Page 9 of Best In Class (Savannah's Best #7)

Dom

L ev’s backyard is a peaceful haven—oak trees draped in moss, string lights casting a soft glow, and the steady hum of cicadas filling the warm air. Like Luna’s place, Lev has a pool, but unlike hers, there’s also a one-bedroom pool house. That’s where I’m staying.

I’m here a lot. I work on the loungers. I swim laps to clear my head. I stare up at the sky, trying to understand myself better, untangle the knots of the past, and figure out how to move forward.

A conversation with Lev this morning cracked something open in me, and I’m still processing it.

“You stayed away for ten years—why?” he asks over black coffee and scrambled eggs.

“I didn’t stay away. I came back almost every year.”

“You stayed away from her ,” he amends, giving me a look that says, ‘ don’t be a smartass .’

I sigh. “Because I wasn’t ready. I used to think I had to be at the same socio-economic level as all of you to stand a chance with her.”

Lev raises his eyebrows. “Do you even know how much money we have?” He isn’t bragging—just being honest. “You’d have to pull a Gates or a Musk to catch up.”

“I know.”

“Then—?”

“I believed her,” I admit. “For a long time, when she said I wasn’t her peer. That I wasn’t enough.”

“She was angry. Hurt. You know that.”

“I do. And I knew it even then.” I take a sip of my coffee. “But it confirmed my insecurities, and stuck for years. It took getting to where I thought I needed to be to realize the truth—I don’t have to be anything but myself to be with her.”

Lev tilts his head. “Therapy?”

I laugh under my breath. “No. Being an architect, building…things.”

He nods slowly, then adds, “She didn’t reach out to you either, you know.” His voice is quiet. It’s a small offering. His way of asking me not to carry all the blame alone.

“I was in the wrong.”

He shrugs. “It takes two to tango.”

For years, I ran to get ahead, always chasing the next milestone, the next project, the next win. And finally , I won big, got awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

I remember it like it was yesterday—in some way it was! Because it drove me back, brought me here.

It’s a Tuesday. I’m in the studio, finalizing a blueprint for a client .

I’m burnt out.

Half-hungover.

A little numb.

This has been my standard operating procedure for years.

My assistant bursts in without knocking, holding her phone, eyes wide.

“They just announced it,” she squeals. “You won. Dom—you won.”

I raise both eyebrows. “Won what?”

I’m so out of it that I’m not even waiting to hear about the Pritzker, when I should’ve been on pins and needles.

She pulls up the press release and shoves the phone in my face.

There it is, in black and white on a press release.

Dominic Calder.

Recognized for “ bold innovation, elegant form, and socially responsible design .”

I stare at the screen.

The rest of my team comes in. Champagne appears from God-knows-where. There is singing, dancing, raucous laughter.

My mentor from my first job calls me. The dean from Cornell emails me. My phone explodes with congratulatory messages.

And all I can think is…I need to tell Luna.

It hits me like a load-bearing wall I didn’t know existed—one wrong move, and everything I built will start to crack.

This rising, aching swell in my chest, I know, has nothing to do with pride .

It’s longing.

And it grabs me by the throat.

Doesn’t let go.

Because I know that none of it matters. Not the award. Not the headlines. Not the accolades. Not the architectural immortality.

It means nothing if I can’t walk into a room, find her eyes, and say, ‘ Moonbeam, I did it .”

“We did it.”

She’s the first person who believed I could build something extraordinary.

And I broke her.

I stand in a room full of people who want to celebrate me. People who I care about, who care about me, and yet, I have never felt more alone in my life.

I leave the party early, go to my apartment, open a Scotch that’s too expensive and too old, and sit on the floor by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the city that I made my home when I ran away from Luna.

I pretend that we’re together and I tell her. She smiles.

Her green eyes light up, and she says, “I told you.”

Then I remember the last time I saw her cry.

And between sips of whiskey that tastes like failure, I know.

It’s time to go home.

“I thought you’d be able to afford your own place by now, Calder.”

And just like that, the peace of Lev’s backyard dissipates.

He walks up to me like he owns this place. He doesn’t. This is Lev’s. Sure, it’s close to the Steele estate, but it’s still far away spiritually and emotionally.

