Chapter 4: Their New Home

The old weathered blue car pulled into the driveway of the Bremdat’s relatively new house and stopped once it was in and off the grey footpath outside of their recently moved-into house. Once Gavan pulled in the handbrake in the weathered blue car, Dom and Sherry left the car by opening the car doors on the left-hand side of the car while Gavan was still in the car himself since he was turning off his dash camera which was taking ages to power off since it was so cheap. The only reason he had a dashcam in the first place was to reduce his insurance on his car.

Before Dom closed the front left door of the weathered blue car and started to talk to Sherry behind himself, a mature-looking girl opened the front door of his house and stopped for a moment at the front door since she was ready to greet Dom and Gavan as they returned home. The girl was around five foot, seven inches tall and had long dark blue hair that went down to her hips. As she stood outside the front door of the Bremdat’s house, she seemed to give off a relaxing and calming vibe.

Along with her relaxing demeanour, the girl was wearing a black turtleneck top, beige trousers, white and purple runners along with a grey light jacket loosely hanging onto herself and partly zipped up. The girl remained at the house's front door since she was waiting for Dom and Gavan to reach over to her and give her the payment for minding the house and Saoirse while they were away in Dwattalebringdamadodoka. While the girl waited at the front door of the house for Dom and Gavan, Saoirse poked her head out from behind the girl’s left leg and seemed happy and excited to see that Gavan and Dom had finally returned home to her!

Gavan stepped out of the weathered blue car after finally turning off his dashcam and closed the front right door of his car behind himself. Gavan pulled out his keys so he could click a button on the little blue and silver key chain remote to lock his car and wasted no time walking over to the girl waiting for him at the front door of his house.

Gavan smiled at her while patting his pockets down for his wallet.

“Thanks again, Lyla, for looking after my daughter today! Here you go, sweetheart!”

Gavan pulled out and handed over twenty-five Jeuros from his black wallet in various quantities of notes. The girl, known as Lyla, reached over to grab the money that Gavan was trying to give to her but only took a five Jeuro note while putting her hand up to Gavan and signalled to him that he should keep the rest of his money currently in his hand. While Gavan looked confused, Lyla told Gavan happily.

“It’s no problem, Gavvy, but I can’t take twenty-five Jeuros from you. Please, hold onto it!”

Lyla patted the top of Saoirse’s light brown-haired head with her right hand, causing Saoirse to close her light blue-coloured eyes, face upwards, and smile up at her. Lyla continued to explain to Gavan why she rejected the rest of the money while understanding his current financial situation since he moved from the north of J-Land back down to the south of J-Land with his family in tow.

“It was way too much fun today looking after this little angel!”

Lyla smiled at Gavan and then redirected her smile towards Dom. Gavan seemed baffled by Lyla not taking her full payment but appreciated the sentiment by putting his money back into his wallet and thanking Lyla for her generosity.

“Well, if you say so, then sweetheart. Thanks again for looking after Saoirse!”

Gavan told Lyla this while slightly leaning forward to bow to her. Lyla smiled brightly with her mainly teal but multi-coloured eyes closed and waved at Gavan before telling him.

“It’s no problem, Mr Bremdat! Bye! Bye, Saoirse!”

Lyla stopped patting Saoirse’s head and walked away from the front door of the Bremdat’s house, leaving Saoirse and Gavan waiting in the doorframe of the front door of the house. Lyla walked past Dom and gave him a wink while heading away from his house, but stopped briefly when she saw Sherry. Lyla was going to talk to Sherry until Gavan told her one last thing.

“Lyla! You don’t need to be so formal with me, you know! I know you won’t be babysitting anymore, so there’s no need to be so formal on your last gig!”

Lyla stood still to turn to Gavan and saw him giving her a genuine smile and decided to return a genuine smile to him too, while nodding her head to him in acknowledgement.

When Lyla walked past Dom completely, who was blushing at Lyla’s beauty, she slowed down in front of Sherry, who was also drawn in by her beauty. Lyla stopped and examined Sherry with her arms loosely crossed so she could still allow herself to fiddle with Sherry’s chin. Lyla examined Sherry by tilting her head around gently and slightly moving it from side to side on the spot to get some better angles of Sherry as Sherry looked back at Lyla with a slight blush.

Lyla titled herself and her head upright again since she was thoroughly examining Sherry. Once she was upright again, she walked away from Dom’s house and back to where she was heading off to originally, back into Dwindabre’s town centre. Before Lyla took the turn down the pathway and into town, she told Sherry, recognizing her from when they were both still in Mrs Drillhole’s secondary school.

“Hey there, my lovely! It’s nice to see you here today as well!”

Lyla smiled at Sherry before walking away from the house. As Lyla continued walking down the pathway, a moment of blushing fell between Sherry and Dom while Gavan decided to head into the house with some of the shopping bags from today’s outing. Saoirse also came out of the house joyfully trying to lift some of the smaller bags in the cutest way imaginable, even if the bags contained Dom’s new dumbbells. Sherry turned to look at Dom properly as Gavan and Saoirse brought more shopping bags into the house and asked Dom while astonished and flustered.

“Wait, that was….”

Sherry moved in a bit closer to Dom and asked him with a surprised tone in her voice.

“That was Lyla Corpern, right!?”

Dom muttered and nodded in acknowledgement to Sherry’s question while the blush on his face started to disappear as he began to get curious about what Sherry was going to say about Lyla next. Sherry told Dom what she knew about Lyla.

