Always?

I looked at Dom and he grinned, I couldn’t help but shake my head with a small smile.

“So we were drunk huh, I don’t remember us being drunk. I remember you pushing yourself at me, telling me it was what you wanted even though moments before you were in tears.” He smirked before moving so he was sitting next to me on the couch, I immediately felt the heat radiating from his body.

“Come on, you saw how peeved Jake was and after that and he seemed friendlier with you. I can’t believe you though,” I wacked him over the arm. “Being peeved at him all these years because of some lie he told?”

“What can I say? The girl I loved went home with my best friend and then he brags about you two having sex, what did you expect me to believe?” he curled up in the corner of the couch not facing me.

“And yet you believed him, you believed that I had a one night stand.”

“You have before Tay.”

“Yes in college, I’m not the same girl I was in college. The loss of my family did that.”

“I know Tay…” I watched as he leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes allowing me to completely soak in his good looks.

I have honestly missed Dom, I was right earlier when I said we’ve always been close. Me dating Jake made sure of that, it brought back something that I always felt with him, complete and utter trust. Dom was the first person I opened up to about the death of mine and Emily’s families, I could never tell my friends. I pulled away from all the friends I had in college, mainly because I didn’t feel up to get getting drunk all the time anymore. I put my focus into my studies in hopes of coming out with a somewhat decent transcript.

“If you want to check me out, just say so and I will strip right here.” I jumped at the sound of Dom’s voice, he opened his eyes just in time to see what I assumed was my face being bright red because it felt incredibly hot.

“God I forgot how adorable you can be when you blush like that,” his voice was low and hoarse as he leaned closer to me.

“You said you loved me….” I spoke softly and it was his turn to blush, I smiled in response.

“I have and I do.” He replied just as quietly.

“All this time, even while I was with Jake?”

“Always…” he trailed off before looking at his watch. “I really should go…”

“Do you have to meet a client as well?” I questioned and he looked at me before shaking his head.

“No but if I stay, I don’t know if I will be able to control anything.”

“Please stay, watch a movie with me. It would be great to have some company other than Emily all the time.”

“Tay…”

“Come on Dom, it’s Friday. We don’t have sex on Fridays,” I smirked at him and I received a chuckle from him and I was glad, to see him relaxed a bit more. “Plus I have two more days of bed rest, I doubt bed rest includes sex. I’m sure you can take my health into consideration.”

“You’re right, I will. Fine I will stay because you need the company, but I’m picking the movie.” He grinned before getting off the couch and picking a movie and putting it in.

“What did you pick?” I questioned as he sat down next to me and I automatically rested against him and one of his arms came around me.

“You’ll see,” he gave me a smile before brushing a loose strand of hair out of my face.

I couldn’t believe he happily put on Drop Dead Fred, he couldn’t understand how many times I watched this movie. He would watch it with me when I begged him, but this time I didn’t have too.

“Thank you,” I murmured softly before making myself more comfortable against him.

I don’t know when I fell asleep but at some I had woken up and found I was alone on the couch, I opened my eyes and saw Dom and Emily standing off to the side talking. They weren’t looking at me and I was able to just hear their conversation.

“You know she had a panic attack earlier, I told her you loved her and she panicked.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No Dom, I’m not. I wish I was.”

“She sort of panicked that night as well, I let it slip that I love her and she just blanked out of everything that happened until, well you know. The same thing happened earlier, it was mentioned and I saw the panic flash through her eyes.” He shrugged, but his voice was strained.

“She’s terrified of letting you back in Dom, she was a mess when you two dated the first time. If you loved her how did you let her get away or even let the relationship turn out like that?” he looked my way and I quickly closed my eyes hoping they realised I wasn’t awake.

“I didn’t realise what I felt until she was gone as for how it turned out, for both of us it was our first serious relationship. I think after the honeymoon period we may have both panicked a little and slipped into what we knew how to do.”

“And that was sex?” there was no response, I didn’t dare open my eyes in case they were both looking at me. “Just take it easy with her, she may be scared but she isn’t scared enough that she isn’t giving you a shot.”

Again there was no response but it was then I heard footsteps getting closer to me and it wasn’t long until I was picked up and laid back down on someone’s lap. I shifted around and realised I was laying back on Dom.

He softly stroked my hair and a lazy smile appeared on my face as I slowly opened my eyes and looked at Dom, there was so much love written on his face and it terrified me.

The Much Needed Conversation

When and where?

Was the reply I was met with to the message I sent out, I looked over at Emily and she shrugged. “I can leave the house if needed, I’m sure Nate will be more than happy to see me.”

“Now?”

“If they’re free.” I nodded.

