16. Draven
Draven
I love Dominic, but dear God, somebody needed to remind me to wring his fucking neck next time he pulled some shit like this.
One moment I was having a simple breakfast with Max—watching out for him, because he was obviously too naive to care about protecting his own back—and the next, I was thrust into a very uncomfortable position.
My worlds were colliding.
Montana meeting Tennessee, unexpectedly.
Dominic walked into the Red Fox Diner with his signature cold, calculating stare, briskly walking down the center aisle and sliding off his sunglasses. People had often said he looked like a blond version of me—tall, imposing, with cutting eyes.
It was never more obvious than it was right now, seeing his crisp, slate grey business suit among the diner regulars, all of which were wearing flannel, T-shirts, or blue-collar work clothing.
“Drave,” he said as he approached the booth where I sat with Max.
“Dom.”
I got up and gave him a quick hug. “This is Max. Max, this is my friend and my family’s financial advisor, Dominic.”
“Lily’s brother,” Dominic said as he shook hands with Max.
God .
It was like watching a blond viper try to shake hands with a plush Golden Retriever. Max’s innocence had never seemed more stark. The way he smiled wide at Dom, and the way he treated him with so much Southern hospitality it almost made me forget how mouthy Max was with me.
“Welcome to Bestens, Dom,” Max said.
I suppressed a smile hearing Max already calling him by the shortened version of his name. Dominic had told me once that he hated it when anybody other than his closest friends called him Dom, which was… stupid and pompous.
But Dom was pompous, I guess.
I was, too, on the inside. Even if Bestens had been causing me to realign myself a little on the outside.
“Thank you,” Dominic said. “What happened to your neck?”
A faint blush appeared on Max’s face as he felt the spot where I’d left my mark. “Just a little bruise,” Max said.
I clenched my jaw, fire burning inside me.
I wanted to suck on his skin there again.
I wished the mark was even darker. I liked that he was so clearly mine , and even though he was all bashful and trying to hide it, Dom knew better.
“Sorry to interrupt your breakfast,” Dominic offered.
“Go ahead, sit down,” Max said. “More the merrier. Draven and I just ordered, but I’m sure we can grab another menu for you. Do you like cinnamon rolls? They make insane ones here.”
“I’m off carbs,” Dom told him.
“Heard,” Max said. “They have plenty of good meat, too. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t need any food,” Dominic said, his gaze turning toward me. “I just wanted to see what my friend is getting up to here in the good ol’ south.”
I could smell bullshit from a mile away. I didn’t know why he was actually here, or why he’d given me absolutely zero warning about this impromptu trip, but I knew he wasn’t going to tell me shit about it in front of someone like Max.
“Life’s pretty normal,” I said. “Got my house. Fixing it up.”
“And he’s following me around like a bloodhound because he thinks I have a stalk?—”
“Just some silly stuff,” I interjected, cutting Max off before he could say more about it. Heat bloomed through my chest.
Dominic was trustworthy and usually very subtle, but I didn’t need him knowing about my… little pet project, here in Tennessee.
Protecting Max is for me, and me only, to worry about.
“Is something going on?” Dom asked.
“No. Draven thinks so, though,” Max said, and I badly wanted to reach across the table and clasp my hand over his mouth.
I opted to give Dominic the very, very short version. “He posts videos online and gets creepy comments. Welcome to the Internet. It isn’t uncommon. I’m more interested in why Dominic was so eager to come to Tennessee.”
“Online videos, huh?” Dom asked.
Fuck.
I am going to bloody your goddamn nose by the end of this breakfast, Dominic.
He was toying with Max now, but Max didn’t know it.
Don’t tell him. Do not tell him the name of your page ? —
“The Cocktail Bro, at your service,” Max blabbed proudly. “I like making cocktails. Or mixology , as everyone calls it. I just enjoy putting weird ingredients in drinks and finding out which ones really pop.”
When Dominic and I were in high school together, we always used to sit at the back of the classroom, silently giving each other looks every time a classmate would say something we found funny.
Looking back on it now, we were… well, we were like the Mean Girls of our Montana prep school, except we were guys who were obsessed with wrestling, shooting ranges, and custom steel knives. We never bullied anyone, but we acted like we were above it all, cooler and more mature than our classmates.
Stupid. Juvenile. There was nothing “better” about us, and there wasn’t now, either.