”When I was in first year, a lot of the people in my class had a big crush on her! I haven’t seen her for years since she graduated from Mrs Drillhole’s! Honestly… I can see why so many people had a crush on her, though! Even seeing her now a few years later, she’s still as beautiful as when everyone initially crushed on her!”

Sherry finished explaining her knowledge of Lyla to Dom and then lightly jogged cutely over to where Dom’s driveway ended and the estate’s grey footpath started. As Sherry poked herself out of the driveway and onto the grey footpath to see if Lyla was still visible and walking down the footpath, she soon pulled herself back into the driveway of Dom’s house after briefly seeing Lyla walking away and then looked at Dom while casually making her way back to him to ask him.

“Do you know her, Dom? Or was she just hired by Gavan to babysit… em…Saoirse, was it? Sorry, I’m so surprised right now by seeing Lyla here!”

Dom started to blush at what he was thinking but decided to be honest with Sherry instead of hiding his thoughts so that Gavan and Saoirse wouldn’t be waiting too long for dinner. Dom sighed and then said to Sherry while keeping his voice lowered.

“Y-yeah…I used to have a c-“

“What? I can’t hear you, Dom?”

Sherry talked over Dom’s whispers while moving in closer impatiently to Dom for him speaking so quietly and flustered. Dom started to turn redder and decided to whisper into Sherry’s ear with his hands coned.

“I used to have a crush on her too.”

Before Sherry could react to Dom’s confession for previously liking Lyla, Saoirse came running out of the house and clung onto Dom’s back, and told him bluntly.

“Brother, can you come into the howse? Daddy’s starving.”

Dom turned around and patted Saoirse’s head while saying to Sherry.

“Never mind that, Sher. Let’s go inside for dinner!”

Dom started to walk back into his house with Saoirse running toward the house’s front door at full speed before Dom could reach the front door himself. Sherry followed Dom and Saoirse back into his home and was the last inside the house. Since Sherry was last to enter the house, she closed the front door behind herself out of courtesy for being a guest today at Dom’s home.

 

Dom headed up the stairs with a few shopping bags left at the bottom of the stairs, while Saoirse ran into the kitchen to where Gavan was unpacking some of the shopping bags he carried into the kitchen. This left Sherry downstairs at the front door of the house by herself. Sherry decided while she waited for Dom to finish carrying his shopping bags to where they needed to be in the house, that she would start by first taking off her white and pink runners with the branding of a giant pink ‘JF’ on the ankles of the trainers since it was the norm to do so when within a house.

Then Sherry headed into the kitchen to see if Gavan needed any help with making dinner or bringing the shopping bags away from the house's front door. Sherry asked Gavan when entering the kitchen.

“Hey, Gav? Do you want me to help you with making dinner today? Or should I help bring up some bags to Dom?”

Gavan turned around to Sherry while putting some shopping bags onto the chairs at the dinner table and replying to Sherry with a respectful tone in his voice.

“Erm…yes please Sherry if you wouldn’t mind helping me with both, please! Does lasagne sound like a good dish to make for today?”

Sherry nodded with her head up and down in acknowledgement of Gavan’s query and told him.

“Yep! That sounds fine! I’ll help you once I move some of these shopping bags away from the front door!”

Sherry left the kitchen while humming and returned to the shopping bags at the house's front door. Sherry decided to poke her nose into some of the shopping bags on the ground to start guessing what shopping bags she would need to bring up the stairs and to Dom, along with what shopping bags should be left downstairs for Gavan to handle when he was done helping Sherry prepare the lasagna.

The shopping bags with the kitchen items and other trinkets were most likely for the downstairs area of the house, so Sherry avoided handling those bags for now but saw that some of the shopping bags were full of clothing and other items that were probably meant to be put upstairs. So, Sherry started lifting two of the shopping bags that had clothing items inside of them.

Sherry took a moment to glance briefly to her side and saw that another shopping bag she was about to lift was full of gym-looking equipment and thought to herself with a brief chuckle before she made a grave mistake.

“I probably can’t lift some of those weights in those anyways…so I should leave them alone for Dom or Gavan to pick up later since I’m not that strong.”

Sherry continued bringing the shopping bags full of clothes up the stairs while shouting at Gavan, who was folding some of the shopping bags on the kitchen chairs.

“I’m heading upstairs to give Dom these bags of clothes, Gavan!”

Gavan replied to Sherry by shouting back to her in acknowledgement.

“Thank you, Sher! Dom’s room is the farthest one down!”

Sherry thanked Gavan by shouting back to him.

“Thanks, Gav!”

Sherry headed up the stairs with the shopping bags in her hands. She slowly made her way to the top of the stairs, carefully considering the bags' contents. As Sherry went up, she could see four different doors upstairs, with the one down at the end of the hallway being Dom’s bedroom since it had a sign dangling on the door itself saying ‘Dom’s Room’ on it. The other rooms, Sherry guessed, were Gavan and Janny’s bedroom, Saoirse’s bedroom, and the upstairs bathroom.

Sherry walked up and onto the landing before going to Dom’s bedroom door. Sherry soon noticed that the door itself was cracked open since she could see some of the bedroom’s light leaking out from the bedroom itself. The leaking light from the bedroom also lit up the dark upstairs landing area that Sherry was traversing. Before Sherry announced herself to Dom, she began to move more quietly as she poked her head into Dom’s bedroom out of curiosity. Sherry was curious to see what Dom was up to since he never said what he would do when he went upstairs alone.

