Dom #5
I wanted to say something right then, but I focused on pressing my lips together as tightly as I could.
From pretty much the beginning, his dad had been a topic neither of us really talked about, but only because we could never agree.
Levi had always wanted me to understand why it was important for Augustine to be in his life, and I had been desperate to get him to understand that you couldn’t have a gangster for a father and expect that anything good was going to come of it.
Of course, now I was staring at him, knowing he’d been working intimately with The Family for almost a decade and a half.
Hearing the story of the first time he killed someone, I thought that, of the two of us, I was the one proven right by time.
But I wasn’t interested in dragging up old arguments. The subject of Augustine had always been rife with arguments and outright fights between us, and I didn’t feel like renewing that when I was finally getting him to speak to me.
“Augustine...what?” I finally said, after almost a full minute of complete silence between us.
He stirred from staring out the window. “Well, I expected he would be the worst to give me hell for getting sick after killing someone...but he didn’t.
He shared some...words with me. I can’t say if those words made me feel better, at least for what I’d done and what I was afraid of for the future, but.
..I did get to walk away not feeling like I had completely screwed up. ”
“Worried about what the other kids would say?” I asked with a snort.
His brow furrowed harshly. “Really?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is this a delicate memory for you?
Do you want me to hold your hand and tell you everything is going to be okay and that it totally doesn’t make you less of a man because you threw up after putting a bullet in someone’s head?
” I asked him, not even bothering to cover the sarcasm that laced each word. “Do you need to cry on my shoulder?”
Levi stared at me with a blank expression. The stirring of the spoon had stopped, and he just... stared. After a few heartbeats, I watched his lips twitch upward before he looked away and gave a soft, “Jack ass.”
“You’ve never known me to be the sort of person you call when you need someone to feel bad for you, or be a shoulder to cry on,” I said with a shrug and a grin.
“I’m not going to sit here and try to make you feel better because you threw up after shooting a guy and basically ordering that he be kidnapped and tortured. ”
“I suppose it’s a comfort to know that over the years, you may not have learned tact, but you’ve certainly learned when it’s appropriate to lower your voice,” Levi said with a snort.
“Well, I’m not trying to announce to everyone what’s been going on in your life.”
“Mmm, I appreciate that.”
“So is that the story? Don’t wanna tell me what Augustine had to say about it?”
“No, that was strictly between him and me, and...” He eyed me, “you wouldn’t appreciate what he said anyway. I’m quite sure it would piss you off more than just hearing his name or any mention of him still does.”
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend to be shocked that I’m obvious about my hatred of that bastard.”
“I would have never expected anything else.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
He stared at me again and sighed. “What are we doing? And don’t say talking.”
“But...that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“Dom, seriously?”
“What? That’s what we’re doing, and right now, that’s what I want us to be doing,” I said with a shrug.
“Okay, why?”
I stared back at him, trying to figure out how to put into words what I was feeling.
A lot easier said than done, because I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, let alone able to put it into words.
I mean, he was Levi, the only person who wasn’t my family that I had trusted with everything there was to trust another person with.
He wasn’t the same person he’d been when I’d last seen him, but I wasn’t the same person either, so now we were basically two strangers who had once known each other inside out.
I was angry at him for leaving in the first place, for saying all the shit he did when he left, and I was so goddamn mad at him for going with Augustine.
I still wanted to know why he had made that choice when he could have easily come to live with us.
Matty had told me once that if Levi were up to it, she would temporarily adopt him until he was an adult; there was plenty of room in the wing of the hotel where we had all grown up.
But he hadn’t wanted that, had he? No, he had wanted to get his bloody revenge, and he had done it through his god-awful father, who had taken him away from the life he could have had… from me.
And I was hurt, as amazing as it was to find that the pain from when he’d left was still raw despite almost fifteen years.
I know everyone with a best friend likes to say they would never believe their friend would leave, turn their back on them, or betray them, but that just..
. wasn’t realistic. You never truly knew another person.
