Dom #2
Moira let out a sigh and then dropped her hands into her lap.
“I feel like I should be pissed because someone decided to step in so...forcefully. But every other tactic we’ve tried has failed.
Shit, if I’m honest, I’ve been wondering if he’s getting worse.
Maybe having someone come down on him hard is the only way to get through to him. ”
“Jace is going to do everything in his power never to have to act like that around him,” Mason finished for her. “There’s too much shit in his past for him to be able to act like that. He’s not like Dom.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Mason rolled his eyes and then stopped. “Alright, yeah, that one’s on me. I said that wrong. You can lose your temper and keep yourself in control, but Jace is terrified that if he loses his temper, he’s going to go too far.”
I frowned. “He would never. He loves that kid.”
Moira pushed my card back toward me. “Take it. I don’t need your money.”
“You’re going to take it anyway, or I’ll find another way to get you money.”
“Dom—”
“Seriously, do you know how much money I’ve made over the years? It just...sits there, in my account. Just take it, Moira. I broke the damn thing. I don’t care if it was because he pissed me off, and he actually deserved it.”
“Well, what’s done is done,” Moira said. “I’m not upset, Dom, and I’m not offended. So maybe this will work, and maybe it won’t.”
“Get the kid to a head shrinker,” Mason said in a tone that told me he’d had this conversation with her before.
“Him needing a shrink doesn’t mean you royally fucked up.
I don’t want to say the kid’s wrong for being pissy, it’s normal for a teenager to be sensitive and a little mean sometimes, but now we’re to the point where the Playboy Fist Fighter is having to parent. ”
“Alright, fuck you for that one, you dirty hypocrite.”
“I am a reformed playboy.”
I rolled my eyes. “I swear you come up with the stupidest shit sometimes.”
“And you love it,” he said. “At least, normally you do. You’re not normally so...Moira about the shit I say.”
“Fuck you too,” Moira said lightly as she eyed me. “But Mason makes a point. You’re not normally this pissy, and you definitely haven’t lost your temper like that in quite a while. I think the last time was three...four years ago?”
“I would have said six, did I miss something?” Mason asked.
“Oh,” Moira laughed. “Right, you weren’t here.
I was running the bar because you weren’t here, and Roger had the night off.
We had a guest who decided boundaries were for losers, and he was going to be a winner.
Drunk as a skunk and trying to get his hands all over me.
I didn’t even see Dom come in that night, but I sure as hell watched that man fly across the lobby and out the door. ”
I scowled. “He’s lucky I didn’t break something important.”
“He is,” she agreed. “He was only allowed back with a police escort to get his things. A shame he paid for a week but only stayed two nights. So uh...what’s up?”
I blinked. “What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Both of us can tell something is bothering you. Only something big would have you losing your temper so readily.”
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“I’m sure,” she said, and continued staring at me. Worse yet, Mason was taking a page out of her book and deciding it was time for an impromptu stare-down, as if they were both going to wait me out patiently.
I grimaced. I could have just left, but...”Levi.”
“Levi?” Moira began. “Wait, that kid you hung out with when you were younger?”
“They were practically the prototype for Eli and Milo,” Mason said with a snort. “Where you found one, you’d find the other. Mom joked about how she’d end up having to make Levi’s mom have an ‘accident’ so she could adopt him, which...she stopped making those jokes though.”
“God,” I said dryly. “I can’t imagine why that joke suddenly stopped being funny to her.”
“She did it before the woman died, don’t be so cranky,” Mason said with a roll of his eyes. “But what about Levi? Because, uh, last I knew, he up and disappeared without a trace. At least, that’s what the rest of us assumed.”
“It wasn’t like Dom was telling us anything,” Moira said, her memory clearly coming back. “He’d practically explode anytime anyone, even Mom, tried to get him to talk about why we suddenly stopped seeing Levi and why Dom refused to say his name.”
I might or might not have failed to mention to my family that my best friend, who was also kind of a lover, had gone off to join one of the most infamous crime families in the country.
