Dominic set his hot dog back down without taking a bite and leaned forward on the table, looking stunned. “What did these men do who came home with you, then? Some of them were there all night.”
Ava looked down, rubbing her finger in circles on the tabletop. God, this had gotten embarrassing. Admitting how messed up she was to a macho man like Dominic was almost impossible, but there was no way he would let it go now. He looked determined to get some answers. “Well . . . I told them all I was trying to make my boyfriend jealous and offered them a couple hundred bucks to come home with me for a while. We, um . . . played video games, Monopoly, or sometimes they fell asleep and I just let them stay on the couch until morning. I also locked my bedroom door, though,” she rushed to assure him.
Rubbing his head, Dominic slumped back in his seat. “Blondie, do you have any idea how fucked-up that is? Aside from the fact that you almost killed Mac every time I had to report in that you had some guy at your house for the evening, do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Shit, you of all people should know that you can’t trust a complete stranger. How could you possibly let someone you didn’t know into your house with you? Damn, you even let some stay while you slept. Ava! Shit, that’s completely whacked.” When a tear slid down her cheek, his expression softened in apology. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, Blondie, but it looks like you’ve been living on the edge for years without evening acknowledging it. Riding a motorcycle is nothing compared to what you’ve been doing. I just . . . I’m blown away here. I’m the last one to judge, but Mac needs to seriously spank your ass for pulling a dangerous stunt like that repeatedly. I mean, what were you thinking?”
More tears fell now as she realized the truth of what he was saying. She had risked her life repeatedly and for what? To prove to Mac that she had a normal life with normal desires? When she really thought it through, it sounded absurd. She had been raped by her prom date, someone she actually knew after several dates together. Yet she had trusted complete strangers to spend hours alone with her in her home. God, she had seriously lost her mind. Even though she now realized how bad it sounded, she felt the need to defend herself. “After the first few, I had a referral system of sorts. Most of the men in graduate school here are really broke. So they started telling their friends about me.” She didn’t add that one of them had accidentally let it slip that the other guys had said that the crazy cat lady from the bar would pay you two hundred bucks for a few hours to pretend to be her fake boyfriend. “They were actually nice guys. One of them fixed the drip under my kitchen sink and a few of the others repainted my kitchen. They even took the trash out when they left.”
Suddenly, Dominic’s body started convulsing in laughter. Ava watched him warily, wondering if she had pushed him completely off the deep end. It seemed unusual for a man whom she had rarely seen smile before today to actually fall against the table as full belly laughs erupted from him. “You’re . . . too . . . much!” he gasped out as his big frame continued to shake. She sat waiting patiently for him to catch his breath, wondering what the joke was. Finally, when she was getting ready to upend her Coke over his head, he managed to reel it back in. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he settled for grinning at her while shaking his head. “Mac should pack his shit and move to another state, because he’s never going to survive you. You know he’s going to blow his top when he finds out about this, don’t you?”
“So maybe I don’t tell him that part?” She had meant it as more of a statement, but it came out as more of a question.