Now?

20 minutes?

“They can be here in 20 minutes.” I placed my phone back down and looked at my best friend.

“Then I will go get ready and leave, everything will be fine Tay.” She squeezed my arm before getting up and leaving me alone with my thoughts.

20 minutes later there was a knock on the door and I took a deep breath before standing up and going to answer it. I opened it and wasn’t even given the chance to speak.

“What is he doing here?” both Jake and Dom questioned, both clearly annoyed at each other still. I frowned at them, I couldn’t believe those two still weren’t talking.

“I need to talk to both of you, I feel like this conversation needs to be done with the both of you at the same time. If you two can’t put aside whatever anger you have towards each other, then leave right now. But think about this, if you leave I’m done with you.” I spoke sternly and they both nodded but neither moved.

I stepped aside and motioned for them to enter the house and I led them towards the living room where I had been set up for the last week because I nothing better to do than binge watch Netflix because Emily had confiscation my laptop not allowing me to do any work.

“Let’s get one thing straight right now, I don’t care what you two fight and say between each other because in the end I’m the one that decides what I want. I hate that I’ve come between the two of you, you shouldn’t be mad at each other for it. We don’t know who hit me, let’s just move on because I’ve never been one to easily push people away since I have no family left. Agreed?”

They both mumbled a response but it seems like they agreed either way, “anything you would like to say?”

“What’s going to happen now?” Jake questioned and I took a deep breath.

“What’s going to happen now is I continue to figure out what I want, except this time there is no secrets. I have no idea what I want but I also know that Jake you and I deserve to see if we can get past our issues and I deserve to give Dom a shot.”

“So what we get three days a week each and the last one is a you day?” Jake snapped and I sent him a glare.

“Don’t Jake, I could just as easily kick you out.” I growled at him and it was then the hurt and anger washed over his face and I wanted to kick myself for hurting him like that. “I’m sorry, this is all new to me okay. I don’t know what to do but I know secrets make things worse, I ended up in hospital because of one and that was not telling you that Dom was interested in me and I was giving him a shot.”

I hated lying to Jake, I knew there would come a day where both Dom and I would have to be upfront about everything. I knew it, maybe if I did decide to stay with Jake I would come clean. Maybe him knowing the truth will prevent me from falling into old habits with Dom and causing another round of regret.

“So we just talk and hang out like we’ve been doing, while planning dates for every now and then?” Dom questioned and I nodded.

“Yes but we’ve all been friends for years, our friends are friends. We can’t just stop hanging out because of it, Penny and Sarah left me alone with Dom that night because they missed the guys. They went to catch up with the guys and everything was blown out of proportion from there.” I ended up getting out of the girls as to why they left me alone with Dom, I still hadn’t found out exactly what we spoke about yet but that was another conversation I was itching to have.

“Speaking of you and Dom, what is really going on there?” Jake questioned, I noticed the glare he sent his so called best friend I narrowed my eyes in response which caused him to be apologetic.

“As I said, we were drunk one night. Dom and I have always been close, you know this. How is it hard to believe I went to him when Emily was out one night, it ended up with us being drunk. It was then he told me how he felt.” I looked over at Dom, hoping more than anything he hadn’t said anything to Jake but the fact that they were being cold to each other made me believe otherwise.

It meant Dom and I could stick to this story, we could sit down and work on it properly and make sure we didn’t fuck it up.

“Dom?” Jake turned and looked at him, actually speaking to him since they arrived, there was a part of me that believed the first time since that night.

“It’s true Jake, I tried to tell you that night you were drunk and overreacting.”

“But I love her, how could you do that to me.”

“And I loved her first, I was in love with her when I let her walk away from me and you knew that. You were the one picking up the pieces and making sure my drunk ass didn’t get fired, but yet you still went home with her when you first met her. You knew exactly who she was but couldn’t help yourself.” I stared at Dom, trying to control my breathing. I knew another panic attack wouldn’t be good right now.

“Just so you know Dom, he didn’t come home with me, he just walked me home. He had to work hard to get my attention, just like you did.” I finally spoke, hoping to ease some of the anger that was housed between these two.

It was now I realised how it all started, Dom was peeved that Jake so easily got in my pants when Dom had to work damn hard for it. But truth was, most guys I’ve dated had to work damn hard for it. The only time they didn’t was in college when I spent a lot of my time drunk because it was something my friends and I did.

“You made me believe….” Dom stared at Jake before looking at me and I just shrugged. Dom and I never spoke about that night, I never thought anything of it but now, maybe it was because Dom was hurting about it.

