Page 19 of Best In Class (Savannah's Best #7)

Dom

I t’s been two days since we made out like teenagers in a bed-and-breakfast in the middle of nowhere.

Two days, and I’m still replaying the moment her hands tangled in my hair like she forgot all the reasons she ever pulled away. Still remembering the way she tasted: like salvation and risk. Still feeling the weight of her head on my shoulder after, quiet and safe.

We didn’t talk about it after she said she needed time.

We didn’t need to.

Something shifted. The air between us isn’t sharp anymore. It’s still charged because we are who we are—but the static feels different now. Like anticipation instead of warning.

I think about how to bring us, not back to who we used to be, as that’s neither possible nor relevant, but to a new place where we can learn what the years have done to us, taught us, and raised us .

I want to date Luna Steele.

I dive into Lev’s pool, which is narrow and deep, made for laps, not lounging.

It’s still early—barely sunup; the world is quiet except for the soft slap of water against tile and the distant hum of birds in the live oaks beyond the fence.

I swim with long, clean strokes and a steady rhythm, maintaining good breath control. It’s more than muscle. It’s meditation.

Lev offered me the use of his home gym, but I prefer to start my day with a run through the neighborhood while the world’s still gray and sleepy, and then laps until I’ve burned off just enough tension to function like a sane human.

I cut through the water, not like I’m chasing something, but to clear my mind and understand myself better.

You still haven’t told her the truth!

But if she’s forgiven me for a crime I didn’t commit, won’t she for the one I did?

Guilt is more acrid than the chlorine in the pool

I’m scared to tell her the truth, I admit that. I can’t lose her just when I’ve found her.

I flip at the end of the lane, push off the wall, and glide. For a few seconds, the silence is complete—just water, breath, thought.

How about asking her out for dinner? No masks. No defenses. At least not from my side.

I think about that as I feel the burn in my muscles, ignoring it and pushing through it.

Luna is still wary .

I was her first love, first lover, first everything—and I damaged something inside her by making her think I cheated on her.

I was such a damn moron, thinking that was a smart way to end things.

But the truth is, I didn’t know how else to make her give up on me.

Because Luna wouldn’t just walk away because I said it was over.

Oh no. She’d know something was off. She’d dig, and push, and demand answers—because she’s Luna.

And I didn’t have the guts to give her the real ones.

Back then, the thought of going up against Nathaniel Steele scared the hell out of me.

My scholarship, Mama, everything I’d worked for—he had the power to take it all.

And if I lost all that, I’d lose her, too.

Because if I didn’t go to school, didn’t become the architect I knew I could be, how would I ever be worthy of Luna?

I wanted to show my woman I was strong enough, big enough, to be the man she deserved.

Christ! Talk about toxic masculinity! I was the fucking poster child of it.

I surface, slick my hair back, and lean on the edge of the pool, chest rising and falling. The water laps gently around me, warm against skin that still remembers hers .

And I think—not for the first time….

This time, I won’t lose her.

I debate whether to ask her out on a date in person or by text.

She’ll get jittery if I approach her in person, and I can see her reaction. She’ll shut down. However, a text message allows her to process my request at her own pace.

I’ve handled billion-dollar clients with fewer complications than figuring out how to navigate Luna Steele.

Should I text her before work or after?

Stop overthinking this to death and just do it, Dom. Damn it!

I spent the entire day thinking about how to ask her out. I exhaust myself, and then finally, I text her after work before I head to meet Lev, Gabe, and Noah for drinks.

After overthinking the fuck out of it, I send her a simple message.

Me: Dinner this Saturday.

Me: Just dinner.

Me: And drinks…obviously.

Stop typing, you fucking motherfucker before she realizes you’re still a wet-behind-the-ears teenager.

Luna: Pick me up at seven.

Holy fuck! She said yes!

Me: Yes.

Luna: Don’t half ass it, Calder.

I laugh.

Me: I’ll have my whole ass there, Moonbeam.

Luna:

I’m still grinning when I step off the elevator and onto the rooftop at The Peregrin.

It’s golden hour in Savannah. The skyline glows with just enough romance to make you believe in second chances. String lights float overhead, and the rooftop hums with that laid-back Southern luxury vibe—white parasols, velvet booths, cocktails with names like “Propagator” and “Root Runner”.