Sherry soon found out what Dom was up to by looking into his bedroom and turned bright red as she saw that Dom was partway through changing into the new school uniform that he had bought for school tomorrow, trying it on to make sure everything fit okay.

Sherry got so flustered with what she saw that she tried to move away from Dom’s bedroom door as quietly as she could until she tripped and fell forward onto Dom’s dark blue carpeted bedroom floor after losing her balance. The bedroom door was opened much more than before as Sherry fell into Dom’s bedroom and thumped loudly onto the dark blue carpeted floor of the bedroom.

Sherry’s fall onto the dark blue carpeted bedroom floor was so loud that Gavan and Saoirse looked up at the kitchen ceiling above themselves and back at each other. Gavan started pleading with Saoirse by telling her off from going upstairs to see what Sherry and Dom were doing upstairs together by saying to her.

“Please don’t go and disturb your brother ‘Saoirse.’ Your brother seems to be doing something very important with his friend right now.”

Gavan looked back into the empty shopping bag with a surprised look on his face from what he thought Dom and Sherry were doing with each other upstairs in Dom’s bedroom. Gavan took and stored the empty shopping bag back into the cupboards below himself while Saoirse looked back up at the kitchen ceiling confusingly at what Gavan meant by saying that ‘Dom is doing something very important with Sherry right now’.

Sherry went bright red as she laid on Dom’s dark blue carpeted bedroom floor and stared up at Dom with his shirt off since he was only partway through changing into his new school uniform. Sherry understood why Dom needed all that new gym equipment that he bought today since he looked like he’d outgrown his older equipment from how jacked he looked without his shirt covering his torso.

Dom started to turn red while holding up his new school trousers since he was making sure that they were in the right size for himself but was interrupted by Sherry peeping in on him. Sherry and Dom went silent for a few seconds until Dom broke the silence by staring at Sherry, contorting his face in disgust at her, and saying to her with a cold tone in his voice.

“Pervert…”

Sherry quickly lifted herself off of the dark blue carpeted bedroom floor with her arms flailing as she responded to Dom to try and clear up the misunderstanding but tripped on her words as she tried to explain herself while flustered.

“No! Wait, Dom…it’s not what it seems! I-I was bringing up the bags and-”

“If it’s not what it seems, then why are you still looking at my chest and not my eyes, pervert!?”

Dom raised his voice, slightly embarrassed while continuing to name-call Sherry and covered his chest with his trousers.

“At least try to act innocent, PERVERT!!”

After Dom’s disgusted shouting, Sherry looked back at Dom’s decently toned shirtless self and then back to his red, burning face of disgust as Dom told her not to look at his chest.

Before the situation escalated any further, Sherry decided to leave Dom’s bedroom quietly and was embarrassed with herself while shuffling out of his bedroom. Sherry felt ashamed of herself for what she had done in this situation and how she made a mess of it. Sherry started feeling guilty for leaving the shopping bag contents spilt all over Dom’s bedroom floor as well, for him to sort out when he was finally done changing into his new school uniform.

Sherry closed the bedroom door properly and leaned softly against Dom’s door in defeat. As Sherry sat in silence against Dom’s bedroom door, she covered her face in total embarrassment until a small hand patted the top of Sherry’s head and said to her quietly while trying to be considerate of her.

“Are you okay big sistur?”

Sherry took her hands off her face to see that Saoirse was trying her best to comfort her since she knew Sherry wasn’t feeling good but didn’t know exactly why, which was for the best. Sherry said defeatedly to Saoirse with a drained look on her face.

“Yeah, I’m…okay…”

 

Moments after Sherry’s incident with Dom, Dom decided to play games with Saoirse until dinner was ready. Since Dom was playing with Saoirse and Sherry didn’t know if Dom still felt off with what happened between them, Sherry decided to head back downstairs in shame and help Gavan with the cooking and preparing the lasagne that they were having for tonight.

It didn’t take long before Saoirse became exhausted from playing games with Dom since she was already playing with Lyla before Sherry, Gavan, and Dom got home. Dom soon realised this and thought of letting Saoirse get some rest by napping. Dom told Saoirse with a quiet voice.

“Come on, ‘Sairse,’ you must be sleepy after all that playing around!”

Dom smiled at Saoirse as he carried her with his arms open to hug her while Saoirse held onto Dom by doing the same thing back to him. Dom lifted and took Saoirse off of her bedroom floor playmat and over to her pink magical girl-inspired bed.

As Dom helped Saoirse into her pink magical girl-inspired bed, he heard Sherry coming back up the stairs. Dom could tell it was Sherry coming up the stairs since her footsteps didn’t sound like Gavan’s footsteps at all plus, Saoirse was now napping in her bed so it couldn’t be her either.

Sherry was coming back up the stairs to see if Dom was okay with her after their awkward moment together since they hadn’t talked to each other about what happened between them yet. Dom left Saoirse’s bedroom, gave Sherry a cautious stare, and continued back into his bedroom. As Sherry sighed at how she thought Dom perceived her at this moment, a pervert, Dom signalled her to come over to his bedroom while standing behind his bedroom door and beckoning her with his arm stretched out in the gap his open door left for him.

When Sherry slowly and awkwardly made her way over to Dom’s bedroom door, she stopped outside Dom’s bedroom when she saw his hand change from beckoning her over to him to telling her to halt at his bedroom door with the palm of his hand now facing her. Dom also followed up with his hand gesture by telling Sherry in a cautious tone since he felt she might peep in on him again.

“Wait there a minute, Sher.”

