Don't Touch Her Act 2: Finding Peace

Chapter Seventy-Six

𝓥𝓲𝓸𝓵𝓮𝓽

Dominic pulled me into his arms and held tightly. "How are you?" I asked.

He pulled away after a long moment, keeping his hands on my arms. "Alright," he said. I opened my mouth to speak because I didn't quite believe him, but he beat me to it. "Really. Katie hasn't been talking much," he said. "Or my dad."

I smiled sympathically, "I'm sorry." Even as I said it, tears surfaced. I looked down and swallowed.

He looked at me, "I didn't mean for this whole Paris thing to be so last minute. I was going to tell you sooner."

"I understand."

He took me into his arms again, kissing the side of my face and then my forehead. "I missed you.. a lot," he admitted, laughing weakly.

I smiled and looked down sheepishly, "I might have too."

"Yeah?.. Well, alright, come on, I want to do something with you." He took my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine, bringing my knuckles up to his lips. Butterflies burst in my stomach.

"So, I haven't said a lot about it, but yeah, I'm going to be there for a month, but it's going to be a really good learning experience for me."

I nodded, "like, what?"

"Like the design process of aircraft or I can analyze performance characteristics of an aircraft, lots of other stuff."

"Oh.. Okay, cool."

He released a breathy laugh. "Oh, Violet, you're cute." He led me down the sidewalk, keeping my body strangely close to his.

Suddenly, he stopped, causing me to bump into his arm. He put his hand on the side of my head and then slid it down to my shoulder. "In here."

He followed me inside. A bookstore.

I looked at him, "but you just got me some."

"That was weeks ago, Love."

"Still," I mumbled. He was going to Paris for an entire month and was choosing to spend money on me. Couldn't he - or wouldn't he need to use that, then?

He took my hand when he saw I wasn't moving and led me deeper in. Eventually, I let go of his hand to reach for books and gradually started shopping.

I checked prices and chose cheaper ones, holding them against my chest before Dominic would take them from me to hold.

I added the prices up in my head to the ever-growing bill of return money. I should pay him back before he leaves on Monday.