Path You Take
There is nothing finer, Dom thinks, than sitting on the sqooshy couch in Elijah's happy little living room, with the sun trickling in through the windows that are full of invitingly-blue squares of sky, a cup of perfect coffee in his hand, a plate of perfect sausages and toast on his knee, and two desperate losers on the floor by his feet, laughing at bad American sitcoms.
"I've always said, if I can't be an actor-"
"You've always said if? You've always said because."
"I've always said," Billy squints up backwards at Dom, "that if my fine, fine sense of emoting fails me and I can't even get a gig on the vaudeville stage, that's just what I'm going to do." He wiggles a hand towards the screen. "I'm going to rent myself out to some bird in the ritzy suburbs and be her maid."
"He's a housekeeper, man, he doesn't just clean. He watches her kid, and he cooks-" Dom thinks about that for a minute. "You know what, never mind, you should definitely be a maid."
"Little frilly aprons," Elijah agrees.
"You have got the legs for it."
"Are you insinuating that I can't cook?"
"Not at all." Dom vigorously munches on the toast Billy toasted, just to prove his loyalty to unheralded culinary ability. "I am, however, insinuating that you can't watch kids."
"I won't need to, will I? My brassy Italian daughter will be able to take care of herself just fine. She'll be all the help I need." Billy brushes the toast crumbs out of his hair and onto the carpet. "I'll have raised her with that innate sense of cleanliness, of course. Such as I'm demonstrating now."
"Next to Godliness is Brazilian roast, boys." Elijah's up and off to the kitchen, and Dom takes the opportunity to transfer his plate to the couch cushion and hook his leg around Billy's chest, toppling him backwards, trapping him in an inescapable cage of calf and raggedy jeans.
"And where will you be getting little Alyssa from? God, little Alyssa, sounds like an orphan."
"Of course she'll be an orphan." Billy blinks up at him, eyes owlishly wide. "A lovely little orphan with a heart of gold and a tongue of steel, and when she grows up and you come to visit, she'll never let you put your shoes on the sofa, you lout."
"Shoe," Dom protests, "it's only the one, and it's not like they're dirty, and you don't want to smell my feet besides."
Billy untangles his arm from Dom's leg and pulls Dom's sneaker right off, without even untying the laces. It's a funny sort of thing, when someone's thumb on the bone of your ankle feels like love, even through your sock. Dom butts his heel gently against Billy's chest and lowers a sausage down to Billy's mouth.
"Don't even think it," he warns, mindful of his fingers, "or I'll be forced to show you. You know."
"What?"
"You know." Dom nods towards the screen, and Billy laughs around a hickory-smoked mouthful. "But don't worry," Dom continues, "when little Alyssa gets here, I'll let her be the boss."
"Too kind of you," Billy says, squeezing Dom's foot before releasing it. Dom pulls his leg back up underneath him, and waits for his consummate little host to come back with more perfect coffee.