as his little girl stood in front of him, singing along to the song, her father’s large hand on her shoulder and his other one wrapped around a beautiful woman who could have been his child’s clone.
Gia knew who this woman was. Kai had told her all about Keeana, his high school sweetheart. She was the mother of his only child. She was his best friend in the world. He’d admitted that freely. Gia had admired their respect for each other and the family they’d made when they were just kids themselves. But watching them together, seeing how well they seemed to fit did something to her that didn’t make a lot of sense.
For the first time in her life, Gia was jealous of another woman. Jealous because she was well loved by the man she wanted.
How the hell did that happen? she asked herself, her stare unfocusing as the song reached the last chorus.
There was no reason, no explanation at all. Kai was nothing to her but a player. He was a man on her team who she’d accidentally kissed…more than once and who she’d let…well. At least they hadn’t had sex. Any relationship with him would get her fired. It could unravel every hurdle she’d crossed in the past twenty years. Kai was sweet. He was beautiful, but he was not hers. He never would be.
She spared another glance at the woman next to Kai, understanding instantly what had made him attracted to her. She was tall, like Kai with long limbs and a small waist. She had a large bottom and larger breasts and a face—beautiful broad features that somehow were still delicate and feminine, her mouth full, her eyes dark and wide. She wore her hair in a long braid down the center of her back, touching past her thin waist and when Kai whispered something in her ear and she laughed? Gia knew what had kept him mesmerized. She had a perfect smile and cheekbones that were defined. Of course he’d loved her. Who wouldn’t? They were a perfect fit—all three of them and on this day, in particular, Gia understood why he hadn’t wanted her around him. This was a time for the people you care about most in the world. This was about ohana. That didn’t include Gia.
The song ended, met with a thunder of clapping, whistling approval and Gia looked away from Kai and his family to join the applause. Donovan and one of his fellow troupe members pulled caps from their back pockets and started fanning through the crowd, in case anyone was feeling the Christmas spirit and wanted to donate and Gia bent down when the boy’s cap lifted toward her.
“Merry Christmas, Miss Lady,” Donovan said, grinning at Gia with one of his molars missing.
“You ever gonna remember my name?” she asked him, pulling a twenty from her wallet before she dropped it into the cap.
“I’m just so…stunned by your beauty that it goes right out of my head every time you tell me what it is.” Donovan laughed when Gia did, shrugging like he couldn’t help himself.
“That’s a good line,” she told him, straightening when a few more patrons made their way to him. “You keep that up and by the time you’re legal you won’t have to perform in the Quarter.”
“For real? Why? You gonna be my sugar mama?”
Gia laughed, head shaking and had a sarcastic comment ready for the kid, but straightened at the loud throat clearing to her right and the frown she spotted on Kai’s face as he and his two girls approached.
“That was great,” Keola told Donovan, waving a five-dollar bill at him. The girl’s eyes were identical to her mother’s but her smile was Kai’s, wide and sweet with a matching dimple in her right cheek.
“Thanks, boo,” Donovan said, winking at the girl when her bill landed in his cap. “You have a good Christmas?”
Gia felt awkward, something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since she was in college. If she ever let anyone have an idea that she was uncomfortable or out of her element, they tended to take advantage. That didn’t bode well when you are a woman navigating a man’s industry. But Kai, standing right next to her, likely still mad at her with his gorgeous ex and his equally beautiful daughter just feet from them, had her feeling stupid and silly and second guessing the good sense of leaving her apartment at all.