Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
DOMINIC
The front door of Casa Daniels opens before I can knock, revealing Maybelline Daniels in flannel pajama pants and an oversized Harmony Harbor High sweatshirt.
She squints against the morning sun, but lets out a huge sigh of relief when she catches sight of me on the doorstep.
“Took you long enough,” she says by way of greeting, stepping aside to let me in. “I texted you an hour ago.”
“Some of us have jobs, princess.” I ruffle her hair as I pass, earning an elbow to my ribs that I pretend hurts more than it does. “Not everyone can live off the family lobster fortune.
Mabie rolls her eyes, but there’s no heat behind it.
At twenty-one, she’s grown into herself in a way that makes my chest ache with something like pride.
The awkward, gangly kid who used to follow me and Judah around like a stray puppy is now a confident young woman with her brother’s ocean eyes and none of his brooding temperament.
“He’s in the attic,” she says, closing the door behind me. “Been up there since last night.”
The worry in her voice is impossible to miss. Mabie might give her brother endless shit, but she loves him with the fierce protectiveness that runs in Daniels blood.
“How bad?” I ask, shrugging off my leather jacket and hanging it on the antique coat rack that’s probably worth more than my bike.
She chews her bottom lip. “He took the good whiskey.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
I head for the narrow staircase at the back of the house, the one that leads to what used to be servants’ quarters back when people had servants. Now it’s Judah’s sanctuary—half storage space, half workshop where he carves the intricate scrimshaw pieces he pretends are just a hobby.
The stairs creak under my weight, each step a familiar complaint. This house knows me almost as well as my own skin. I spent more nights here than at my foster homes, especially after Judah’s parents took me in when I was fifteen—a half-feral kid with too many bruises and not enough trust.
The Daniels family saved my life. Not in the dramatic, pull-you-from-a-burning-building way, but in the quieter, more profound way of showing me what family could be. What safety felt like. What it meant to belong somewhere.
Even now, years after I moved out, this place still feels like home in a way my apartment above the bar never quite manages.
The attic door is slightly ajar. I can smell the whiskey before I see it—good stuff, aged and expensive, the kind Judah’s father used to save for special occasions. The kind Judah only drinks when something has cracked open inside him that can’t be fixed with beer.
I push the door open without knocking.
Judah sits on the window seat, silhouetted against the night sky. The bottle of Macallan is open beside him, already a third empty. He doesn’t look up when I enter, just takes another sip from a glass that probably hasn’t been refilled in a while.
“If you came to lecture me, save it,” he says, voice rough at the edges. “Not in the mood.”
I cross the room and drop onto the ancient leather armchair across from him. “When have I ever lectured you about drinking?”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“Yeah, well, today’s not that day.” I reach over and take the bottle, examining the label. “Though if you’re gonna drown yourself in something, at least you picked the good stuff.”
Judah makes a sound that might be a laugh if it wasn’t so hollow. “Dad always said if you’re gonna poison yourself, do it with quality.”
“Smart man.”
“He was.”
The silence stretches between us, comfortable in the way that only comes from knowing someone for most of your life.
I take a swig directly from the bottle, letting the whiskey burn a path down my throat.
It tastes like smoke and honey and money—the kind of thing people who didn’t grow up like me take for granted.
“So,” I say finally. “You gonna tell me what happened at the bar, or are we just gonna sit here until one of us passes out?”
Judah’s jaw tightens. In the dim light, the angles of his face look sharper, older. There’s more silver at his temples than there was a year ago, and the lines around his eyes have deepened.
“Nothing happened,” he says. “I saw him. He saw me. Then your new celebrity friend started singing and created enough of a distraction that Mason could slip out the back.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I study him, reading the things he isn’t saying in the rigid set of his shoulders, the white-knuckle grip on his glass. “And you’re up here drinking the good whiskey because… nothing happened?”
“Drop it, Dom.”
“Nope.” I set the bottle down with more force than necessary. “I’m not gonna drop it. I’m not gonna sit here and watch you marinate in misery over someone who walked out on you ten years ago.”
Judah’s eyes snap to mine, suddenly sharp with anger. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “I was there, remember? I saw what it did to you when he left. I watched you turn into a fucking ghost for months. And now he shows up out of nowhere with his fancy clothes and his celebrity boss, and you’re right back where you started.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Judah’s voice rises, cracking at the edges. “You think I don’t know how pathetic this is? How fucking sad it is that one look at him and I’m—“ He stops, drags a hand down his face. “Christ, Dom. I know.”
The raw pain in his voice hits me like a physical blow.
This is Judah—steady, reliable Judah who weathered his father’s death and his mother’s decline and the slow collapse of the family business without breaking.
Judah, who never asks for help, who carries everyone else’s burdens along with his own.
Seeing him like this makes something protective and angry rise in my chest.
“Snap out of it,” I say, the words sharper than I intended. “So he’s back in town. So what? He’ll be gone again tomorrow, and you’ll still be here with your boat and your family and your life. The life you built after he left.”
Judah stares at me, something complicated moving across his face. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple. He left. You stayed. End of story.”
“You don’t understand—“
“Then make me understand!” I’m on my feet now, frustration boiling over. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re throwing yourself a pity party over someone who didn’t even have the decency to say goodbye. Someone who cut you out of his life like you meant nothing.”
“He had his reasons,” Judah says quietly.
“Bullshit.” The word comes out like a whip crack. “There’s no reason good enough for what he did. For the way he just disappeared.”
Judah flinches like I’ve struck him. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it?” I pace the small space, too agitated to sit still. “He was your best friend. Your omega. And the second things got complicated, he bailed. No explanation. No closure. Nothing.”
“You don’t know everything that happened.”
