Page 6 of Best In Class (Savannah's Best #7)

Dom

M ama’s house sits on Luna’s estate in Ardsley Park, one of Savannah’s oldest and most elegant neighborhoods.

Tucked among tree-lined streets and historic homes, her cottage looks like something out of a magazine—white shutters, a wide porch, and hanging ferns swaying in the warm Georgia breeze.

Cozy, elegant, and full of life—just like her.

Luna had it built three years ago, on a parcel of land she bought in Ardsley, far from the cold marble halls of the Steele estate.

A fresh start. Clean lines. Her life, her rules.

Mama has her own full staff, a garden she rules like a monarch, and a kitchen that smells like cinnamon and sass.

“It’s been raining! So, shoes off at the door,” she calls as I step inside Luna’s kitchen where she spends a good part of her day. “Unless you’ve forgotten how to behave.”

“I never knew how,” I say, toeing off my sneakers .

“Hmm.” She doesn’t look up from the stove. “Explains everything.”

She’s making sweet tea and frying something that smells like home. Her silver-streaked hair is tied up in a scarf, and she’s still wearing the earrings I got her for her sixtieth birthday.

The minute I could afford it, I wanted her away from the Steele estate, from working, but she wasn’t going to leave Luna. She’s also not going to sit around twiddling her thumbs, so she works, but I know Luna has hired enough help for Mama, so she’s well taken care of.

Mama raised me, but she also raised Lev and Luna. They love her as much as I do. She loves them as she does me. It’s a bond the three of us share—my mother.

“You look good, Mama.”

She turns. “You look tired.”

“I’ve been working.”

“You’ve been brooding,” she corrects, sliding a pan off the burner. “And chasing that girl like you’re still seventeen and full of mistakes.”

I drop into a kitchen chair and grin. “I am still full of mistakes.”

She gives me that look—the one that could stop a freight train.

“Dom,” she says, sitting across from me. “I don’t know why you both broke up, but you were both so young, and sometimes things don’t work out. Now, you’re sniffing around her, and she behaves like she doesn’t like it,” Mama pauses for effect, “ but she does.”

I grin. “Yeah?”

Mama rolls her eyes. “You know all that riding a motorbike and badassery is genuine, but beneath, she’s…soft.”

“I know, Mama.”

“She gets hurt easily.”

I take a deep breath. I can’t tell Mama about what happened with Nathaniel. She’d blame herself, feel terrible that she became a liability for me. I’ll cut a limb off before I make my mother feel like that. No, she doesn’t need to know about the threats Luna’s father made with regard to her.

“I’m not going to hurt her,” I say quietly.

I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime.

“Good! Because if you hurt my girl, you’ll answer to me.”

I nod, my throat tight. If Mama ever found out what I did, she’d be so disappointed, but she’d understand. I know she will once she gets past the guilt. She knows how hard it’s been for me to become the man I am today, how impossible this life was a decade ago. I was told not to dream too big.

“Cornell?” My school counselor arches an eyebrow like she’s misheard me.

“They have one of the best architecture programs,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady.

She offers me a tight smile. “Getting in is hard. Getting a scholarship—especially a full ride—is even harder.” She folds her hands, her tone tipping just past concern into something more like pity.

“I’m just being realistic with you, Dominic.

Maybe think about two years at community college, save some money, build your resume. Then see where you land. ”

“I have a 4.8 GPA,” I tell her. “Near-perfect SATs. I took every AP class they’d let me register for. I’m captain of the math league. I play varsity soccer. What else am I supposed to do?”

She sighs, like I’m a lost cause trying too hard. “I’m not saying it to be mean, sweetheart. I’m saying it because I’ve seen kids set their hopes too high. Just…don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t work out.”

I left her office that day and never went back. She didn’t even know me. Just saw my zip code, my skin, my mother’s job title—housekeeper at the Steele estate, and decided I was aiming out of my league.

But I got in.

I applied for every damn scholarship I could—federal, state, private—and pieced together enough to cover tuition. One year. Then another. And another. I worked two jobs to pay for rent and books, lived in a subsidized dorm with cockroaches and thin walls, but I made it.

It was a pressure cooker. I lived afraid that one crack would undo it all.

So, when Nathaniel Steele cornered me with his poison smile and quiet threats, I was primed to break.

I didn’t tell anyone about what a struggle it all was. Not Luna. Not Lev. I didn’t want them to know how close I was to slipping. I didn’t want pity, didn’t want anyone to see how much of my life was stitched together with fear.

I thought it was pride. Strength.

Now, I wonder if it was arrogance, and my silence cost me everything .

Maybe I didn’t lose Luna because I wasn’t good enough. Maybe I lost her because I wouldn’t let anyone help me believe I was.

But that’s hindsight. The truth is, I made my choices. I built my own armor. Now I have to live with what it cost me.

Mama comes up to me and kisses my forehead. “You’ll stay for dinner?”

“Yes, Mama, I will.”

For someone who once swore he wanted out of the Steeles’ orbit, I’m still deeply tangled in it.

Mama lives here—on Luna’s estate, in the guest cottage Luna had built just for her. And I live in Lev’s pool house. I keep telling myself I’ll buy a place soon, but the truth is…I haven’t even looked.

Because what’s the point? A house is just walls and a roof. A home is something else entirely. And it only counts if Luna’s there with me.

We visit for a while.

Mama doesn’t say it, but she knows I’m waiting for her .

The door creaks open, and a familiar voice follows the scent of honeysuckle and rose drifting in from the porch.

“Sorry, I’m late, Miss Abigail! I had a meeting run over and?—”

Luna steps in and brightens the room.

