and trademark owners of the any word-marks and references mentioned in this work of fiction.
Edited by Katherine Springsteen
Cover Design by Lori Jackson
Cover Image by ShutterShock
Formatting by Chelle Bliss
For Heather Weston-Confer, my favorite football wife.
FAIR WARNING
Chill the wine now.
You’re gonna need it when Kona shows up.
WRITING PLAYLIST
Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill
Not in That Way by Sam Smith
I Love You by Billie Eilish
Just Breathe by Pearl Jam
Falling Like the Stars by James Arthur
This Town by Kygo feat. Sasha Sloan
Beyond by Leon Bridges
This Is On Me by Ben Abraham ft. Sara Bareilles
HAWAIIAN WORDS AND PHRASES
Kaikuahine – sister of male
Kala – princess
Keiki – child
Ko`u Aloha – my love
Kupuna – grandma
Kupunakane – grandfather
Ku'uipo – sweetheart
Makuahine – mother
Makuakāne – father/daddy
Pēpē – baby
“Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.”
― Warsan Shire
PROLOGUE
GIA
NEW ORLEANS, MARDI GRAS, 2017
Gia wanted to soar. She had wings. She wanted to use them.
New Orleans had been her home when she was a girl. Back then, she was barely eighteen, full of ambition and pride. She’d been desperate to prove herself. Eager to shatter glass ceilings.
Now, the glass crunched under her heals as she walked over it. Now she had made those dreams her reality. She was the boss.
It was her time.
But sometimes, even the boss needed a reprieve.
Mardi Gras was a perfect time to get lost. You could slip into a crowd, don a mask and pretend that you had no identity. You could be wild. You could be free.
You could pretend there weren’t ghosts tethering you to the past.
There was a freedom in the night and the thud of the music. No one but Cat, Gia’s fast friend and eager assistant knew her at this place. Summerland’s, the crowded club Gia and Cat found themselves at, was as decadent and rich as the city itself. Every square inch of the club invited indulgence. There were lush, cushioned sofas that stretched along the back of the bar and around the lounging areas, all covered in plush velvet and soft leather. Red drapes of thick fabric weaved through the rafters above, swagging around the sides of the ceiling, obscuring the lighting and duct work, acting as boarder for the center swings and high-flying acrobats who flew through the air like fairies, laughing as they bent at the knees on trapeze bars, arms outstretched just missing the touch of the patrons below.
And on the massive dark wood dancefloor, Gia spotted men and women, every conceivable variety of parade-goers dancing and gyrating to the happy roar of music, drunk on the night, the drug and drink that likely filled them, and the wild abandoned that had taken hold of everyone during Mardi Gras. She’d felt it before, a long time ago. Claire, her college roommate brought her to the city for her eighteenth birthday, and Gia had been lost a little to this place. Summerland’s had ushered in that hedonistic tendency she only gave in to once in a while. She still indulged, but now, only when her life became a blur of obligation. When the memory of the past and the craving for the man she missed from it became too much of a heartache for her to bear.
Like it had tonight.
Gia was heartsick and she tried never to be that way…and sober at the same time.
“We should have skipped the absinthe,” Cat said, leaning against Gia’s shoulder as she waved for the bartender. “Hey, I’m right here, darlin’. I know you see me waving at you.” But the gorgeous man donning the green, purple and gold Mardi Gras mask and little else gave Cat his palm, dismissing her to service a group of familiar-looking men at the end of the bar. “Asshole.”
“Why?” Gia asked, letting Cat’s assertion finally seep into her thoughts.
“What?” Her assistant glanced up at her, eyes a little wide before she grinned. “Oh…because we’re lit as hell.”
“I’m not…lit.” Gia snorted, finding the word ridiculous. She didn’t say things like “lit,” though she found the more time she spent in the city and around her young assistant, the easier it became to meld back into everything from the food to the language. It had been twenty years, but New Orleans had already made her feel at home again.
“Okay, whatever you say.” Cat slapped her hand on the bar, pushing up, nearly on top of it, to grab a bottle of bourbon. The masked bar tender jerked around, automatically reaching for it, but the woman was too fast. “You like the Steamers?” she asked him, taking two empty