He shakes his head. Unease fills me at the expression on his face.
“Let me guess, you don’t want to be a Mr. Mom?”
I watch him go still, as he considers the question. My stomach drops, he doesn’t want kids. It’s all over him. “No. When the time comes, I’ll try and be a good dad.” The words ring false, I have known him less than twenty-four hours. It makes no sense how I know he’s lying, especially when he’s doing it so damn well. “I’ll change diapers and feed him or her, but no to Mr. Mom.”
“How many kids do you want?” I force a fake smile to the question.
His eyes are glued to the road. “Never thought about it.”
Liar.
“However many you want works for me. You’re the one who has to make them. Which after seeing my cousins go through things, I found out is harder than most people think. You can make all the plans you want when it comes to having kids, then life happens.”
“What happened?” Finally, he’s honest for a brief moment.
A shrug. “There were issues.”
Something tells me those issues were painful ones. Were those issues why he didn’t want kids? “But you want to wait. How long again?”
“I don’t think two years or so is that long of a wait. You’re young still, only twenty-two.”
He says “twenty-two” with a grimace. I remember Richard’s weird moment on the phone, the way he seemed to get off on my youth and inexperience. God, I was so fucking stupid. How stupid am I that I wish I couldn’t see Dominic so clearly right now? Will he agree in the end or back out once the two years are up? If I thought there was a chance of us actually making it two years, I would ask him. Only I don’t, so it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to turn the screws on him. “What if I said I wanted five kids?”
No reaction. I close my eyes; how the hell can I read him, yet never saw Richard for what he was?
“If that’s how many you want then that’s how many we’ll have. For now though, are you on birth control?”
I shake my head. “No, Rich—I was promised everything I said I wanted. I’m guessing to keep me happy and stupid.”
A nod. “Bethany has talked about an implant in the arm as the best, safest birth control. I would prefer you use it over the pill.”
“Who is Bethany and what’s wrong with the pill?”
“Too many chances of forgetting. She is Dante’s wife, one of those three cousins. Bethany is also a physician’s assistant, or she was. For now she’s doing the stay-at-home thing, she just had their first baby last year. She said with the implant there is basically no chance over all the rest. Those IUDs aren’t as effective as they say, and if you get pregnant with one it could cause problems.”
Since it doesn’t matter, I agree, the better to make him think I’ve given up. “Okay, if you think it’s the best thing. I do have a hard time remembering to take pills and vitamins. Will you let me work? Can I keep translating?”
“You can do it from home on your own schedule, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s fine. If you want to make a friend of Pop then share the books you translate, there’s nothing he likes more than getting books before everyone else.”
“Ah, that’s right, they call him the librarian. And you’re Dom the bomb, be careful or he’ll explode.”
He shakes his head. “Stupid nicknames. I got it when I was a teenager. I never really exploded. It’s stupid.”
“I don’t know, the other men seemed to say it with respect. A lot of them seemed to respect and fear you, which Johnny said was what made you so good. Why didn’t you ever come to the condo, to New York?”
“I’m not the only one, there were a few others. I didn’t want it to start up talk of me becoming underboss then Don again.”
“You don’t want to be Don?” I thought that was the brass ring all made men wanted.
“No.” The word comes hard and fast. “I don’t want to deal with all the bullshit that comes with it. I have my business, it’s enough for me.”
“Huh.”
“What?”