Short, wind-tousled hair, jeans that fit like sin, and a sleeveless black top that shows off lean, strong arms. She looks like a woman who’s wrestled fate and won.

My heart, like the fool it is, flips .

She kisses Mama on the cheek and then her green eyes flick briefly to mine.

“He’s staying for dinner,” Mama announces. “And I’d appreciate it if you both kept a civil tongue.”

“Mama, you know me, I’m always civil.” I put on my best schoolboy expression with a little puppy dog sprinkled over.

Luna glares at me.

“Luna,” Mama warns.

“Yes, ma’am.” Luna sticks her tongue out at me from behind Mama’s back like she did when we were kids.

I chuckle.

“I saw that,” Mama admonishes.

“How could you?” Luna demands.

“I’m a mother. I have eyes in the back of my head.

Luna disappears for a quick shower and returns dressed in loose linen trousers and a matching shirt. Effortlessly chic, she could give any off-duty supermodel a run for her money. But it’s more than the clothes. It’s the way she carries herself—graceful, grounded, and quietly magnetic.

What’s that old Clapton song? Something in the way she moves…?

Yeah. That.

The three of us sit around the worn oak table in the kitchen—the same one that was in the Steele house, the one the three of us sat at when we were kids, where homework was done, cookies were iced, and secrets were spilled.

I’m glad that this table is now with Luna. It’s like she brought a piece of all of us, our childhoods, into her present .

For a while, the only sound is of forks clinking, plates filling, and soft music from Mama’s brand-new Bose speaker (which she’s very proud of) humming in the background.

Luna passes a bowl of okra stew and cornbread, which I take a third helping of. I’ve missed my Mama’s cooking.

“You’re both behaving yourself as you work on building that hospital?” Mama asks as she leans back in the chair.

“I am,” I say, amused. “She’s not.”

“Tattletale,” she retorts softly. But there’s no bite to it; just a hint of shared memory, of familiarity that feels good.

“Dom, you’re older, you have to be the bigger person,” Mama orders.

“He’s only older by like a year,” Luna grumbles.

I break a piece of cornbread, dip it into the okra gumbo, and savor the flavors of home—it’s the food, it’s Mama, and it’s Luna. If Lev were here, the family would be complete.

“A year older is a year older. You should show your elders some respect.” This banter is deliciously familiar, comforting.

Luna narrows her eyes, but again, there is a softness to it, to her. We’re both role-playing, Luna and Dom, the teenagers who fought as hard as they loved.

“See, Miss Abigail,” she accuses. “He’s like this at work, too.”

“Mama, she’s being?—"

Mama arches an eyebrow at me. “Still talking too much and not listening enough. Be quiet!”

I grin. “Yes, Mama.”

“So, how does he behave, Luna?” Mama wants to know .

Luna doesn’t disappoint. She embellishes and teases, and puts a spell on me as I sit there, in awe, absolutely in love.

After dinner, Luna helps Mama clear the dishes even though she doesn’t have to.

I watch them move around the kitchen like a well-choreographed dance—no tension, no resistance, just love in every small motion.

Mama and Luna laugh about something.

The sound is warm and full.

My chest tightens.

Mama leaves us with a slice of pecan pie each and a cup of coffee, her quiet way of blessing the evening before she heads to her cottage. “You two enjoy,” she says, patting my shoulder. “Let me get on now.”

I offer to walk her, but she waves me off with a soft smile. It’s only a few steps, and through the wide-open windows of the kitchen, I can see her the whole way.

Luna watches her go, then tucks a stray curl behind her ear and turns to me. The glow from Mama’s porch lights flickers on, and she turns to me.

“She won’t let me spoil her,” she says softly. “But I make sure she has help, a lot of it. We have a housekeeper now. At least Miss Abigail has given up the cleaning. Thank God. But insists that she must cook for me. It’s just me…so….”

Her tone isn’t boastful, it’s matter-of-fact, like this is the bare minimum for someone who deserves the world.

I swallow hard, my voice low. “You take good care of her.”

Luna meets my gaze. “She’s family, Dom. ”

And me? Am I family too, Luna?

There’s a beat of silence. It stretches between us, taut and electric.

“You’re our family, too,” I whisper. “My family.”

She blinks and then smiles—it’s a warm smile, one she saves for when she’s not being the badass who can win the world, this one is for me, for us.

I want to kiss her. I want to hold her. I want to….

The music changes to the crackling guitar intro of Let’s Stay Together by Al Green.

It’s like the universe is telling us something because this is our song .

We used to dance to it when we were kids playing grown-up, barefoot on creaky floors, pretending time wasn’t a thing that could steal moments like this from us.

Luna stiffens slightly, like the memory has touched her, too.

It would be so easy to pretend we don’t both remember.

But she’s not a coward. And now, neither am I.

So, she doesn’t move away.

Tilts her chin in a challenge.

And, I do the only thing I can. The only thing I must.

I stand up and hold out my hand.

She hesitates. Breathes in.

And then she places her palm in mine.

We don’t say anything as I pull her gently into me, my other hand resting just above her waist. Her fingers slide up to my shoulder, and we start to move, slow and small, just swaying in the dim light of the kitchen .

Her cheek brushes my chest, and for a second, everything feels like it used to. Before distance. Before mistakes. Before heartbreak and time made everything complicated.

“You still remember how to lead,” she murmurs.

“You still remember how to let me,” I reply, my voice barely above a whisper.

She doesn’t answer. She also doesn’t let go.

I rest my chin gently against her temple and close my eyes. Just for a second. Just long enough to believe this is my reality.