Sherry waited outside Dom’s bedroom door and blushed as she thought that the reason that Dom wanted her to wait outside of his bedroom was because of what had happened between them earlier. Sherry said to Dom, ashamed but with a little bit of conviction in her voice.

“Just so you know…I didn’t mean to peek in on you. When you were…changing…it just kinda happened…”

Sherry grabbed onto the upper right area of her arm with her left hand in shame and looked down at the light brown carpeted floor for the upstairs landing of the house dejectedly. Dom didn’t bother to reply to Sherry, so Sherry decided not to say anything else until Dom called for her.

 

After a few minutes of rustling clothes in his bedroom, Dom finally asked Sherry to come into his bedroom. Sherry opened the bedroom door while trying not to open it wide like last time and saw Dom waiting inside for her, smiling at her with his full secondary school uniform on.

Sherry started to feel some old memories re-awaken, along with a strong sense of nostalgia, too, since these memories were from when they were both younger. In Sherry’s nostalgic thoughts, Dom was wearing his primary school uniform before he moved away from Dwindabre. The uniform wasn’t the same, but it still gave Sherry the schoolboy vibes from Dom that she was used to over five years ago.

Dom also decided to do this for Sherry since he figured that Sherry was interested in seeing him dress up in his school uniform when they were being driven home together by Gavan in his car and Sherry was snooping around in his shopping bags on the way to his house. Dom asked Sherry awkwardly as she seemed lost in thought from the nostalgic memories washing over herself as she sat on a yellow cushion on the dark blue carpeted floor of Dom’s bedroom.

 “Well, then, Sher! How do I look?”

Before Sherry could even respond to Dom, he chimed in again and responded to what Sherry was saying to him earlier before he started to change into his school uniform about how it was an accident that she peeped in on him.

“Oh, and ah…I believe you about…what you said to us through the door Sher… it caught me off guard, that’s all.”

Dom was thinking about how he shouted at Sherry and felt bad for her since he knew that Sherry wouldn’t do something as perverted as take a peek into someone changing clothes on purpose… or at least he hoped so.

Sherry continued to stare at Dom with an astonished look on her face making Dom flustered by Sherry’s unyielding gaze as she was looking at him very intently and doing it for a lot longer than he thought she would. Dom asked Sherry out of curiosity.

 “Why are you still staring at me, Sher? It’s just my school uniform. Are you thinking about what happened earlier?”

Sherry woke up from her gazing session at Dom while hearing the tone in his voice shift to concern and was about to become flustered herself until the best part of the nostalgic feeling finally hit her like a calm tide flowing in. Sherry smiled blissfully while replying to Dom happily.

 “I’m sorry, Dom. Seeing you in your uniform again just gave me some nostalgic memories! That’s all~.”

Sherry finished her sentence cheerfully while closing her eyes. Without thinking, Dom started taking off his blazer to change back into his casual clothes, which caused Sherry to panic and turn red again. Sherry was about to shout at Dom this time until Dom gave Sherry a suspicious glare and said to himself quietly and under his breath but loud enough for Sherry to make out what he was saying to himself.

“Maybe she is a pervert…”

Sherry was about to shout at Dom by saying, “WHAT!?”  in response to his accusation until Dom quickly put his hands out in front of her mouth and shushed Sherry to stay quiet since Saoirse was in the next room to them, fast asleep. Dom whispered to Sherry while apologising to her.

 “Sorry, Sher, I’m just joking. Please keep it down though… Sairse is in the next room napping, okay?”

Sherry let out a quiet sigh and got up from sitting comfortably on the yellow cushion on Dom’s dark blue carpeted bedroom floor and left Dom’s bedroom so he could change back into some more casual clothes for dinner today.

As Sherry left Dom’s bedroom, she thought of a great idea of what she could do while Dom was changing clothes in his bedroom. So, Sherry headed down the stairs and returned to one of her shopping bags.

As soon as Dom left his bedroom, he saw Sherry coming back up the stairs with one of her shopping bags in her hand. Sherry felt determined to show Dom her new school uniform as well since Dom showed her his new school uniform. Even though it wasn’t Sherry’s whole school uniform, she didn’t expect Dom to have a spare skirt lying around unless he and Gavan were already prepared for when Saoirse goes to secondary school in the future.

As Sherry brought one of her shopping bags upstairs with her, Dom asked Sherry out of curiosity while looking at her shopping bag in her right hand.

“Why did you bring that upstairs, Sher? Your room isn’t in my house, you know.”

Dom laughed at his sarcastic remark toward Sherry making her smile and giggle too. Sherry replied to Dom and asked him timidly while holding onto her shopping bag with both of her hands.

“Is it okay if I change into my uniform here as well, Dom? Since you already showed me yours. I thought I’d show you mine too!”

Dom didn’t see any reason to reject Sherry, so he happily accepted her request, bowed at the top of the stairs, and extended his arms towards his bedroom as if he were a hotel caterer showing Sherry to her hotel room. Sherry held the bag close to her chest still with both hands and walked into Dom’s bedroom while closing the bedroom door behind herself and causing the sign on Dom’s bedroom door to swing a little from side to side.

Unlike Sherry, Dom could contain his curiosity about what was happening in his bedroom… for the most part. Dom only realised, as he heard Sherry shuffling through her clothes, what he was allowing Sherry to do in his bedroom but decided to be the better person in this situation. If Dom started doing what Sherry did to him earlier, he would be considered a hypocrite and an actual pervert. So, to pass the time, Dom took out his black phone with a dark blue case to scroll through his Twit timeline.