But while I’d shed most of that gossip-fueled part of my identity, Dominic had held onto some of it. He’d gone into finance, which was ripe with opportunities to make himself feel superior to others. He treated me the same, but watching him with Max…
I almost felt that protective, possessive urge coming out in me.
Protective of him, even around Dom .
I really was getting too involved in Max’s sphere.
“The Cocktail Bro,” Dom said now. “I’ll have to remember that one. I like cocktails.”
“Happy to make you some signature drinks if you come by the Hard Spot tonight.”
As we got our plates of food, I watched as Dom slipped out his phone, tapping out a text. I felt my phone buzz shortly after, and I looked at the message he’d sent.
Dominic
So this is your new plaything while you’re on your little Tennessee holiday?
Draven
No. Don’t text me right now.
He’s adorable. Nicer than your type usually is, though. No judgment.
It was more bullshit, because I saw Dom’s smirking, very full -of-judgment face as I slipped my phone away.
Hours later, we were all at the Hard Spot, because I wasn’t going to leave Max alone, and apparently Dominic wasn’t going to leave me alone.
“You going to tell me why you’re here?” I asked him from our spot on one end of the big, U-shaped bar. I set my cocktail glass down on the wooden bar top, enjoying the satisfying sound it made.
Dom’s eyes landed on my glass.
“Maybe if you tell me why you’re drinking that instead of straight whiskey like you always do.”
I waved my hand through the air. “Max likes making up new things. He told me whiskey is good with… what was it, citron extract? Citron extract mixed with a tiny sprig of thyme? Anyway, it’s good, so shut your mouth.”
Dom took a sip of his own preferred drink—vodka, preferably at a sub-zero temperature.
The Hard Spot was unusually quiet tonight.
Groups filtered in and out, but the jukebox was on low, nobody was dancing, and I’d only seen a couple of college students playing pool.
Max was busy behind the bar, because Kane had come out and given him a project—he was reorganizing the top shelf liquors, on a little step stool, in between serving customers.
I liked watching him work.
Honestly, I’d have enjoyed watching Max do anything, especially if it involved him facing away from me so I could see his ass.
And the relatively calm evening just made it easier to watch the front doors.
To look at every single person who walked in, making sure none of them were Max’s stalker.
But it also meant that Dominic and I stood out like two very well-dressed sore thumbs here tonight. I always dressed a little differently than the cowboys here in Bestens to begin with, but Dom was in that stupid fancy suit and kept looking around like he was above this place.
Not so long ago, I felt like I was above this place, too .
“I’m here because I was tired of being far away from you. Is that good enough, Drave?”
I gave Dom a look. “Never heard you be so sentimental.”
He smoothed back a lock of blond hair with his palm, glancing up at the shelves of liquor behind the bar, then back to me. I hadn’t been away from Dom for very long at all, but seeing him here made me feel like he was a relic of another lifetime for me.
“Well, I wanted to see you here,” he finally said. “And tell you that I think you might be able to come back to Montana within the month.”
I raised an eyebrow. “A month?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Dom’s lips. “Sherman’s DUI is becoming public knowledge. He was busted for ecstasy, alcohol, and he had an illegal weapon in his car. Combine that with what you have on your dad?—”
“I don’t want to use the nuclear option unless I need to,” I said.
Dom frowned. “What more could you possibly need to save it for? Your dad is a serial cheater and also a cokehead, and the whole county thinks he’s squeaky clean.”
I looked down at the bar top, swirling my cocktail in its glass.
“Ruining his reputation only further ruins the Lyons name for all of us, though. Either Dad and Bill Franklin cut me out of the company, and my own legacy, or… I toss a bomb into the whole thing and the Lyons family legacy gets ruined for all of us. It’s a shitstorm either way. ”
Dom pulled in a breath. “It definitely is a shitstorm.”
My dad did deserve to be known for who he really was.
I’d sat on his secret for almost an entire year now, knowing that I had a way to ruin his reputation. He knew. I knew. Dom knew. But nobody else did. It was like sitting on an active volcano, knowing I could make it erupt at any moment if I chose to.
But I hadn’t been able to pull the fucking trigger.
Even when he refused to budge. Even when all of his best friends—sheriffs, judges, lawyers—would share cigars with him late into the night.
And when Bill Franklin apparently had my dad by the balls, telling him to cut me out of my goddamn legacy.
I took another sip of the whiskey cocktail, enjoying it more than I ever thought I would.
Legacy.
Why does it even matter?