A two-hundred-pound quarterback for a major league team who hurls himself into physical danger every day really shouldn’t be afraid of a sixteen-year-old boy, but he isn’t wrong either. The Everett drama distracted me from making plans for the cousins to thwart the little Casanovas of Willow Street when I can’t be there. “Sasha does seem to be following in his father’s footsteps.”
“That’s all his grandmother. I’d take on the whole defensive line alone at next week’s game before I’d even think a bad thing about that woman.”
“You know she’s here, right?” I glance around the backyard to find her cuddled up to her smiling husband.
“Luisella has a soft spot for me.” Everyone in the family seems to have one for Gabe, but that’s another story. “She’s coming to the game next week. Are you going to be able to make it? Your mom said you were going to be out of the country for a few days.”
I was, until today happened. “We’ll be there.” Hope insisted on seats at the fifty-yard line, but I also got us a box in case the people become too intense. “You ready for your next ring?”
“Yeah. It’s weird knowing this will be the last game I’ll ever play, but I’m ready to settle down and find someone like them.” Gabe’s eyes roam the sickeningly sweet couples who seem to be surrounding us.
“You know, finding that isn’t as easy as winning a ring. Do you think someone is just going to plop down in your lap and say, ‘hey, I’m your soulmate…the love of your life…your reason for existence?’”
Gabe grins. “I’m not worried. Our three nonnas will find her before I can blink. The plan is I retire, they find her for me over the summer, we date through the fall, get married the coming winter, and are expecting by next spring when the twins graduate. This way Mom is distracted when the twins go off to college by her first grandbaby.”
“That’s quite a plan.” My personal life never followed any of my plans. I was supposed to graduate, open my company, build it up for a few years, meet a nice girl, get married, and then have a huge family while growing my company. Not one of those plans happened.
“I know, right? All I need to do to get the ball rolling is win in two weeks, then let the nonnas get to it.”
How many marriages have they arranged? Dozens and dozens over the years, not one of them has ended in divorce. Without a doubt, they’ll find someone amazing for Gabe.
Why hasn’t one of them ever even hinted at finding me another wife? That’s…odd, and probably something I shouldn’t worry about right now.
But it doesn’t make sense…the nonnas’ whole goal in life is to see every member of their family married with kids…Why not me?
My mind doesn’t like unsolved puzzles, but Hope’s giggle is all the distraction I need to pull me back to the here and now. She’s safe here, surrounded by her family, but on Willow Street…there are too many teenage boys who don’t understand that my baby girl is off-limits. There will be times that I can’t be with her. Arranging protectors is a must.
Antonio’s twins should be the ones I approach to set up the family meeting, but Gabe’s right, Sasha Kamenev is scary. He and his brother Alex are never far from Hope anyway. They’ve been her little shadows almost since birth. “Talk to you later.” I pat Gabe on the shoulder, then stalk towards Sasha.
The kid doesn’t flinch, nor does he take his gaze from my daughter and his brother, who are still laughing together, doubtlessly at some silly joke Hope told.
Sasha doesn’t wait for me to speak before saying, “I don’t need to take care of Everett.”
Huh?
“He won’t be bothering Hope while he works for you.”
Oh…Sasha doesn’t know yet that Everett thinks he’s Hope’s uncle.
Not thinks…believes it with his entire being, and yet he was still willing to walk away. “Everett isn’t the issue.”
Sasha turns slightly so that his gaze is still on his brother and Hope, but he can see my face as well. “Then what do you need?”
Why does this kid think everyone needs something from him? I mean, I do need something, but still, that shouldn’t be his first reaction…should it? “Tomorrow, after school, all the male cousins need to meet at my house.”
“Only the ‘male’ cousins?” Sasha’s voice takes on a hard edge. “You don’t need anyone else. I can take care of anyone myself.”
Definitely scary. “I don’t ask children to kill people.” Rough up nuisances on occasion, but adults take care of the wetworks for the family.
Sasha shrugs. “We’ll be there.”
And now I’m more than a little afraid of a sixteen-year-old.
***
Staring at the fire in Dad’s office usually helps me focus. It’s been that way since I was little. Dad would work at his big desk late into the night, and I would sit right here and think.
Only tonight, when I have bigger problems to deal with, all I can think about is why haven’t the nonnas been butting intomy life and how am I not going to end up killing a bunch of teenage boys over the next few months. Asking Sasha to watch over my daughter sounded like a brilliant idea at the time. Now it sounds like yet another way to get stupid teenage boys killed and Maddox irritated with me.