 

After a few minutes of waiting outside of his bedroom door, Sherry called Dom to enter his bedroom and see the results of what Sherry had collected so far for her new school uniform. Dom looked for a moment at his bedroom door and then back at his phone to lock it. While Dom was putting his phone back into his right trouser pocket, he opened his bedroom door and suddenly got a similar wave of nostalgia just like Sherry did when she saw him in his new school uniform.

Dom looked Sherry up and down but soon realised that Sherry was still wearing her jeans and not a school skirt, assuming that she was going to wear a skirt with her school uniform since she was wearing a skirt back in Dwindabre primary school. Dom asked Sherry why she was still wearing her jeans with her new school uniform.

“Why do you still have your jeans on, Sher? Did you not get a skirt or something when you were out today?”

Sherry’s right eye twitched as she looked down to her side with a wavy grin of embarrassment. Sherry didn’t feel like she needed to be reminded of how bad it was that she didn’t go out sooner to shop for all her school stuff before school started and ended up not getting a single skirt that she wanted for her school uniform.

Sherry finally replied to Dom and told him.

“Yeah…no shop had a skirt in my size…and was wearable for school, so…I don’t… have one yet….”

Dom looked warily at Sherry and asked her.

“Will one of your old skirts do? If they don’t fit, you should get your ma or da to write you a note for you for school. I’m sure the school wouldn’t be too worried about you coming up short on your uniform for the first week or so unless they’re strict. It’s just up to how you feel about everyone else, knowing that you haven’t prepared for school yet. If you’re worried about stuff like that, Sher.”

Before Sherry could respond to Dom and talk about her current problem, a knock could be heard on Dom’s bedroom door, followed by Gavan telling them both.

“Hey, you two, dinners almost ready if you two want to come down before I make a mess of it!”

Before Gavan left Dom’s bedroom to go back downstairs to tend to the lasagna, he complimented Sherry on her interesting choice of school uniform.

“I like your uniform, Sher! You must be trying to stick it up to the school for not wearing the norm eh?”

As Gavan laughed at his amusing comment on Sherry’s half-baked school uniform, he walked away from Dom’s bedroom door while treading softly outside Dom’s bedroom since he was trying not to wake up Saoirse from her nap since he’d seen her napping in her room. When Gavan started heading back down the stairs, Dom told Sherry.

“We can talk about this later if you want, Sher; get changed, all right?”

As Sherry couldn’t help but laugh internally at her situation with her school uniform, Dom left his bedroom while closing his bedroom door softly behind him so that he could leave Sherry alone with some privacy in his bedroom to change back into her casual clothes and while trying not to make noise and wake up Saoirse from her nap.

 

As Sherry finished changing into her casual clothes and left Dom’s bedroom to head downstairs, she started thinking to herself as she went down the stairs and headed into the kitchen.

“I hope Ma doesn’t find out what happened between me and Dom today. I’m pretty sure mom would be all right with it and laugh it off…but if ma found out about this… then I’m sure she would kill me… or Dom…or both of us…”  

Sherry re-imagined a thought from earlier in the day, where instead of Samantha being angry with her, it was Yovan who was angry with her this time. In this scenario, Yovan had fiery eyes and was cracking her knuckles loudly in front of Sherry as Samantha was casually seated in the crackling fiery background of Yovan’s presence while smiling with an innocent look on her face.

Sherry briefly thought to herself.

“It feels like anything I’ve been doing today will be one step closer to my grave…”

Sherry entered the kitchen and took the lasagne out of the oven for Gavan since he was setting up the dinner table and placing three dinner plates beside the cooker where Sherry was pulling the lasagna out. Sherry cut pieces out of the lasagna for the three white dinner plates that were ready and left the last piece of lasagne in the baking dish so that it could be put back into the oven for Saoirse later if Saoirse herself woke up anytime between now and when they were finished eating dinner together.

Dom left the upstairs bathroom and started to make his way down to the kitchen, still ensuring that he didn’t wake Saoirse up from her nap. When Dom took his first step into the kitchen, he was suddenly mystified by the nice smell of lasagne that filled the kitchen and thought to himself.

“Oh, my lord…It’s not…burnt!?”

Dom looked over to Sherry, wearing a white apron with pretty colourful stitching and stickers of flowers, along with other girly imagery on it that was possibly from Saoirse and Janny. Sherry was also still wearing the black oven gloves she used to take the lasagna out with. Dom slowly teared up without noticing it since he was able to walk into the kitchen and smell such a decent scent from the cooked food in the kitchen during dinner time for the first time in months.

“Hey, Dom! Take a seat! I’ll get you your portion soon!”

Sherry greeted Dom cautiously while being worried as to why he was tearing up all of a sudden. As Sherry saw Dom take his seat, she started dishing out an even amount of lasagne onto the three available dinner plates for the three of them in the kitchen while weary.

Dom’s eyes scanned Sherry from the pouch of the apron, which was in line with Sherry’s stomach, to the black oven-gloved hands which held two white dinner plates of piping hot lasagna on them as Sherry brought them over to the dinner table, all the way up to her hardworking face. Dom, at this moment, started to truly feel the presence of someone extremely better at cooking than he was by a long shot and even got the odd feeling of Sherry acting similarly to his mother.