Lev cut ties with the house he grew up in, even if he didn’t with the residents of that mausoleum mansion.

I ignore Luna’s father.

“I hear you’re still sniffing around my daughter… again .” He jams his hands in the pockets of his suit pants.

I rise with my glass of Scotch and walk to the edge of the patio, and lean against the railing, looking out at the Savannah River.

Lev won’t appreciate it if I punch his old man.

“I hear you’re Minton’s golden boy now.”

The asshole follows me. He wants to get a rise out of me. This is his MO. This is how he behaves with his kids, too. Always trying to get a rise out of Lev, out of Luna.

“What do you want, Nathaniel?” I don’t look at him when I ask this, don’t give him that courtesy.

Also, I call him by his name , which is an insult. I always addressed him as Mr. Steele or Sir.

Not anymore.

I’m not the half-black kid, scared that he doesn’t measure up. I’ve outgrown that. I know now it’s not about generational wealth or old money names—it’s about who you choose to be today and how you intend to live tomorrow.

I’ve got nothing to prove to this walking relic of white entitlement—this man who thinks being descended from a Mayflower passenger makes him royalty.

He’s not a king. He’s not legacy. He’ s not power.

He’s just shit—polished and privileged, but still shit .

“I’m here to see my son.”

I jerk my chin toward the main house. “He’s not home.”

“I can’t believe you’re still leeching off the Steele family. Your mother is cleaning house for Luna and you’re?—”

“Nathaniel, I repeat , what do you want?” I demand levelly.

He smiles, cold and thin. “Get the hell out of the lives of my children.”

I say nothing.

I’m tired—tired of him, tired of this endless back-and-forth with the world he represents. In my mind, he’s become the poster child for everything I resent. The Tommy Mintons. The Nathaniel Steeles.

Spoiled. Entitled.

Men who think the world owes them something just for existing.

I give him nothing, just empty space.

I don’t owe him anything, not even my anger.

“Dad?” Lev turns out to be closer than I thought.

I knew he was home—noticed the lights that went on a couple of minutes ago, which Nathaniel didn’t. He must’ve seen his father’s car and knew where he would be, trying to agitate me.

You’ll have to try harder, motherfucker. Men worse than you have thrown everything they had at me—and all they ever saw was polished granite. Unshaken. Unmoved. Unbreakable.

“Son. I was just catching up with Dom here.”

Lev’s expression shutters. “Were you? ”

Nathaniel shrugs—his cocky expression in place. “I’m surprised he’s still living with you.”

“I asked him to stay.” Lev steps beside me, just a little ahead, as if putting himself between me and his father.

He’s protecting me, and it makes my throat tighten.

Nathaniel says nothing, just arches an eyebrow, sarcasm and disbelief oozing out of him.

“I didn’t know we had an appointment,” Lev remarks.

Nathaniel looks miffed. “I can’t just drop in to see my son?”

“Not when you’re coming explicitly to insult a friend I think of as family,” Lev replies.

“ I am your family, son,” Nathaniel growls. “Not this?—”

“You need to see me, you call my secretary, and she’ll schedule time for you. Don’t come to my home again.”

Nathaniel looks from Lev to me, hate sparkling in his eyes. “Your mother wants to see you for dinner on her birthday.”

“Let my secretary know when and where. I’ll see if I’m available,” Lev replies tautly.

But I know he’ll go.

Jenn Steele is a shit mother by any standards, but Lev is a damn good son. He’s there for his mama no matter what—no matter that she’s high as a kite, numbing herself from reality, and has been for a good part of her children’s lives.

Nathaniel spins on his heel and storms off without another word.

“Thanks for not breaking his jaw,” Lev mutters, taking the glass of Scotch from my hand and knocking it back like it’s water.

“It’s the least I can do, considering you’re letting me squat in your pool house.” I grin, trying to push down the residual disgust Nathaniel always leaves behind. Trying to lighten the mood—because I know having him around wears on Lev, too.

Lev snorts, but the sound is hollow. The humor doesn’t quite make it to his eyes.

I take the empty glass from him and pour another from the bottle sitting on the side table, the one I’d been sulking beside before Savannah’s favorite tyrant decided to pay a surprise visit.