“I know enough.” I stop, forcing myself to take a breath. “I know he hurt you. I know you’ve never really gotten over it. And I know you deserve better than sitting up here getting drunk over someone who didn’t think you were worth sticking around for.”
The silence that follows is heavy, charged with a decade of unspoken grief. Judah looks at me for a long moment, something shifting behind his eyes.
“Not everyone hides their feelings away like you do, Dom,” he says finally, voice soft but cutting. “Some of us actually let ourselves care about people. Even when it hurts.”
I step back, stung.
“I care about people,” I say, the defensiveness in my voice betraying me.
Judah laughs, a sound with no humor in it. “Right. That’s why you keep everyone at arm’s length. Why you’ve never let anyone close enough to see the real you. Why you pretend not to give a shit about anything or anyone.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” He raises an eyebrow. “You’ve been working at that bar for what, five years now? And how many people there know anything real about you? How many of them know where you came from? What happened to you before my parents took you in?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. Because he’s right, and we both know it.
“At least I’m honest about what I feel,” Judah continues. “At least I don’t hide behind this tough guy act like you do.”
“I don’t hide—“
“Please.” He cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “You practically tripped over yourself trying to act nonchalant when you met Phoenix Riviera. Wonder what she’d think if she ever saw—“
“Finish that sentence and I’ll drown you in the rest of that whiskey,” I interrupt, only half-joking.
Judah’s mouth curves into something that’s almost a smile. “You couldn’t take me in high school, and you sure as hell can’t take me now.”
The challenge hangs between us for a heartbeat, and then we’re both moving.
I lunge forward just as he sets down his glass, catching him around the waist in a tackle that sends us both crashing to the floor.
We roll across the worn carpet, a tangle of limbs and curses, muscle memory from a thousand childhood wrestling matches taking over.
Judah might be bigger, but I’m faster. Always have been. I slip out of his headlock and get behind him, hooking an arm around his neck in a hold that’s firm but careful. He bucks, trying to throw me off, but I’ve got leverage and the element of surprise.
“Give up?” I ask, tightening my grip just enough to make my point.
Instead of answering, Judah shifts his hips, grinding his ass against my crotch in a dirty move he knows will make me loosen my hold. Heat flares low in my belly—automatic, unwanted, completely inappropriate given the circumstances.
I choke out a laugh, refusing to let him win that easily. “If you want that kind of distraction, I’m happy to help, but it probably won’t work any better than it did in high school.”
Judah goes still beneath me, then sighs, the fight draining out of him. “Yeah,” he says, rolling away when I release him. “Fucking you is like fucking my brother.”
“Foster brother,” I correct automatically.
We lie there on the floor, breathing hard, staring up at the exposed beams of the attic ceiling.
The familiar scent of old wood and sea salt fills my lungs, mixed with whiskey and the particular smell that is uniquely Judah—pine resin and coffee grounds and something deeper I’ve never been able to name.
This house. This man. The closest thing to family I’ve ever had.
I was fifteen when the Daniels took me in.
A skinny, angry kid with too many foster homes behind me and a chip on my shoulder the size of Maine.
Judah’s father found me sleeping in their boathouse after I’d run away from my latest placement—a house where the foster father’s hands wandered and the locks on the bedroom doors had been removed.
I expected to be turned in. Sent back. Punished.
Instead, Thomas Daniels looked at me with those same ocean eyes his son inherited and said, “Looks like you could use a hot meal and a real bed, son.”
Two weeks later, I was officially placed with them. Not as a foster kid—as family. The first time in my life anyone had ever wanted to keep me.
“You remember that time we stole your dad’s boat?” I ask, the memory surfacing unbidden.
Judah snorts. “Which time?”
“The first time. When we were fifteen and thought we knew how to navigate by the stars.”
“And ended up halfway to Nova Scotia before the Coast Guard found us.” A genuine laugh escapes him. “Dad was so pissed.”
“He grounded us for a month.”
“Worth it, though.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling at the ceiling. “It was.”
We lapse into silence again, but it’s different now. Lighter. The anger has bled out, leaving behind the comfortable familiarity that has always been the foundation of our relationship.
After a while, Judah sits up, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “I’m not going to do anything stupid,” he says, answering the question I haven’t asked. “About Mason, I mean.”
“I know.”
“I just needed to…” He gestures vaguely at the whiskey bottle. “Process.”
“I know that too.” I push myself up to sitting, wincing at the twinge in my lower back. I’m getting too old for floor wrestling. “But if you change your mind about doing something stupid, call me first. I’m excellent at stupid decisions.”
That gets me a real smile, small but genuine. “I’ve noticed.”
I stand, offering him a hand up. He takes it, and for a moment we just look at each other—two men shaped by the same losses, the same town, the same fierce loyalty that neither of us talks about but both of us feel.
“Thanks,” he says simply. “For coming.”
“Always.”
The moment stretches, bordering on sentimental, until I clear my throat and step back. Too much honesty makes my skin itch.
“I should head home,” I say, glancing at my watch. “Early shift tomorrow.”
Judah nods, starting to gather the whiskey and glasses. “I’ll walk you out.”
We’ve barely made it to the door when it flies open, revealing Mabie with her phone clutched in one hand and an expression of pure disbelief on her face.
“Were you two fighting?” she demands, eyes narrowing as she takes in our rumpled clothes and the red mark on Judah’s neck where my arm had been. “Seriously? What are you, twelve?”
“Just working out some tension,” I say, winking at her. “Your brother needed reminding who’s boss.”
“In your dreams, Romano.” Judah elbows me, but there’s no heat in it.
Mabie rolls her eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t get stuck. “Whatever. You might want to hold off on leaving, Dom.”
“Why’s that?”
Her mouth curves into a smile that’s pure mischief. “Because you will never believe who just knocked on the door if you don’t see it for yourself.”