Dom was typically the type of person who would burn many of the house’s homemade meals or make something just about edible, even when it came to readymade meals too. Some of the meals Dom has made would be so terrible that he would inadvertently force Gavan to order a takeaway instead of eating something homemade/easily microwaveable which was handy if you liked ordering take-away, if you didn’t already have it one too many times and got bored of eating take-away food.

Sherry continued with a confident and pleased tone, to the men at the dinner table after making the lasagne well and placing their plates in front of them.

“Dinner is served!”

Dom examined the beauty of Sherry, Sherry’s lasagne, and ignored the fact that Gavan helped Sherry prepare the lasagne too. There were little pieces of cheese on the top of the lasagne that were starting to turn a bit brown, but it didn’t make the meal inedible; if anything, it was just the right shade of brown to tell the chief that the meal was cooked right through and ready to be served. Knowing this information reaffirmed to Dom that he couldn’t do this if he were to make it himself and was confident in Sherry’s cooking skills.

Dom’s face started to scrunch up from the beautiful fact that he was going to eat something that looked and smelled fantastic. This wasn’t a cheap microwaveable meal, it was homemade! Dom got onto his knees to bow to Sherry with his forehead touching the grey-tiled kitchen floor.

“Thank you.”

Dom repeated his thanks to Sherry, sounding deranged as he did so, making Sherry respond to him by putting her hands out towards Dom while she still holding onto the black plastic spatula in her black oven-gloved hand.

“Hey, it’s okay, Dom. Why are you on the floor? Are your cooking skills that bad?”

Unfortunately for Sherry, Dom didn’t snap out of his constant string of monotone words of thanking her as he kept his head on the grey-tiled kitchen floor. Sherry started to get concerned for Dom and grabbed just below the head of the black spatula while ordering him to answer her.

After Sherry waited too long to try and get through to Dom, she gave up and realised that she couldn’t get through to him even if she kept trying. Eventually, when Gavan stopped stuffing his pleasured face full of lasagne, he answered for Dom and told Sherry.

“Yeah, Sher… My son and I aren’t good at cooking. So…thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for assisting me in making this delicious meal!”

Gavan genuinely smiled with bits of lasagna around his mouth towards Sherry before continuing to eat the remaining lasagna on his white dinner plate. Once Dom got back up from the grey-tiled kitchen floor, he sat back in his kitchen chair while Sherry took off the black oven gloves, unstrung her apron and sat on the opposite side of the dinner table to Dom.

Finally, after a good bit of time making and preparing the lasagne, it was dinner time in the Bremdat household! Sherry, Dom, and Gavan were all finally eating together at the dinner table in the kitchen. Dom and Gavan looked toward Sherry and said to her kindly.

“Thank you for the meal, Sherry!” | “Thank you for the meal, Sher!”

Sherry started scratching her head, slightly blushing with a silly grin on her face from feeling the genuine sincerity in both Dom and Gavan’s voices. Dom decided to cut out a small piece of the lasagne on his plate since he was scared that he might have overhyped the meal to its highest possible standard. Dom quickly remembered that Sherry made it for them, so it shouldn’t be as bad as what he cooks for the house.

Dom started to remember when himself and Sherry were younger and in primary school, that they were both put on the same team for making some food for fun in the school’s cafeteria. The meal that Sherry made with Dom and the rest of her group was simply delicious. The exercises at the time were simple; Make something good and let another group taste it. They did this in primary school since it was the best way to try and make the dull primary school class monotony feel more exciting for the students of the school. Of course, this was also an excuse to make something nice for themselves or with a particular person in mind.

After briefly reminiscing on the past, Dom picked up the small piece of lasagne with his fork and blew onto it to cool it down before placing the piece of lasagne into his mouth. Dom’s eyes lit up with stars as he started beaming with pure joy!

Without saying anything else or giving any warning to Sherry or Gavan, Dom slammed his fist onto the wooden table and shocked both Sherry and Gavan. Dom stood up from his chair and pushed the chair back, letting it make a screeching sound briefly across the grey-tiled floor. Dom turned and bowed his head in Sherry’s direction.

Sherry looked at Dom with shock as she thought she had done something wrong with Dom’s portion of the lasagne. Sherry tried to read the expression on Dom’s face but couldn’t since his hair shadowed out his eyes. Sherry weirdly noted that his nose and mouth also seemed more detailed when he bent himself back up.

Sherry saw Dom’s frown and continued to think that she had done something wrong with the lasagne until Dom sat back down softly into his chair and started wiping the teardrops from his eyes while simultaneously continuing to eat the lasagne.

Gavan intervened since he saw that Sherry was getting confused and worried while happily explaining to her.

“Don’t worry, Sher!”

Sherry looked at Gavan as he called her and continued talking to her to explain why Dom was acting the way he was.

“Sweetheart, for Dom and me, this is the best homemade meal we’ve had in a long time! Before, I wouldn’t even mention to Dom that his cooking skills were…let’s say, so-so. But now that he’s tasting this, let’s just say that… he’s glad to of met you again!”

Sherry looked at Dom and then at Gavan, eating their dinners while thinking happily about how much happiness the meal brought them. Dom and Gavan continued smiling as they ate and talked about how good the lasagne was.

Sherry was about to dig into her lasagne piece until she realised that Janny wasn’t at the dinner table with them yet. Sherry asked both Dom and Gavan, interrupting their conversation about the lasagne and how good it was.

“Hey, we didn’t save any dinner for Janny, did we? I’m sorry, I completely forgot to ask if she was eating with us today!”