I pass the refilled drink back to Lev, and drop onto a lounger with a sigh.

“He still pushes my buttons,” Lev admits, his voice quieter now as he tiredly slouches into a chair next to me.

“Mine, too,” I say, matching his tone. “I have to keep reminding myself he doesn’t have any power over me anymore. Not like he did back then .”

Back when I was young and scared and stupid enough to let that man poison the good in my life.

Lev doesn’t say anything, but he nods like he hears all of the things I left unsaid.

We drink for a while, and then I get us into his place for dinner.

I cook—it’s my way to relax and focus.

He finds a wine bottle in his cellar.

I make pasta with fresh tomato sauce and way too much basil, just the way Lev likes it.

The herbs come from the small kitchen garden out back, which his housekeeper, Ms. Lynn, meticulously maintains, which is a good thing because Lev doesn’t have a green thumb. He can kill a cactus.

We eat out on the patio, the air soft and cool in that perfect Savannah spring way. The sky is streaked with blush and gold. There’s a bottle of Tuscan Vermentino between us. It’s crisp and elegant, complementing the fresh sauce well.

Lev tops off our glasses.

“This is an excellent way to spend an evening.”

“Yes, it is.” Lev twirls some pasta onto his fork. “I like that you’re living here.”

“I know. I like it, too.”

“But it’s temporary.” He’s not asking.

“Just until I can convince your sister to let me move in with her.”

He huffs out a short laugh. “You’ve come a long way.”

I know exactly what he means. When I was younger, I probably would’ve wanted Luna to live in my house, in my world, on my terms. Some dumb, macho idea about being the man of the house, the breadwinner, the protector—like that was the pinnacle of masculinity.

But that boy is long gone.

Now, I’m a feminist in the truest sense.

If my partner earns more than I do, then good—more power to her. More power to us. I’m still ambitious as hell, but I also know that if we have kids one day, and Luna wants to run the world, I’ll be happy to be a homemaker. Proud, even.

I’ve evolved, not just in age and career, but as a person.

I like the man I’ve become.

I know my truth. I can sit with my flaws, own my failures, and still acknowledge—without apology—what’s good and strong and steady in me.

“You ever think about walking away from all of it?” I ask after a stretch of silence.

“Every day,” he replies without hesitation.

I wait.

Lev stares into his wine glass for a long moment. “The company. The family. The pressure. Sometimes I just want to hand it all over to some overpriced consultant and disappear into the woods.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because this is how I take care of my mother,” he says with a rueful smile.

“And because it’s all we have left. After what Dad did—after how much he lost—it was either let it burn, or try to rebuild it ourselves.

Luna stepped in with her trust fund. I stepped up by taking over. And now I can’t let go.”

I know the weight of legacy. Even if mine came from nothing but hard work and hustle, it’s still heavy as hell.

“How’s Jenn?” I ask after his mother.

Lev shrugs, a tired gesture. “Some days are better than others. She has good help.” He pauses. “Luna’s done. She’s walked away. And I don’t blame her. Watching Mama fade…it ’s a different kind of grief. Not sharp, not loud. Just constant. Like a slow leak in your gut.”

We sit with that. The kind of silence only old friends can carry without needing to fill.

“Luna once told me she got tired of being disappointed by Mama,” Lev says after a beat.

“She said it was like going to a bookstore and asking for flowers. It didn’t matter how many times she asked—she wasn’t going to find what wasn’t there.

Mama just couldn’t be the mother we needed. Or the one we hoped she’d become.”

I’d sensed that the day Luna told me she’d cut them both off—her father and her mother. It wasn’t cruelty. It was survival.

“You know you’re family to me, right?” Lev says after a long pause.

I look over. “Yeah. Same.”

He nods. “Even if you are trying to steal my sister’s heart again.”

I grin, but my voice is serious. “Not trying to steal it. Just hoping she remembers it’s already mine.”

Lev lifts his glass. “To miracles, then.”

“To redemption,” I correct, and we clink glasses.

The evening lingers, slow and warm.

No pretenses. No pressure.

Just two brothers, bound by more than blood, trying to hold their worlds together, one glass of wine at a time.