“Tay was the only girl you couldn’t get to sleep with you on the first date, it pissed you off. I had no idea what was going to happen between the two of us, I just wanted a one up on you. I didn’t have her number and it took her three weeks to message me by that point I assumed she wasn’t interested in me anymore.” Jake spoke and a sly grin appeared on Dom’s face and I knew why.

“I had her message me in under two,” Dom spoke, clearly proud of his achievement and I shook my head at his actions. I always knew they were competitive and to say I wasn’t worried how it was going to go between the two of them now didn’t terrify me, I would be lying.

“Now that we’ve got it sorted I’m not a slut and I love playing hard to get, are you two going to start talking to each other and be friends again. For god sake, both of your works are intertwined with each other’s.”

“Speaking of work, I have a client meeting I have to get too. I will talk to you later Tay.” Jake got up and kissed my cheek before leaving, not even saying anything about leaving me alone with Dom.

Who knew one conversation between the three of us would fix their friendship, or were they that close that girl couldn’t break them apart.

Front door closed and I locked eyes with Dom, did I have the courage to have this conversation?

Homecoming

I had been home from the hospital for a week and the first couple of days I was almost going stir crazy because of Emily, she was constantly waking me up making sure I was still alive and breathing and hadn’t slipped into a coma. I know she was just doing what the doctor had requested of her but it took her five days to realise I would be fine and I was returning to work soon.

“So when are you planning on talking to the boys?” Emily questioned as she walked over and joined me on the couch where I was currently curled up watching a movie.

“Why should I? One of them hit me Em.”

“I know this Tay but they both feel incredibly guilty because of it, we don’t know which one of them exactly hit you. You were drunk, for all we know you tripped and fell into one of their fists.” I narrowed my eyes at her and she laughed. It wasn’t actually that farfetched because it did sound a lot like me.

“You shouldn’t push two of the most important people in your life out because of this one accident, if you pushed people away that easily then Jake wouldn’t be trying to win you over.”

“You know those two are acting like I’m a prize?”

“Well essentially you are,” my eyes went wide and my jaw dropped staring at her. “Oh come on, those two are fighting for your attention. They want to win and have you as theirs and no one else’s, they hate having to share and now they both know they’re sharing you with each other. You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t be a trophy wife, they also know that. They just want you.” I looked away from her.

Before that night I was beginning to think maybe I was getting closer to working out what exactly it was that I wanted, but now after what happened between Jake and Dom, I had no idea.

“They both love you,” I scoffed.

“Dom doesn’t love me, he loves sex.” I replied before focusing back on the T.V.

“Not true, turns out he hated how he let you leave like you did but he wanted you to be happy. He regrets letting you go home with Jake that night when you first met Jake, he’s always loved you. It’s why he willingly let his best friend’s girl have an affair because he was in love with said girl. He couldn’t lose you to Jake, especially when he knew you weren’t completely happy with Jake.” I slowly turned and stared at her, what the hell did she just say?

It was then I was having trouble breathing, my heart rate had picked up and I felt like I was suffocating.

“Breath, slowly. In and out, lean over and focus on your breathing. Just in and out,” Emily spoke soothingly but it wasn’t helping, I was still slowly suffocating.

We sat there in silence while I tried to calm down and it slowly happened, my breathing returned to normal and my heart rate lowered.

I looked up at Emily and I could tell she was worried, “thank you.”

“You’ve never had a panic attack before, what happened?”

“No idea but how do you know Dom loves me?” I questioned, putting aside the panic attack. I just wanted to find out how Emily knew this.

“I spoke with him when you were talking to Jake, some things were said. Tay both those guys love you unconditionally, you can’t push them away. You need to move past this and talk to them and figure out what you want so they can know, either pick one of them or none of them. They deserve to know, they don’t deserve to be strung along, this has gone on long enough.” I shook my head.

“I could have died Em or don’t you realise that?”

“No I do, you don’t understand how terrified I was after receiving that phone call from Penny, she couldn’t tell me anything aside from you being taken to hospital in an ambulance. I had no idea what was going on and I was terrified I was going to lose you.”

My heart broke at the sight of tears appearing in her eyes, she was my best friend, my sister and the only family I had left. Both of us had lost our parents and I had lost my little brother while we were at college, our parents were all in the one car together heading out to visit us and they died in a car accident, some at the scene and the others in the hospital within the next 48 hours.

Within the space of two days my entire family had been ripped apart and broken because of some drunk driver, the only family I had left was Emily and nothing would break us apart now.

“I’m sorry you went through that again Em,” I leaned over and hugged her.

“It’s fine, you are still here and that’s all that matters but you really do need to talk to the boys.” I nodded and pulled away from her before leaning over and picking up my phone to send a message.

We need to talk.