Suddenly the light in Dom and Gavan’s eyes went dim. Dom and Gavan briefly looked at Sherry with sad expressions and then looked back at their dinner plates while saying nothing back to Sherry. Sherry spoke again to them while feeling a heavy weight of remorse on her shoulders.

“Sorry, I should’ve remembered sooner! I forgot to check before I dished them out…”

Sherry’s voice whimpered out as the atmosphere in the kitchen started to feel extremely heavy until Gavan said to Sherry softly and honestly before he and Dom left her puzzled for too much longer.

“Eh…Sorry, Sher, to shock you with this but…since nobody has told you yet. My wife Janny… passed away nearly three years ago.”

Sherry suddenly felt a sharp pit in her stomach as the guilt inside her started to race up her body. Sherry looked at them again with shock, remembering what Gavan had just said to her. Sherry tried to remember some of the interactions she used to have with Janny when she was younger, but for some reason, she couldn’t even remember Janny’s face at all. All Sherry could remember was that Janny had long and beautiful brown hair.

Sherry had just realised that she hadn’t even seen a single picture of Janny in any of the rooms in the house other than Dom’s bedroom when she was still changing back into her normal clothes in his bedroom.

Before the air in the kitchen became too still to pierce, Sherry chimed in and apologized to both Dom and Gavan for being insensitive to both of them, even though she didn’t know that Janny had passed away in the first place.

“I’m so sorry guys…”

Sherry suddenly felt too guilty to talk much more to Gavan and Dom in her apology, so she kept eating her portion of her lasagne on her plate to try and cope with this heavy situation even though a part of her wanted to go and hug them both but wasn’t brave enough to do so. Before Sherry started feeling even more guilty for bringing up Janny, Gavan sighed depressingly under his breath and said to Sherry while sounding like he was trying to hold himself back from tearing up at the memories he had with Janny.

“No, it’s okay, Sher… we hardly talked about her today, so… it’s not your fault that you didn’t know. I should’ve mentioned it sooner…”

Gavan reached across the table, held onto Sherry’s hand to comfort her, and continued talking to her while shaking her hand.

“Honestly! Sherry, sweetheart, it’s okay.”

Gavan made sure to remind Sherry that it was okay, so much so that he looked at her sincerely while squeezing her free hand tightly. Even with Gavan trying to ease her mind, Sherry still felt guilty. What was even worse about this situation, that Dom and Gavan weren’t bringing up to Sherry, was the fact that Sherry was currently sitting at the kitchen table right now in Janny’s favourite seating spot. Unfortunately, Sherry didn’t know about this, which added more pain to one of the many things that Gavan and Dom still remembered about Janny and what they both couldn’t bear to let go of since they wanted to remember her for as long as they continued living.

Just like they did with most of the family photos that used to hang all over the old house, the only photos they had currently unboxed and displayed in their current house were various pictures of Janny between the three of them, Gavan, Dom, and Saoirse.

Dom had one in his desk drawer, which was open when Sherry was changing in his room earlier, hence why she recalled seeing Janny’s picture in Dom’s bedroom. Gavan had one on his bedside drawer and displayed it for anyone to see, while Saoirse had a miniature portrait of Janny that hung on her pale pink bedroom wall above her bright pink magical girl-esk-looking bed.

Sherry turned to Dom and still felt horrible for bringing Janny up since Dom hadn’t changed how depressed he looked since she mentioned Janny’s name at the dinner table. Sherry wanted to try and say something to cheer him up since Gavan had already forgiven her but decided that it was for the best to stop before she inadvertently made things worse between them, especially since she couldn’t predict how Dom would react to something like this nowadays after being apart for so long.

 

As they continued to eat dinner in silence, Gavan started talking to Sherry again to dissipate the rest of the awkwardness and heavy air still lingering in the kitchen. Gavan finished his last piece of lasagne on his white dinner plate before getting up and asking Sherry about school.

“Hey Sher, are you ready for school tomorrow?”

Sherry froze in place and internally broke into smithereens. Sherry looked at Gavan warily as she remembered that she was thinking of taking another look around Dwindabre before going home when she was at the bus stop earlier in the day. But it was too late now since they were back in Dwindabre, and it was getting dark outside which meant; that her parents would start to worry for her if she continued to be out any later than she intended to be. Along with this, the shops in Dwindabre were already closing around this time of day.

Gavan felt horrible for asking Sherry about school and said to her apologetically.

“Eh, sorry for asking, Sher.”

Sherry quickly chimed in so that the kitchen wouldn’t go back into the awkward silence it was like before Gavan’s question.

“No, it’s okay, Gav, I just…kinda forgot for a second that mom…eh, Samantha asked me to get everything ready for school. BUT I forgot to do it when she first asked me to, and then I had to go out today to get what I needed so-”

 Sherry talked to Gavan with persistence in her voice at first until she started to quiet down her voice the more, she talked past the phrase ‘to do it’.

Dom stopped Sherry and Gavan’s conversation unintentionally before Sherry got to the point of quietness where she looked like she was just lipping her words rather than speaking the rest of what she was going to say to Gavan since Dom was thinking of an idea.

“Oh wait, maybe if they’re still upstairs...”

Dom abruptly left his kitchen seat and walked out of the kitchen to go up the stairs and get something for Sherry without saying a word while unintentionally looking like he was annoyed with Sherry and Gavan. Sherry and Gavan thought that Dom was leaving in a strop which caused Gavan to call out to Dom depressingly.

“Dom?”

