“Isn’t that something you want? Someone to come home to at night? Someone that you know is there for you always?”

I had never actually seen it up close and personal until I met Saint and Nash, but now, with that entire group of friends and family, I knew it existed and was beautiful. I had to admit I wanted it for myself. I wanted it with Asa.

Dom made a face and settled back in his chair. He had to shift his body and I stuck my tongue out at him when his cast banged into me.

“I don’t know what I want anymore. I wanted to be a cop, to follow in my dad’s footsteps and take care of my family.” His pitch dropped and his eyes got darker. “But now my sisters are taking care of me and I don’t know what I’m going to do if I can’t go back to DPD, so yeah …” He trailed off. “I just don’t know. But I do know that if what you’re looking for is some easy kind of happy-ever-after, maybe you should consider looking for it with a guy that doesn’t have a criminal record as long as my arm. I know he’s gorgeous and that southern drawl is hard to resist, but you know better.”

I winced because he might as well have been talking about my mom. She had never been one to resist a pretty face and it never worked out well for her or me when I was growing up. Desperation was such an ugly and dangerous emotion.

“When you first got hurt and I couldn’t deal with it, couldn’t handle that I felt so responsible, I sort of went a little crazy.” I pushed my plate out of the way and leaned a little closer so that Dom could tell what I was saying to him was important. “I was acting irresponsible, spinning out of control, and somehow, someway, Asa was the one that kept catching me before I went all the way over the edge. I was hating on myself, my life, every choice I had ever made, and no one could stop me from choking on it except for him.”

Dom copied my pose and we were leaning into each other intently, our voices low, and the seriousness of what we were talking about thick between us. I had never felt for a guy what I felt for Asa Cross, and while Dom would never make me justify my choice, it was important that I impart to him just how serious I was about breaking through that cloak of warning and retreat Asa kept throwing up around us. Even as he stuck out a hand to lure me closer every now and again.

“He’s done a lot of wrong in his time, and instead of apologizing for it, trying to repent for it, he’s holding on to it so tightly that it’s suffocating him from the inside out. He tells me all the time he’s a bad guy, he tells me over and over that he’s capable of really bad things, and I believe him. I really do. But I also believe if he let go, just forgave himself for some of those mistakes and regrets that weigh him down, he could grow, float to the top of the ocean of past misdeeds, and become the guy he is supposed to be now. His self-loathing made me see how dangerous not being able to forgive myself for what happened to you could be.”

Dom swore. “What if he never lets it go, Royal? Are you going to sink to the bottom with him? You’re telling me you’re willing to drown for this guy that you aren’t even really dating?”

I couldn’t answer that. Every time Asa told me to go away, told me that we were bound to implode, it just made me more determined to hold on to him. When I had first started chasing him, it had been about him trying to save me from myself. Now I wasn’t sure who was trying to save who or if we were just destined to destroy each other like he seemed so certain we were.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m a strong swimmer, and hopefully it won’t come to that.”

The mood was somber after that and Dom decided to fill me in on every single episode of Veronica Mars he had been watching on Netflix while he was laid up. It was so nice to have our easy camaraderie back without all my tension and anxiety keeping distance between us. I could tell Dom had missed having the regular old me around. I stopped to get ice cream to take back to Ari and then the three of us spent the rest of the day hanging out like we used to do when we were kids. It was exactly what I needed to gear up for my date or whatever it was that I was going on with Asa later that night.

I was anxious because he wouldn’t tell me what he had planned, and beyond going to breakfast or lunch after I spent the night with him, we hadn’t really ever done anything alone together. This was our first, actual, out-of-bed spending time together, and I was practically giddy that he had been the one to initiate it. I could talk a big game about being willing to go under for him, but really I needed Asa to do more than tread water if this thing between us was ever going to go anywhere.