Page 15 of The Beautiful Mess

Dom’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Keegan isn’t for you.” Kerry dropped his gaze to avoid the knowing look in his friend’s eyes. He went to work, removing the tape from his hands instead.

“Man, I didn’t realize you were dating him. Sorry. I just flirted with Keegan to irritate Sven.”

Kerry had congratulated himself for preventing what he’d been certain was a mistake eighteen months ago. Dom and Sven hadn’t seen each other for several years and hadn’t recognized one another. Dom had been in the middle of a nasty divorce and wasn’t in the right headspace. The situation had “recipe for disaster” written all over it, and Kerry had put a stop to it before things advanced too far. Now, he suspected he’d only created an unresolved sexual tension situation between them. He pulled the last bit of tape off and dropped it into the trash can. He flexed his fingers to get the blood circulating freely and met Dom’s curious gaze. “We’re not dating. It’s just…” His voice trailed off as he considered what to say. Declaring Keegan as vulnerable felt like betrayal, and Kerry couldn’t form the words. “Just don’t, man.”

Dom held up his hands in surrender. “I hear you.” He cocked his head to the side as he lowered his arms. “That snarly growl you used sounds pretty possessive. Pretty sure at least some part of you has staked a claim on that cutie.”

Kerry didn’t dignify the comment with a remark. He thrust Chuck’s flyer at him instead. “Sven thinks Chuck and Keith Bozeman are working together to ruin my company.”

“Yeah, I overheard most of your conversation. You were too busy gawking at the guy you don’t date to notice I’d entered the gym.”

“Why are you provoking me?” Kerry asked.

Dom chuckled and shook his head. “I’m only speaking the truth. That’s never bothered you in the past.”

Kerry almost didn’t recognize himself lately. He wasn’t used to feeling possessive over a guy, but he’d snarled at that Ken from the bar and then treated Dom’s harmless observations as threats. He cycled through a deep breath as he thought about his options. Maybe his problem was that he didn’t have a single person in his life he could talk to about Keegan without them getting matchmaking ideas. “Fine. I want him. I want Keegan more than my next breath, but I can’t have him.”

“Why?”

Kerry shook his head. “You didn’t come here to talk about my shitty love life.”

Dom’s brow shot up. “Since when do you have a love life?”

“Sex life,” Kerry amended. “Same thing.”

“A person can have sex without love, as you damn well know,” Dom said. He settled his big hand on Kerry’s shoulder. “Seems like you need to get something off your chest. You can trust me, Ker.”

“I know.” And he did, but Kerry couldn’t talk about what he didn’t yet fully understand. “Right now, winning my lawsuit and preventing Chuck from stealing all my business has to take precedence.”

Dom grinned wickedly. “Do you know what’s better than winning a lawsuit?”

“Building a time machine so I can go back and prevent this clusterfuck from happening?” Hell, if Dom could do that, Kerry would go back twenty-five years and save his sister and father. But then he couldn’t imagine his life without Steven and Sven in it. He couldn’t go back and change one thing without impacting dozens or possibly hundreds of others. Had he not learned anything from watchingBack to the Future? A wiser man would reference complex theories and multiple concurrent universes, but there was a reason people complimented Kerry on his looks and physique. He relied on a different kind of intelligence that rarely let him down. But when it did, he ended up getting sued.

“I can’t procure a time machine, but I think it might be the next best thing,” Dom replied.

“Consider me intrigued. Let’s take this to my office.”

Dom followed him out of the gym and down the long corridor. The doors to the left and right opened to private spaces for his overnight crew to use between calls. Some questioned the expense and extravagance of keeping the rescue staffed twenty-four hours a day, but those people had likely never found themselves in a perilous situation where minutes mattered. Yes, he could’ve hired a dispatch service to field the calls and alert the responders on call, but that meant his crew would either have to take their service trucks home, or they’d have to drive to the station, pick up their rigs, and then proceed to the accident. No one wanted to be trapped in a disabled vehicle for a minute longer than they had to, especially if that vehicle was in a perilous spot. He’d invested time and money to provide the best environment for his employees and offer an incomparable service to the community. The desire to protect everything he’d built surged to the forefront of Kerry’s mind, enabling him to push away thoughts of anything else.

Kerry opened his office door at the end of the hall and switched on the light. Something about the space had always brought him peace, even on the most stressful days. Maybe it was the family photographs hanging on the wall or tucked into the gaps in his bookshelves. Perhaps the cool tones of the slate-blue paint color soothed his nerves. Kerry figured it had more to do with the pride he felt every time he stepped into his office. This was something he’d built through grit and determination. He gestured toward the coffeepot and minifridge. “Care for something to drink?”

“I’ve far exceeded my caffeine limit, but I’ll take a bottle of water if you have one,” Dom said.

Kerry retrieved two bottles and handed one to Dom before sitting behind his desk. Dom sipped his water and perused the photographs on the shelves for a few moments before pointing to a photo of them from their youth football days.

“Who are these studs?” Dom asked.

Kerry chuckled. “We thought we were big shit, didn’t we?”

Dom nodded and stared at the photograph again. Lucinda had taken the image right after they’d won the Super Bowl game for their age group. Dom and Kerry, the two football captains, hoisted the trophy between them, their grins stretching from ear to ear. Those innocent boys didn’t have a care in the world. All their youthful dreams had come true on the gridiron, and they couldn’t imagine the cruel twists ahead of them. “We thought we’d go pro.” And one of them nearly had.

Dom had entered their junior year as one of the top-rated high school quarterback prospects in the country. All the top colleges had been vying for his attention, but Dom hadn’t let the attention go to his head. His singular focus had been winning games because the rest would fall into place. He hadn’t partied or even dated. The one time he’d made an exception to partying after a game had resulted in the end of his dream. A vehicle went left of center, and Dom swerved to miss it. The other car clipped his bumper and spun him out on rain-slick roads. Dom’s car went off the side of the road and traveled down a steep embankment. A tree limb smashed through the windshield and impaled Dom’s shoulder, pinning him to the seat until a rescue crew could extricate him from the vehicle.

The car that caused the accident hadn’t stopped, so Dom’s wasn’t found until his missed curfew triggered a search party. He’d sat in the car for hours and lost a lot of blood. He’d had multiple surgeries on his shoulder to improve its function, but his throwing arm was never the same. His football career ended, and so had his dream of playing professional ball. If Dom was resentful, he’d never let on. But the way he kept staring at the photo made it clear the hurt was still there.

Dom turned suddenly and dropped into a seat in front of Kerry’s desk. He set the bottle of water down and removed his laptop from his messenger bag. Dom opened the computer and started typing. “I won’t say the information I’ve uncovered so far will guarantee Bozeman will drop the lawsuit, but it’s enough to make him reconsider. I’m emailing the file to you now, and you’ll want to forward this to your attorney.” Dom pushed a button on his keyboard and grinned evilly. “I still have more avenues I can explore if they think it’s necessary.”

---