mailboxes at the same time or when the elevators were empty save for these two very different women. Mrs. Becknell was a society wife, of some eleven years, so Gia had heard, not yet worried about her place at her husband’s side, but still old enough to be suspicious when he took great interest in their fourth floor new neighbor who happened to be the new general manager of the New Orleans Steamers.
She was young enough to still hold an active shape, her face not too taut with the typical overdone plastic surgery perfections most older women in her circle tended to favor, but those boobs weren’t hers, and there was no way she’d gotten that ass or those thighs from the same European ancestors that left her the pale skin, freckles and gray-blue eyes.
Someone, Gia figured, had been visiting Dr. Delaney, a local plastic surgeon who specialized in Kim K. enhancements.
“Well, Miss Jilani, how are you?” Dr. Becknell asked, making Gia tense when he gave her a smile that bordered on too friendly, too wide. The man was the opposite side of the coin to his wife; the exaggerated court jester to her crying demon. The pair of them got on Gia’s nerves. “How’s our boys looking? You know, my buddy Matt Thomas, he’s with the Orleans Parish D.A.’s office, went and had a look at the boys during spring training.” He gave Gia a nod, which she politely returned, but didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Well, guess I can’t say ‘boys’ now can I? We got that gal kicking, don’t we? That lil’ Nobel girl…”
Gia bristled. She did anytime any woman got referred to as a girl, particularly by a man, but especially when it was a man like this one. “Miss Nobel is a fine athlete, as are all our players,” Gia said, glancing up at the numbers above the door, willing the car to hurry.
“You’re right, of course…of course you are.”
“Honey,” Lydia said, grabbing hold of her husband’s arm. “You always pester that poor woman. Look at the state of her. I’m sure Miss Jilani wants to be left alone after working so hard.”
It was a subtle, but cunning dig and not one that Gia should have cared about. But Lydia was being petty, calling her out for being sweaty, pointing out that her hard work somehow made her unapproachable. That pissed Gia off. It brought out her inner bitch. She usually let her out when her players needed to be scared, but today Gia was feeling generous.
“Well,” she said, moving her gaze to Lydia, then straight to her husband, “some of us have to keep in shape the old fashioned way,” she couldn’t help but say, plastering a saccharine, fake smile across her mouth. “It’s not all of us that have the constitution for Dr. Delaney’s knife.” She nodded to them, her smile widening when Lydia’s grin fell, and the door opened. “Afternoon,” she said, leaving the elevator.
But Gia’s small victory against the pettiest woman she’d ever met faded quickly when she took five steps away from the elevator and stopped short, jerking back to move out of the way of two men yanking a large, overstuffed sofa from the door across the hall from her front door.
“Excuse me,” she tried, attempting to go around them, snake behind the biggest man, but the guy seemed distracted by her voice, jerking his attention to her, then dropping the sofa on the floor just as his partner inside the apartment pushed it forward.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” the man in front of her said, waving toward the open door, dropping his extended hand before he leaned back against the wall and blew out a whining breath. “Son of a bitch.”
“Is there a problem?” she asked, immediately feeling stupid when he pulled out his phone, glancing from the screen, to her, then at the sofa wedged between the opened door and wall. The hallway was large, but the angle of the large cushions and metal frame had pinned it between the threshold and hinges.
“Kenny might weigh a buck twenty,” the man told her, scrolling through his phone. He glanced through the door, head shaking when he spotted something inside. “The homeowner is a big dude, but he’s…not available and my other crew is on the other fuc…um…other side of the city,” he continued, looking away from her when she crossed her arms. When Gia stood there, moving on the tops of her toes to see if she could