My hand clenched around Kitty’s, and her smooth fingers felt so right in my grasp, like they’d always been there, like they always would be. And the ring I’d slid on there dug into my own digit. A reminder. A vow.
She turned to me with a questioning look, but there was a serenity in her expression that soothed me.
“Oh, shit,” Neev muttered, drawing both our attention. “What about our bags?”
“Fuck!” Raisin pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is a nightmare. Maybe we’ll be lucky and no one’s home?”
“Say they were lost on the plane?”
“Knew I liked you, Valentini.” Neev wagged a finger at me.
“Good to know,” I teased, but it was a reassurance all the same.
Luciu’s in-law situation might be disastrous, but mine wouldn’t be.
I wouldn’t,couldn’t, allow it, not when I knew how close Kitty was to her family.
Even if it meant causing some kind of turf war with her brothers to knock some sense into them, I’d make it happen.
“You’ve sneaked out a lot, huh?” Neev asked.
“I was a teenager once.” Not that I liked to think about those days. “I had…” I grimaced. “I’m a recovering addict.”
My honesty earned their full attention. No small feat when Neev and her phone were surgically attached at the hand.
Ironically, for the first time, Raisin didn’t look at me like I was a gnat she wanted to splat.
“How long have you been clean?” Kitty inquired, but no disgust laced her tone. No dismay either. Just genuine interest.
“Since my father’s passing. I wish I could say that I stopped in his memory, but it wasn’t so honorable. Still, I’m clean.”
“What are your other vices?”
“Neev,” Kitty chided.
“What?! You know as well as I do that you switch one for another.”
“Overworking,” I answered with a twist of my lips. “Overtraining. Undereating sometimes. That’s new, though.”
“Cade did that when Vinny died, didn’t he?” Neev stroked her fingers through her hair. “One second, he was the skinny brother, and next thing you knew, he looked like xXx.”
Sporting a somewhat sympathetic expression, Raisin nodded. “He still falls back on it if he’s stressed.”
“Lucas is the overworker, not Cade,” Kitty concurred.
“But he also works out too much when he’s stressed… We’re definitely capable of dealing with your vices,” Neev said with a cackle. “Youaresticking around, aren’t you, Stan?”
“I am.”
A gleam appeared in Neev’s eyes. “Good. I can’t wait to see you and Lucas fighting in the street.”
“Neev!” Kitty chided.
“What? You know it’ll happen. Lucas is a control freak, and Stan gives off that vibe too. It’ll be like something fromStreet Fighter,” she cheered.
Considering that was where my mind took me, I couldn’t argue with her.
“You like ancient action movies, huh?”