When Dom didn’t answer, Gavan looked at Sherry and gave her a smile to try and cheer her up since she looked worried for Dom. Along with this Gavan decided to clean off his white-lasagna-stained dinner plate in the kitchen sink. As he got up from his seat, Gavan stopped and took Dom’s white-lasagna-stained dinner plate off of the dinner table too, since he thought that Dom wasn’t going to come back down for a while since he was still feeling moody after Sherry mentioned Janny.

Sherry waited a few minutes in the kitchen with Gavan and cleaned her white-lasagna-stained dinner plate in the kitchen sink after Gavan cleaned his white-lasagna-stained dinner plate and Dom’s white-lasagna-stained dinner plate but started worrying about Dom to the point where she asked Gavan.

“Hey…sorry, Gav, but do you mind if I went upstairs and checked on Dom…again….”

Sherry realised that this was the third time today that she wanted to go check up on Dom which may have made it look like she was a bit too worried for him, but Gavan smiled nonetheless and told her while giving Sherry’s shoulder a light tap with the palm of his yellow gloved hand.

“Yeah, of course, Sher! He needs you now anyways! I’ll clean your cup up for ya too, so don’t worry about it! Thanks again for such a lovely meal!”

Gavan enthusiastically finished his sentence and picked up Sherry’s cup from the countertop beside the sink to start washing it. Sherry bowed her head down towards Gavan while telling him.

“Thanks, Gav! I’m sorry...”

Gavan placed his wet- yellow-gloved hand on Sherry’s head before she left him and the kitchen to say to her confidently.

“It’s no problem, Sher! Go on now, go talk to my son!”

Gavan watched Sherry as she left the kitchen, reorganised her now wet hair with a smile on her face and went into the hallway to head up the stairs to Dom. As he watched her leave him, Gavan thought to himself while smiling.

“Even now you’re still looking after my son, thank you!”

Sherry started to walk towards the stairs in the hallway of the house and head upstairs to Dom until she saw Dom starting to come down from the top of the stairs himself. Dom slowly came down from the top of the stairs with what looked to be folded pants in his arms. Sherry started making her way up the stairs to Dom until they met halfway. Dom said to Sherry, looking down at her since he was a step higher than she was.

“Hey Sher, you can have these if you want.”

Sherry looked up at Dom with a surprised look on her face and glistening eyes. Sherry replied to him while holding onto the pants that Dom was giving to her.

“Wait…really?”

Dom let go of the spare grey trousers that he planned to get for her when he left the dinner table earlier and replied to Sherry with a hand behind his head.

“Yeah… sorry, I don’t have a spare skirt for you, though. Haha~ You can borrow these old pants I had for last year since they’re too small for me now anyways.”

Dom started to scratch the back of his head while mustering up a smile for Sherry since he knew he must have worried her earlier when he abruptly left the dinner table without saying a word. Sherry held the pants closer to her chest and then suddenly felt all of the stressful thoughts of Samantha being angry fade away as she had finally gotten a full school uniform to wear for school tomorrow, even though she could have compromised by looking around for school trousers for her school uniform instead of a grey skirt and avoided all this unnecessary stress she put on herself.

Sherry was also glad that Dom didn’t seem like he was annoyed at her for bringing up Janny at the dinner table, Dom continued explaining why he abruptly left her and Gavan at the dinner table to Sherry.

“I know I seemed upset just there at the table Sher…I’m sorry. I’m not used to people talking about my ma out of the blue. Anyway, I thought I’d give you these pants since I was going to throw them out anyways. You’re lucky, you know! I had them in a black bin bag and was going to chuck them into the charity donation bin after our first week at school. What do you think, Sher? Will these trousers do for you? You can always throw them away later if you ever get that skirt you wanted for your uniform!”

Hoping that Sherry didn’t notice how blasé Dom was with talking about his mother, he looked back down at Sherry and saw that she was smiling from ear to ear, along with having teardrops in her eyes for how sweet Dom was acting towards her as it was the first time in a while that someone was treating her this way, other than her family. Dom started to panic since he thought that he had said something insensitive in his little speech for her until Sherry grabbed and crinkled the school trousers in her left hand and flung open both of her arms so that she could squeeze Dom with a hug.

Sherry said happily and enthusiastically to Dom.

“Thank you, Dom! I’ll take them!”

Sherry continued to grab Dom and squeezed him tightly. Dom started blushing until he started feeling a warm, fuzzy, and nostalgic feeling in his heart. As Dom felt these feelings, he pictured Janny with her face blanked out, hugging him from when he was a lot younger since it was very similar to how Sherry was hugging him right now.

Dom started to tear up quietly and returned the hug to Sherry so that she wouldn’t see him tearing up or notice that he was beginning to get too emotional from the hug she was giving him. Once they let go of each other, Dom turned one hundred and eighty degrees away from Sherry and tried to wipe his eyes casually without letting Sherry notice him. After secretly wiping his eyes, Dom told Sherry.

“Thanks for finding me today, Sher! I… I really mean it.”

Dom turned to smile at Sherry with a bit of redness in his eyes and on his cheeks from wiping his tears away, while Sherry smiled with her eyes closed and nodded back to Dom in reply. Gavan looked at them both from the side of the stairs and smiled as he leaned happily against the white wall opposite the downstairs toilet door before returning into the kitchen to clean the rest of the cutlery in the kitchen sink.

 

With dinner finished at the Bremdat household and Sherry’s final piece of her new school uniform acquired, Sherry was finally going to prepare to head back to her own house with her shopping bags when she and Dom returned downstairs to Gavan.