The Foster Girls #2: Finland

Chapter 6: Finland

I'm a freaking romance author, so you'd think I'd know better. I mean, rule number one is never go to the bathroom if you're the heroine. You either get beaten up, the hero comes in and is so horny he pushes you to have sex with him on a disgusting public bathroom counter, you hear the hero having sex with someone else in the bathroom or you overhear the mean girls talking about you. You never go into the basement in a horror movie and you never go to the bathroom in a romance novel. Common sense 101.

So what did I do? I went to the bathroom alone.  

I should have known it wouldn't turn out well; I'd had a four-month run of perfect happiness with Dominic since he'd refused to let me call it quits. We'd gone on motorcycle rides and dinner dates, been to hockey games, street fairs, open markets, music festivals...everything. We'd continued to spend just about every night together, and I'd been falling in love with Dominic more and more every day. I'd never thought I could be as close to someone as I was to my sisters, but I felt like Dominic shared my soul. Tonight, he and I had been having a casual evening talking with Dante and Harp in the clubhouse. Willow had called Harper, so while she was on the phone, I'd decided to run to the bathroom. In hindsight, I wished I hadn't. Really. Wished. I. Hadn't.

 Just as I was about to come out of the stall, two women walked into the bathroom, their high heels clicking on the tiles and a name on their lips that stopped me in my tracks.

"...see that girl with Dominic?"

"The next victim of futility."

They laughed nastily.

"I mean, if the models he's dated can't get him over his wife, how could that mousy chunk ever hope to succeed? And those scars on her face...ugh."

Wife? It showed my state of mind that I was so focused on that shocking tidbit that I didn't obsess about the many and various slurs to my looks.

"They say he's been a total man whore ever since she died but no one will ever replace the original Mrs. Romano. He just won't get that serious because he's still hung up on his dead wife. My lipstick look OK?"

Dead wife? He's still hung up on his dead wife?

"Yep. Ready to go back out?"

I listened until they left and then stumbled out of the stall before washing up at the sink. Like a robot, I dried my hands, idly noting that they were shaking. Dominic had been married. How did I not know this after dating this long? And, worse, he was emotionally unavailable now as a result of his wife's death. My mind was working overtime as it tried to absorb this information.

Taking a few deep, calming breaths, I pressed a hand to my churning stomach, trying to pull myself together. Four months. We'd been dating for four months and he'd never thought to mention he'd been married? Especially since he was always on me to be open with him, to talk about everything, including my past. That didn't say good things about where we were in our relationship. You'd think if that didn't come out on the first date, maybe by the third or the fifteenth at the very least.

Just in case the bathroom revelations weren't enough, my night was about to take another bad turn. It was as if the universe was saying, "Hey, you know those months of happiness? Well, it's time to pay up with some pain and angst." As I left the bathroom, I heard Dominic's voice from around the corner in the hallway. "Tell me why you're upset, Camille."

An unknown female voice answered him and I froze. "Nic, you're hardly ever at home with me anymore. It's like I live all alone now, and you know I hate sleeping by myself in the house. You're letting someone come between us, and I never thought you'd let that happen after everything we've been through together."