No matter how much time you spent with them or how much you shared of yourself, there were always going to be things you couldn’t know or expect.
And I had never expected him to leave, I had never expected him to turn his back on me, and I had never expected him to leave me in that miserable silence that followed.
There were other things, like the relief to sit in front of him and see him again after almost fifteen years.
To see that he had grown a little, and sure, he had changed in ways I couldn’t figure out yet, but it was Levi.
I was angry, hurt, and relieved. Here was the one person I had trusted more than anyone else, and despite everything, he was back, speaking to me.
Oh sure, he was back to do his job, and the only reason I even had the opportunities to talk to him was probably more due to chance than anything else. ..but he had stayed.
I was feeling all those things and others I couldn’t even name, but instead I went with, “So...seeing anyone?”
He paused, putting down his mug, and raised a brow. “Really? Small talk?”
“When you don’t see your former best friend for almost fifteen years, there’s some things that have to be brought up, at least if you want to catch up.”
“And who said I wish to catch up?”
“Well...I do,” I said, trying to push away the sting of his possible refusal to keep talking to me.
“I mean, most of the time people start asking about the same stuff, and I already know what you do for work...sort of, and I know you’re not going to talk about it, so that’s out.
The weather is as shitty as it ever is, and who the fuck wants to talk about the weather when they’re supposed to be playing catch-up?
I can’t imagine the years have changed your attitude on religion, and probably other than buying off politicians, I doubt you have too many opinions on politics, and even then, what the fuck am I supposed to say?
I don’t know shit about what’s going on in the world. ”
“So...you defaulted to whether or not I’m dating someone?” he asked wryly, and I thought, or maybe part of me hoped, I saw a flicker of intrigue.
“Well, you clearly don’t have any kids, and you’re not wearing a ring, so you don’t seem to be married.
That doesn’t mean you’re not seriously seeing someone.
Plus, all I have left for catch-up talk is asking about your family, and between you and me, I don’t really care what your dad has been up to unless rotting in the ground is an option. ”
Levi gave me a strange look before shaking his head. “It has been a while since I thought about that.”
“What, Augustine dead? True, I haven’t thought about it for a while, but now that it’s back, I find it hard to let go of for some reason...weird.”
“Oscar Wilde once said that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”
“Yeah, and he also said it was for really intelligent people too, so—”
He blinked. “Really?”
“What?” I asked defensively. “I read.”
“I’m...aware, but when you read before, it was either trashy horror novels, trashy romance novels, or those god-awful western books you found at used book stores.”
“First of all, none of them were trashy.”
“Mmm, yes, they were, and still are, no matter how much time passes.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Look, I like that stuff, alright? The horror and the romance are...fun. I mean, I guess some of them were trashy, but so what? They’re fun trash.”
“Now that sounds like the Dom I used to know,” he said with a small smile that sent a dart of warmth to my chest. “Always ready to embrace his own cringy behavior.”
“I think the one who has that crown is Milo.”
Levi raised a brow. “Yes, I uh...saw his account on Instagram, actually.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. It actually took me a second to realize it was him. Last time I’d seen him or Eli, they were what, seven, eight?
So yeah, took me a second to realize that was them, all grown and doing their own thing.
It was strange to see them, but... it was kind of nice to see that not much about them had changed.
Milo is the living Energizer Bunny he’s always been, and Eli seems content to go along for the ride. ”
“Wanna know something even stranger about them?”
“Can they get any stranger? They were pretty odd as kids, though I do remember thinking it was quite sweet how close they got after Milo managed to get through to Eli.”
“Oh, they got through to each other alright.”
“Huh?”
“They’re an item now.”
“I...as in—”
“Crazy about each other, madly in love, and doing things in private that I don’t want to think too hard about.”
Levi blinked, pouting his lips for a moment before sucking them back in. “I...see. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I can’t say I’m unsurprised either. They were close, but they were just kids at the time. I did have a feeling about Milo, though.”