Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,19
on slippery socks, and glares. “Filth. When did you become so fucking disgusting?”
“I was raised by you,” I glower. “So my education in baboonery and weird shit began when I was young.”
“I’m fairly certain baboonery isn’t a word,” he retorts.
“I’m fairly certain you’re wrong. But even if you’re not, too bad. You know damn well what I’m saying. Now go away, I wanna watch a movie. I’m tired, I’m ready to chill the hell out, and you’re annoying me.”
I snatch up the remote from the arm of the chair, flick the TV on, and instantly, I’m met with the motherlode of irony.
“Oh, come on!”
Evie Kincaid – or, well, Evie Conner now, I guess – stands in her family’s kitchen much like she did the first time we saw her on TV. Ben stands behind her, but instead of his hand resting on her hip right beside an enviable six-pack that sparkles from the camera lights, this time her belly is swollen, round, and lined with a few stretch marks.
“Holy shit, Will.” Instead of turning the TV off, I stomp the footrest down and sit forward to get a closer look. “She’s either hella pregnant, or her lunch was huge.”
“Whoa.” Bad attitudes and fighting gone, Will sits on the edge of the ratty couch and clears his throat. “That’s… Well, Ben looks kinda proud of himself, doesn’t he?”
I burst out in snorting laughter. It’s like the Nate thing; if I don’t laugh, I might curl into a ball and sob my eyes out. Because right beside Ben and Evie, there he stands.
Jamie Kincaid. In all his handsome glory.
He looks harder now than he was when we met. Harder still than the fighter I secretly watched last December while Will was working.
Jamie looks angry, mean. He’s bigger than he was, wider. Stronger. And why the hell, when I think of strength, does my mind go to the time he picked me up at the tournament when we made love, and not of his strength when fighting? Why does my mind make me think of intimacy and the way he could hold me, and not of power and the weight behind his fists?
And why, in the name of all that’s holy, does he have my name tattooed on his chest?
Well, not my name… not the name I was born with. But the Q is there. The ballet slippers. The tree. The musical notes, and roman numerals that even my non-scholarly mind knows mark the date of our first kiss.
Jamie stands beside his cousin now, shirtless, showing off a defined chest and rippling abs. His brow is a little sweaty, as though he was training before coming onto live television. His hair is a little long, shaggy, so it hangs over his forehead and tickles his temples. He wears red wraps around his hands, just as Evie wears pink. He wears shorts that sit low on his hips – lowwwww – showing off a deep V, and drawing every single woman’s, and at least half of the male population’s, eyes straight down to his crotch.
The world knows Stacked Deck as Evie and Ben. When they want to expand their image, usually Bean and Mac enter the picture. The four of them are on the posters, on the website. We all know there are more Kincaid kids, but the tournament belongs to those original four.
So why the eff is Jamie Kincaid standing beside Evie on TV right now? Why must the universe hurt me like this?
“And, Jamie?” the interviewer – a woman – asks when Will snatches the remote and turns the TV up. “What have you been up to these past few months? You fought last year, you won eight fights, only to step down leading into finals night. Care to explain your reasoning for such a bold move?”
He only shrugs, the movement somehow sending bolts of electricity through my shoulder, and reminding me that I should be icing mine already. “Injuries got the better of me last year. So instead of fighting and making it worse, I stepped down.”
I swallow. Damn him for having a sexy voice! Damn him for growing into that man’s body over the last few years. And damn him again for wearing those shorts and making it impossible for me not to notice the V of his hips.
“What injuries?” the interviewer prompts. “Would you share with us?”
He smiles. It’s kind of sexy, kind of repressed, and at least partially sad. “It would be bad business for me to announce