to her side, his attention ahead of them. “But I gotta say, in the most professional way possible…”
“Here it comes…”
“You look fucking beautiful.” From the corner of his eye, he caught the quick movement of her head as she jerked her attention to him, and he glanced down at her, smiling at the surprise moving her eyebrows up. “I call it like it is.”
“Well, thanks.” She rolled her eyes, pulling on the gold necklace she wore, fiddling with the fleur de lis charm as she held it between her fingers.
“Anytime.” He grinned, convinced there might be a blush on her face, knowing he was probably wrong. “It was good running into you here.”
“I don’t like buying fruit or veggies at the grocery store.”
“Oh?” He nodded to a few of the vendors he recognized from all the times he’d visited the Market himself. “Something wrong with store bought stuff?”
“Plenty,” she said, glancing up at him. “But I’m not some kind of organic foods junkie.” Gia moved her shoulders, messing with her necklace again. “My mom just always kept a small garden in the back of our place. I can taste a difference between store bought and fresh.”
Kai moved his eyebrows together, head shaking. “I thought you were from New York.”
Gia laughed, her expression amused when she shot him a look. “You shouldn’t believe everything you see in movies. Not everyone that lives in the city has a fourth floor walkup and a fire escape.” She muttered something he couldn’t hear, waving off an older Asian man trying to get her to check out the silver jewelry he had on display at his booth. “My parents own a townhouse in Cedarhurst that they bought forever ago. Two stories, three bedrooms and a nice little backyard. They’d never give it up.”
“Sounds nice,” he told her, liking how her face softened when she spoke about her family.
“It was,” she said. “Just really crowded.”
Kai could understand that. All the foster homes he came up in never had enough room, certainly not enough for him, big as he was. The thought made him frown, and he looked away from Gia’s sweet face, straightening when he spotted a kid twenty feet in front of them on a skateboard, weaving through the crowd like he didn’t have the good sense God gave a rutting pig. Kai stepped in front of Gia, holding out his arm when she tried moving around him.
She looked over his shoulder, stepping back when the kid moved right for them. The kid stopped short, jumping off his board, stepping on it to make the thing fly into the air.
Kai caught it in his free hand, holding it out of reach of the kid who didn’t look more than fifteen or sixteen. He felt Gia squeezing on his arm, giving him a silent command not to make an issue of this, but Kai wouldn’t let the punk off that easily.
“There are women, kids, and old people all around the Market.”
The boy stared at him, his gaze shooting up Kai’s frame, growing wider as though he couldn’t quite believe how big the man was.
“Hey, look around you,” he told the boy, and the kid did, his attention shooting to the scowls and glares he caught from the vendors and the women dragging their children away from where the boy had been skating. “Have a little respect or maybe next time somebody really damn scary will stop you.”
“Yeah…yes, sir,” the boy said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry…” He glanced around Kai, looking like he tried to catch Gia’s attention, “I’m really sorry.”
“Just be careful,” she told him. “You could hurt yourself too.”
Gia nudge Kai and he handed back the skateboard, head shaking when the kid grabbed it and walked the rest of the way out of the Market. “Little idiot.”
“He’s just a kid, Kai.”
“No excuse.” Then, Gia distracted him with the strawberry she shoved into his mouth. He jerked back, away from the intrusion, then held onto it when some of the juice hit his tongue. “Damn,” he said, turning to face her. He chewed the rest of the berry, tossing the leafy top into the trash as they moved out of the busy Market, his taste buds firing with contentment. The texture was perfect, the juice so sweet. Gia had been right. That was almost the sweetest thing he’d had in his mouth.
“Well?” she asked, digging in her bag for a berry. “Best thing, right?”