Chapter Six
Dominic
After the debacle from yesterday, I expected the strange day I had at work.With my two-year absence, people were already going to be looking my way.
Today, though, they were looking for a different reason.It was a mingle of curiosity and surprise.
They would have been curious to know what would possess a sweet woman like Candace Ricci to slap me.Me, one of the owners of the company.Me, one of the D'Agostino brothers.
The surprise would have come from the fact that I allowed it.
I rarely give two fucks what people think, but today was different.It heightened the sting of shame I already felt.
Like Tristan, I do the company accounts, so I distracted myself with work and tried to get back into the swing of things.There was enough work to keep me busy, but I left after lunch, opting to spend the rest of the afternoon at the beach to restructure my plans to see Candace.
I still want to see her. Just because yesterday was shit, and she told me to leave her alone doesn't mean I'm going to.I'm not going to be a pussy and hide.I just have to figure out a better way to approach her.
The goal is to apologize to her properly.After that... I guess whatever happens won't matter.
My doorbell rings just before six, and I open it to find Tristan standing on the other side.
I'm not surprised to see him.I was expecting one or both of my brothers to come and see me at some point.
When I got to work this morning and met them for coffee, I could see them both itching to talk about Candace.Neither did. It looks like this was the idea they came up with, and I could have preempted that Tristan would be the first to come.Even though they call me the kid there isn't that much of a difference in age between the three of us, but I've always been closer to Tristan.
“Hey, hope you weren’t busy,” Tristan beams.
“Nope, I wasn't.”
“Good, let’s have a smoke on the terrace.”
When he walks in, he pulls out a pack of our favorite Cuban cigars from the paper bag he's carrying, opens it, and tosses me one.He then walks ahead of me like this is his place and I’m the one visiting.What’s nice is we feel like nothing’s happened,like nothing’s changed, like I never left.
We head out to the terrace, and he takes off his biker jacket.When we sit opposite each other on the wicker chairs he lights up our cigars.
A wave of nostalgia washes over me as I remember the first time we did this.It was back in Stormy Creek.
He was sixteen, and I was fifteen.We stole Pa’s cigars and the fools we were thought it would be cool to smoke in his office.
I chuckle to myself and Tristan looks at me like he knows what I’m thinking.
“Thinking about that time with Pa?” He grins, moving a lock of his hair away from his eye.
I burst out laughing. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever smoke a cigar without remembering that.We were so stupid Tristan.”
“Yeah, me more than you. I was the one sitting in his chair getting ashes all over his stuff.”
“Tristan, that was nothing. You set his office on fire.”
“I suppose I did.”
Pa was furious as fuck. We were lucky we didn’t set the entire house on fire and ourselves.The only thing that didn’t burn was the chair and the documents on the desk.
Those documents and the desk were the start of D’Agostinos Inc.
“Look how far we’ve come since then.”
“We have. We've all changed too."