Page 132 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

“When Brody was taking photos on Dad’s property, he discovered something else. Dominic had been there for a financial meeting, Lily had been there for obvious reasons. But the two of them were in a side room, and through a window, Brody had seen them… together.”

“Fucking?”

“Not quite. But on the way to it,” I told him.

“Were you hurt?” Max asked. “Your best friend…”

“At that point I knew Lily was on Dad’s payroll. I knew everything with her was most likely a farce. But I wasn’t certain until that point.”

“Dominic was lying to you,” Max said.

My heart sank in my chest. Fresh, like it had been that day.

“Dominic lied to me for months,” I confirmed.

“Did you hurt him?” Max breathed, his voice barely audible.

I crossed over in the dirt, walking over to the rock and sitting on the bare spot near Max. I clasped my hands together in front of me, staring at a spot ahead, where a stray juniper branch lay on the greyish dirt.

“I’ve never hurt Dominic in my life. I didn’t hurt him then. I wasn’t angry, I was… hollowed out. It was like finally confirming something you’d known your whole life.”

“That your relationship with Lily wasn’t real?”

“That ofcoursethey weren’t thinking of me,” I said. “I’ve never felt loved, Max. Nothing changed in that moment other than getting a sharper view of reality.”

“Fuck,” Max said beside me.

“It wasn’t Dom who I hurt. It was Brody,” I said.

My chest tightened.

There it was.

The truth. A glimpse of it. Right there, out in the open.

“Brody was fucking gleeful,” I continued, tipping my head back to look at the sky from under the brim of my hat. “Gleeful. He smiled as he showed me the photos of Dom and Lily together. Didn’t think of how I’d feel. He laughed at it, like he’d just gotten a juicy piece of gossip he couldn’t wait to share with me.”

“Horrible.”

“I remember exactly what he said: ‘Come on, Drave. You always must have known she was a slut.’That’s when I first punched him in the jaw.”

“Wow,” Max said softly.

“Then, Brody got more descriptive,” I explained, my chest stirring with rage, recalling it. “Brody said that hevouched for me. He didn’t just take the photos and run. He went inside. He told me that he pulled Lily off of Dom,for me. He said that he tossed her onto the ground,for me.”

“No.”

“And then Dominic reached into his bag by the couch and pulled out his 9 millimeter Glock.”

“Jesus,fuck,” Max said, standing up from the rock and looking down at me. “This happened toLily?In front of Lily?”

“I screamed at Brody,” I continued. “I asked him, over and over again, if he hurt Lily. He balked, saying she fell into a pile of clothes, talking about itnot being a big deal. He kept reminding me that she was cheating on me, as if that should have mattered.”

“What thefuck?—”

“And then I annihilated him, Max,” I said, my voice low and heavy. “Brody isn’t dead. But he would have been dead withina single minute if I didn’t think of Lily first. I didn’t want to be a murderer, because I didn’t want her to ever have that in her history. Icouldn’tbe a murderer, even if I wanted to exact every shred of vengeance I could. I had to protect her. From a life where she had been with a murderer. A life where she’d beenpaidto be with a murderer.”

“I’m going to be sick,” Max said.

---