her mind was made up, when she was feeling stubborn, being right was more important to her than how other people felt.
It was hard not to blame her for how wrong things had been with Dom lately. But he held grace for her in ways he didn’t for most people because he was there and present when she’d been through some of the worst moments of her life.
And he knew what that did to a person.
