“You think that too?” My brother shook his head and tugged out his phone. He shot off a message, presumably to our older brother.
I bit my lip when my phone dinged with a notification. Digging it out of my jeans, I raised an eyebrow. It was from Drew.
Do you think I’ve been living under a rock, Eli?
I shot a look at Dane as I whispered the question. He leaned back against the stone wall as if he were about to watch a show.
“Yes, Drew. I’m fairly certain you have,” I said out loud as I typed it and sent it.
Well, I haven’t. If you want to talk about your relationship style or anything else I’m here.
Good to know. Is everyone in this town a Dom?
Only the fun ones.He added several laughing emojis.
Are you a Dom?
Yeah, spitfire.
Cool.
Love you.
Love you.
I replied with a heart emoji and then sighed. Dane chuckled as he observed my slightly open mouth.
“Did you get your answer, spitfire?”
“Yeah, I guess it makes more sense that Drew and most of our friends are into the same sort of relationships that we are. Honestly, it would be more shocking if we didn’t pick friends who had similar mindsets. Thanks. We’ve been rebuilding our relationship. It makes me think that Drew understands me a lot more than I thought.”
“He does, Eli. We both do. All we’ve wanted is for you to be happy. You’ve been working so damn hard. I hope that this new relationship shows you that you don’t have to handle everything alone. And even if it doesn't work out? You have us. And our friends. Keep that in mind, ok?”
“Yeah, Dane. I got it.”
And I finally did. At least at the moment I did. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t question it later, but I really did have a strong support system and it was okay to lean on them. I needed to remember that.
Fifteen
Eloise
I sat in Grant’s office on the small couch while Kingston held my hand. We were waiting for Grant to finish with an unexpected meeting. King had become an incredibly supportive force to me since we started dating. I wouldn’t have picked him to be someone special in my life from a lineup. King had a snobbish demeanor to people he didn’t know well but he proved my initial judgement wrong.
“Sorry about that.” Grant cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair.
As the general manager, I figured my involvement should have been requested. It stung a bit that he hadn’t included me in the process. “Are you still thinking about opening another bar in Cheyenne? Or have things changed?”
“It’s a big undertaking. There’s a lot of moving pieces, but I’ll let you know. I’m not hiding things from you, it’s a lot more involved than I previously believed. Since it wasn’t difficult to purchase this piece of crap shack and turn it into something else, I thought it would be easy. Let me worry about it for now.”
“Fine. Not like my opinions matter, or that I haven’t navigated similar circumstances before. Not a bar obviously.” Iresigned to sit back against the sofa. Kingston squeezed my hand giving me something solid to hang on to.
“You’ve been running yourself ragged, Eli,” Grant stated simply.
He sprinkled in his ‘Daddy Dom’ voice like when he growled at Kendall. No, I didn’t like it one bit. Instead of listening to what he was about to say, I stood up.
“Sit, babygirl,” Kingston said softly.
Releasing King’s hand, I shook my head. “I don’t need an intervention.”
