“Sorry,” I sighed, sitting down in the seat Micah had vacated. “That...I’m sorry if I crossed a line. But I’m sick of him acting like a spoiled prince. He didn’t use to do this shit, and he doesn’t get to keep hiding under his teenage hormones while he acts like a dickhead.”
Mason leaned back, and I expected he’d have something to say, but his face was devoid of expression.
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, butI 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.”