The guys are already at a corner table, drinks in hand.

One of them has ordered me a bourbon neat. Probably, since they know me, it will be a Blanton’s Single Barrel.

I sit down, pick up my glass, and proudly announce to my friends that my girl finally said she’d go out with me.

Yep, I’m as excited as a teenager who’s gonna go on his first date.

“I think you look prouder than you did when you won the Mies van der Rohe Award,” Lev remarks, amused.

“It was harder to get her to agree to go out with me than it was to win that damn award,” I reply, looking through the menu.

I’d won the European award for a modular clinic project in Barcelona, which is now regarded as the best example of passive cooling in use.

Technically, the prize was for designing a fully self-sustaining health complex with modular scalability in underserved urban neighborhoods.

My team and I had worked hard to deliver a solar-integrated facade, rainwater harvesting systems, natural ventilation, plus on-site community spaces.

Lev had been my plus-one for the award ceremony since he was already in Europe on business. I’d thought about asking Luna, of course, I had. But I didn’t. I knew she’d turn me down.

Still, I can’t help wondering—if I’d asked her three years ago, would we have found our way back to each other sooner?

Well, no point living in the past, Dom. Let it go.

Noah raises a brow. “Look at you. Mr. Net-Zero.”

I smirk. “Yeah, well, Luna’s got better instincts for sustainable systems than I do. I just get the fancy press.”

Lev leans back, arms folded. “So, you built a revolutionary project that’s been studied in top architecture schools, but the one thing you’re celebrating tonight is getting a woman who already loves you to say yes to dinner?”

“ Exactly ,” I agree, raising my glass of bourbon. “Because that award changed my career. But Luna? She’s the one who changed me .”

They’re quiet for a beat, and then Gabe clinks his drink to mine. “To the woman who made this architect relearn his foundation.”

I grin. I’m so fucking happy, my heart is ready to jump out of my chest.

“So…what’s the plan?” Noah slouches back in his chair.

Gabe chuckles. “Five-star dinner? Helicopter over the marsh? Serenade under the Spanish moss?”

I shake my head. “Just dinner. Good food. Honest conversation. No bullshit.”

Gabe shoots me a delighted grin. “Aurora will be pleased. Apparently, Luna’s stressing everyone out since y’all started working together.”

Noah’s expression lightens with amusement. “According to Stella, she wishes y’all would just fuck and get it over with.”

I shoot him a look of mock exasperation.

“Women!” Lev complains. “And they say we’re the insensitive sex.”

Noah lets out a sigh of mock irritation. “We are? I am pretty sensitive about sex with my wife.”

“Yeah, man, we all saw that,” Gabe teases.

There had been a sex tape of Noah and Stella that the world had watched. I hadn’t, ‘cause Stella is like a sister to me, and I didn’t need that image in my head.

Noah flips Gabe the bird.

“Maybe ask her what she wants to do on a date?” Lev muses.

“She told me not to half-ass it,” I reply dryly. “So, I’m going in with my whole ass, okay? That means I need to come up with an unforgettable date.”

“Right!” Lev let’s out a dramatic exhale. “Whole-ass energy only.”

Noah sips his drink. “Do you even have a half-ass mode, Calder?”

“Luna would argue that I do,” I mutter.

Lev grimaces. “Please don’t make me imagine my best friend and my sister with their asses in any capacity. I’m begging you.”

We laugh, and the warmth behind it is something I missed in New York. I have friends there, but not like this. These are my people .

I raise my glass and tap it against theirs.

“To not fucking it up.”

“To Luna,” Noah says.

“To both of you,” Gabe adds.

Lev groans. “My best friend and my sister. It’s a living nightmare.”

I nudge him with my elbow. “Get used to it. The lady is mine .”

Lev frowns. “Who you calling lady?”

I send him a flat, unimpressed stare.

“Yeah, man, don’t let Luna hear you call her a lady, she’ll kick your ass,” Gabe warns.

“Your whole ass,” Noah adds.

I’ll take an ass-kicking from Luna every day if it means she’ll let me be in her life.

Yeah, I’m that gone, that deep, that into her.

And … she said yes!