“It’s all good, though. I don’t have any sisters for you cretins to try to fuck.”
Cheers and jeers echo through the room again, and I relax, glad to move on from being the center of attention.
“Your sister takes the cake, Nikki. I guess she’s your sister too, Gabri.”Shit.Now I’mreallynot the center of attention. That terrifying honor has shifted to the man everyone calls Wednesday. His name is Zach Tuesday, but he has jet black hair and a scowl more often than not, so his nickname was a no-brainer. This is his second year with the Rising Tide, and he’s never stayed anywhere longer than two years. He has a reputation as a shit stirrer, and the rumor is that he spends one year on every team making an effort, but by year two, he’s back to being his shithead self.
“Not sure what you mean by that, Wednesday. But I’d think very carefully about it before you tell us,” Nikki responds without looking up, but Gabri’s black eyes bore into Zach from across the sauna. Nobody poured any more water on the coals, but it suddenly feels at least ten degrees warmer.
Placing his hands in the air in surrender, Wednesday immediately backtracks. “I don’t mean anything except that she seems like the perfect sister, is all. She makes my sister look like a lazy piece of shit in comparison.”
“Oh my God, remember when she made those cappuccino brownies last year?”
“The brownies were good, but her cheesecake made me cry!”
“Anybody can bake, but my dad still wears the beanie she knitted him with our logo and my number on it! Hey Nikki, remind her if she ever needs any tax work done, my dad said he’s her guy for life, for free!”
The guys go on and on about Ellie, and based on what I know about the hospital, the retirement home, and the beach cleanup, it doesn’t surprise me at all. She warms people’s lives wherever she is and doesn’t expect anything in return. Every time she talked about her charity work or volunteering, she never wanted to tell me about it. Instead, she wanted to talk about how hard others were working and tell me the stories of the people she met along the way. This week, I know she had a twelve-hour baking day planned for Nurses Week and Luau Night at the retirement home.
I should send her a wrist brace for her carpal tunnel. She said it acts up when she makes more than 100 cookies at once…
“Oi, assholes!” Coach snaps me out of my reverie and silences the rowdy sauna. “If any of you knuckleheads are planning on making the plane outta here tonight and actually playing on this road trip, you might wanna get a move on! Wheels up in thirty minutes!”
Scrambling in a mass of sweaty flesh, we rinse off and grab our bags out of the locker room just in time. It’s a long flight to the West Coast of Canada, and I’m hoping to get some sleep. My noise-canceling headphones are fully charged, and I have a podcast downloaded on old-school film development techniques using a camera I’m thinking about buying. Since Ellie encouraged me, I’m itching to get back on the beach and take pictures again.
My phone buzzes as I’m walking up the steps to the plane, and my heart skips a beat when I see who it is.
Ellie:Good luck on the road trip?
That’s the first thing she’s sent me since she left my apartment the day we broke things off, both in tears and wishing things were different. We should have Wi-Fi on the plane, so as soon as we take off, I’ll text her back. Settling in, I get my snacks and electronics set up just the way I like and lean back with my eyes closed for takeoff. It’s never my favorite part of flying, but the sound of ocean waves and taking deep breaths usually gets me through.
A thump in the open seat next to me has me opening my eyes, though. Gabri has plopped down and made himself comfy. He normally sits by Nikki, but I can see Nikki is holding court with Wednesday, being generally annoying and intimidating, probably as payback for mentioning Ellie in the sauna.
“Cuddles,” Gabri growls.
“Cap.”
“I like you. I realized we hadn’t talked much one-on-one, and this first away trip gave us the chance.”
“Sounds nice, I—”
“What Nikki and I said about Elia is not hyperbole, Theodore.” Pitch black eyes stare into my soul, and all I can see is a flip book of his sister: naked, coming on my tongue, coming on my cock, crying and choking on my length, dripping my spend before I eat it out of her just to spit it into her mouth.
“Cap, I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t. You seem like a guy who likes his head on his shoulders. I mean…has a good head on his shoulders. We just like to reinforce things whenever the guys start thinking about her cooking too much, like today. She’s an amazing woman, even better than they know. But she is not. For. You.”
With that, he places his own headphones on and falls asleep immediately. I’m left reeling, faced with information I already knew rewritten for me in neon red. Not for you. Taking a melatonin and chugging a glass of wine, I turn my ocean waves up louder and leave Ellie’s text unanswered.
Not for you.
Chapter 14
It’s been rainingall day, and I’ve been staring out the window for most of it. I’m hours into my melancholic daze when I realize how pathetic I must look. I’m no better than a lovesick girl in a scripted tragedy. No man has ever made me feel like this, and it kills me that I’ve allowed anyone to hold such power over my emotions.
I don’t think it would hurt so much if he were any old asshole. The problem is that Teddy issucha great guy. In fact, he’s the perfect man. Aside from the fact that if my brothers found out we were together, they would kill him, anyway. This isn’t a normal family with normal protective older brothers…they really would kill him. And there’s nowhere in the world we could run that they wouldn’t be able to track us. The Santoris are ruthless when provoked, and my sweet Teddy wouldn’t stand a chance against them. I’ve neverreallyminded being born into this madness, but suddenly being a Mafia princess feels more like a prison sentence. For the first time in my life, true resentment festers in my heart for my beloved family.
A knock on my door brings me out of my sorrow-filled reverie. “Come in,” I mumble.
“Hey, Sis! I haven’t seen you all day. I thought you might want to watch an episode of our, um, show before we all leave for the game tonight.”
