it’s my letter to him. The writing is faded, but it’s still legible. It’s my letter.
“I take it with me everywhere I go. Always have,” he says. He smiles at me as tears fill my eyes, then he goes back to his food like it’s no big deal.
But it is. To me, it is.
“I can’t believe you still have this after all this time. It’s been ten years, Dominic. Why do you still have this?” I ask as my voice starts to shake with emotion.
“Because you wrote it,” he replies nonchalantly. “My mother gave it to me the day of my father’s funeral. It goes where I go.”
“This is incredible,” I say, doing my best to shake away the tears. I fold up the paper and hand it back to him, and he pushes it into his back pocket, its home for the past ten years.
We finish our dinner—which Dominic pays for without hesitation—and make our way to the elevator. The doors close behind us and I’m filled with all kinds of emotions. On one hand, Dominic admitted he’s still in the mob, and on the other hand, he still carries my letter around with him every single day, and he’s been doing it for a decade straight. If that isn’t love, then what the hell do you call it? But he said it all so casually that I’m not sure how he even feels about me. The fact that he’s still carrying my letter around has to mean something, though. Right? I mean, he wouldn’t do that if he didn’t care. Would he?
The elevator opens and I die inside, because I don’t want the night to end. We’ve stopped on the floor of my suite, and Dominic walks me to my door.
“I’m sure you’re probably tired after all the traveling and whatnot,” he says. “Sorry I didn’t let you rest before asking you out to dinner, but I’m really glad you came.”
“It was my pleasure. Thanks for asking. I’ll definitely sleep well tonight. I had a good time, though. It was good catching up.”
“Yeah, it was. But we still have more catching up to do. Ten years’ worth. So, I have to see you again. And then again after that. And probably again after that, too.”
We both laugh, and my insides fill up with teeny-tiny butterflies.
“Well, I have to report to the hospital tomorrow now that I’m here,” I reply.
“Okay, that’s cool. Just call me whenever you’re free.” Before he leaves, he gives me a River City business card that has his number on it, then he grabs my hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing it softly as he looks me in the eyes.
I melt.
Then he turns on his heel and walks away.
I watch him until he turns the corner and is out of sight. I’m overcome with feelings of happiness, anxiety, joy, and fear. It’s a whole buffet of feelings that bring tears to my eyes without me being able to fully understand why.
Once inside my amazing suite, I sit on my bed for fifteen minutes before I’m able to move. I have to take my time breathing all of this in. It’s like I’m right back in the ninth grade. Nothing has changed, even though everything has. There’s so much I don’t know, but the things I do know are enough for now.
He’s even more perfect now than he was before I left, and this was the perfect beginning to my new life in St. Louis. I have a feeling there’s more nights like this just around the corner, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.
He’s still perfect.
He’s still Dominic.
He quadruple-checks both nine millimeters to make sure everything’s good to go. The knife is there, too. The last thing Tommy needs is to get inside and find out he doesn’t have all the necessary tools to do the job.
Everything’s good to go, so he slowly and quietly turns the knob. There’s an alarm system, but Charlie disabled that about sixty seconds ago, so Tommy doesn’t have to worry about cops showing up just because he opened the door.
It’s dark inside. Luckily, Tommy’s been waiting outside the house in the dark for the past hour so his eyes are adjusted. He can see the end table sitting in front of him, waiting to tell on him if he hits it. There’s piles of clothes sprawled out on the floor that Tommy has to avoid just in case there’s something loud under them. He can also see the