stopping him without uttering a sound.
“I know I’ve been…”
“Doesn’t matter,” she told him. “It ends now. That night at Summerland’s was nice, but I was in my feelings and very drunk. I didn’t know who you were. If I had…” Kai blinked, head shaking, and Gia thought he might be holding his breath ready for her to continue. “If I’d known, I would have walked away from you.”
“But you didn’t,” he offered, his tone even.
“No, but I should have. You should have.” She smoothed her hair off her forehead and pulled down on the shirt she wore. “Regardless, it’s over and it won’t be repeated.” Kai opened his mouth, seeming ready for a fight but Gia silenced him, grabbing his hand to sit. “You need to decide what you want most—to relentlessly hound me like a fourteen-year old with a crush on his teacher…” she didn’t return the laugh he released and pulled her hand off his wrist, frowning, “…or act like a professional, pay your fine, sort out your contract and work your ass off until your name and a bust of your pretty face is in the hall of fame.” Gia stepped back, folding her arms across her chest. “In my mind it seems like a very easy solution.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“Yeah, Mr. Pukui, I do, but then again, I wouldn’t enjoy benching anyone. Especially not because you were too proud to follow the rules.”
Kai shook his head, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You’re…you’re serious?”
“Perpetually,” she told him, turning to face the doorway. Regardless of how sweet that spark felt, she still had a job to do and wouldn’t let a pretty face stop her. “Now, if you don’t mind, please help the movers unlodge this sofa from your door so I can get home.”
5.
KAI
BUDDY MILLS HAD DISCOVERED Kai on a fluke. The man had been on a last-minute second honeymoon with his wife, he’d told Kai, to win the woman back the year before she gave up and left him for her Pilates instructor. Mills spent the entire trip doting on the woman, wining and dining her, but when he heard the bartenders at the pool discussing the state championship game being held at Aloha Stadium, just ten miles from the resort where he and his wife stayed, he convinced the woman to check it out with him.
One championship game and that man trying to save his marriage had changed Kai’s life. But it didn’t mean that he put any stock into Mills when he left the field.
He was an asshole. He treated women like garbage—one reason among many, Kai had heard, why his woman had taken up with the pretty Pilates instructor.
But what was worse, Kai thought, was that Mills’ attitude, and how loud he’d bitched about Reese Noble becoming a Steamer, seemed to give Robert Hanson unfettered permission to be an asshole himself to her.
Kai stood next to Wilson, finishing their laps, readying for their drills when Reese jogged onto the field, following behind a bored-looking Mills and Wilkens. But it was Hanson that got all her attention as the running back seemed to be more interested in messing with the placekicker than focusing on practice.
“Look at this stupid prick,” Kai told Wilson as Hanson started bellowing the second Reese pulled out his phone and started to record Reese’s reaction to his loud, obnoxious chant of “make me a sandwich.”
“Aw, hell no,” Wilson said and both he and Kai started for Hanson, both pretending not to hear Ricks’ whistle when he blew it.
But their QB was way ahead of them, and he had a lot more tact than either Kai or the running back combined. Ryder stepped behind Hanson, quieting his obnoxious cat calling with one hand to the man’s neck, taking that asshole’s phone from him before the running back could put up much of an argument.
Reese smiled at Ryder, her expression open, appreciative, something the man returned, and Kai thought there was something there—something unspoken that spoke louder than Hanson’s obnoxious insults. It wasn’t Kai’s business. But Reese was his friend and from what he knew of their general manager and the shit storm anything between the QB and placekicker might cause, Gia would likely want to make it her business. He made a mental note to hang back and find a second to mention it to Reese.
“My man,” Wilson said, grinning as the QB went out nosing through all of Hanson’s content.
Kai laughed, returning to his drills, trying hard not to