The only thing I’d ever let them know was that Levi’s dad had reappeared in his life and that he was a piece of shit who was moral and legal trouble waiting to happen.
They’d all agreed it was better for Levi if he just cut ties with his father, but there wasn’t much I could do to stop him.
So maybe opening my mouth had been a bad idea because now I wasn’t sure what to say next.
I still didn’t want to tell them the truth about Levi back then, let alone admit what was going on now.
Of course, I didn’t exactly know what was going on with him, but I knew it had to be big.
Like I’d told him, there was nothing as far as I could see that would bring him back to Cresson Point after the way he’d left and stayed gone.
I still wanted to throttle him for that, but that was a conversation for another time.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, because I’d never been good at evading things; that was Mason’s job. “We stopped being friends...not my choice, but what could I do, right?”
“Since we don’t know shit, we don’t know what you could have done,” Moira said dryly.
Mason shook his head. “And what he lacks in guile he makes up for in hardheadedness. We’re not going to get him to tell us.”
“Look, he reappeared, I saw him, I contacted him, and when I was on the phone with him...something, I’m not sure what, happened,” I said, which was.
..not a total lie. I was leaving out the fact that there had apparently been some explosion, but I didn’t know what kind or why.
Okay, I knew it had been blamed on a gas leak at some warehouse that had been collecting dust and rust for years, but.
..alright fine, I was still leaving shit out.
“He promised to get back to me, and he’s got.
..one hour of the time left before it turns out he’s a fucking liar. ”
Moira glanced at Mason, raising a brow. “I can’t tell if he’s upset or just pissed.”
“I don’t think he can either,” Mason said wryly. “Makes sense, though. He’s never been very in touch with his feelings.”
“This is true, and Levi has always been a touchier subject than his parents,” Moira said with a nod.
“Alright, fuck both of you,” I muttered, flipping them both the bird.
“I think we’ve had enough pseudo incest in this family, thanks,” Mason said, the bastard actually winking at me. “But I’ll admit it’s kind of funny that you’re still touchy about him after all this time.”
“Not really,” Moira said with a shrug. “First boyfriend and all that.”
Both Mason and I stared at her, and before I could think about the implications of the words spilling from my mouth, I blurted out, “How the fuck did you know?”
Mason’s eyes somehow grew even bigger as he snapped his head up. “What? Excuse me? What the fuck did you just say? You and Levi...seriously?”
“Goddammit,” I groaned, realizing I had not only just confirmed what Moira had probably only suspected, but also told Mason something I’d always kept close to my chest. “Don’t you fucking start, Mason. I swear to fucking God.”
Mason stared at me, shaking his head as if trying to clear it.
“Wow! I just...I wasn’t ready for that one.
I mean, it was already weird for Eli to suddenly decide dick was for him, which I mean, good on him for seeing the light.
Then it got weirder learning that Arlo is apparently still interested in dating. ..and a guy at that, and now you?”
“I don’t feel the need to talk about my sex life all the time, unlike you,” I muttered.
“Okay, well, it was enough that we knew you were a dirty little man whore. I’m not judging, but seriously?” he asked, wrinkling his nose and turning his gaze upward. “Hmm, was Levi the only one?”
“I’m not answering that,” I told him.
“Smart,” Moira snorted.
“I’m just trying to figure out if there was more so I can figure a type,” Mason explained. “Like, don’t get me wrong, he was cute. I mean, for a teenager—”
I squinted at him. “You’re really not making this any better for yourself, just so you know.”
“Point is,” he said quickly, “he was kinda scrawny, but that was also years ago. Were you into twinks or just...him?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I told him.
“Liar.”
“Prove it.”
“So, does that mean you’ve seen him?” Moira asked, happy to ignore her twin’s bullshit, which, to be fair, she’d had plenty of practice at.
“Yes, a few times,” I said, hoping she understood from my lack of details that I wasn’t going any further than that.
“Right,” she said.
“Is he still a twink?” Mason asked curiously.