Saints and Sinners - Eden Butler Page 0,198

her toes to whisper in her ear. “I don’t really wanna go to the beach. We lived at the beach. I just want to go to the camp and see Miss Reese but I don’t want to hurt Aunt Nalani’s feelings.”

“Well,” Gia said, nodding at the girl, making sure to keep her mouth in a grin. “Maybe we can ask her to go for just a couple days instead of a whole week and I’ll have Miss Reese make space for you on her team for the final games.”

“You’d do that?” Keola asked, blinking at Gia.

“I’d do anything you want, cuore mio.”

“What’s that mean?”

Gia lowered her smile, curling her fingers around her hand. “It means I adore you.”

Kai stood behind her, clearing his throat, his mouth open as though he couldn’t believe what Gia had confessed and there, right there, she knew she’d have to hurt them both.

“Ready?” he said, motioning in front of him as Keola dragged Gia away from the small crowd and toward her aunt and the waiting security guard pushing a rack with their luggage.

“You think Miss Reese will mind me playing?” the girl asked Gia, smiling when she shook her head.

“Of course not…” Gia froze when Kai walked beside her, slipping his hand into hers. She glanced down at their joined fingers, then jerked her attention to Keola as she ran to catch up to her aunt and hop on the rack.

“Thank you,” Kai told her, bringing her knuckle to his mouth, kissing it slowly.

It was…too much, too frightening, too soon, and Gia pulled her hand out of his grip, digging for her cell before she lifted her finger, giving Kai a ‘one sec’ motioned and she dove into her messages, her attention on the screen and not at the disappointed frown her lineman gave her.

IT WAS TWO A.M., and Gia’s guilt wrapped around her like a scarf.

Kai hadn’t tried to touch her again after they drove away from the airport. Not with Keola asking them a litany of questions and his sister leaning out of the open window to take in the city.

But she felt his stare and the tension in his body as he sat next to her, as the ample space in the SUV seemed to shrink the closer they came to their building. Then, it seemed his anger warmed him, kept him from doing anything else but shutting himself away from everyone—a theory proven when they approached the elevator and an older couple from the fifth floor failed to hold the car for them.

Kai’s loud refrain of “Well, fuck you then,” had the old woman blushing as the doors shut and Keola frowning at her father like she thought he’d lost his mind. He glanced at his little girl, his features easing before he held his hand out to her. “I’m sorry, pēpē. Mukane kane is just tired and grumpy.”

He glanced at Gia when Keola held his hand, but there was no warmth in his expression. There was nothing there for her but the disappointment she knew she caused.

“Miss Gia?” Keola said as she stopped at her door. “Can’t you stay with us tonight?”

“No,” Kai answered for her, opening his door. “Leave Miss Jilani alone, keiki. She’s very busy.”

She hoped several glasses of wine would do something about the guilt. She hoped it would ease her, dull her sense so she didn’t see that shocked, sad expression Kai made when she pulled her hand from his in the airport. But it didn’t dull anything.

Gia knew better than to turn her back on him. She knew she couldn’t pretend, to pantomime a fantasy when there wasn’t one like he did, not for long. The pain was too sharp. The sting of it too biting and even after all these years, sometimes it flared to the surface. Sometimes even dulling your senses didn’t work when you added to that pain. When you turn your back on someone feeling the same ache.

She stood in her living room debating what to do. Two in the morning and a little buzzed on red wine, and Gia wasn’t sure if she could push down anything she felt…or the urge to see Kai, to apologize, to lose herself in him, to let him get lost in her too.

There was only three swallows left in the bottle and Gia did not bother with the glass. She stood in her kitchen downing what was left, telling herself to disappear in a shower. To forget this urgency she felt to knock

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