there to make some announcements too. Let the media see a firm footing from the Steamers.” He cleared his throat. “You know, sad thing with Pukui’s girl…might be good to get him out in front of the cameras, show him off a little. He’s a good lookin’ one, and that Wilson is always good at grabbing the spotlight.” Gia choked on her bourbon, the cough racking through her chest as Les cleared his throat. “You alright?”
“Yeah…yes…” she said through a loud gasp. A few more coughs and Gia swallowed, grabbing a bottle of water from the mini-fridge to drink before she continued. “I really don’t think having our players there would send the right message about…”
“‘Course it would, sugar. It’s a done deal. You get Noble, Wilson and Pukui, and I’ll make the arrangements. Night, Gia.”
“Shit…shit,” she told the empty room, staring out at the New Orleans skyline wondering how the hell she’d come up with the nerve to face Kai and convince him her visit was anything other than professional…or convince herself she could stand looking at him and not believe he meant nothing to her.
21.
GIA
THE NFL DRAFT
Reese Noble was a force of nature. The lights around the stage flickered with pink and purple flashes, hitting against the placekicker’s face like a sunset. Gia was proud to see her standing so straight, looking so confident. She supposed Les hadn’t been completely wrong. A strong showing of the first woman in the NFL ushering in the next one was monumental. It wasn’t a changing of the guard, but it felt like a sisterhood that no one but she and Reese and the woman waiting in the crowd for her name to be called would ever understand.
Gia stood next to the Commissioner, nodding when he flashed a smile at her, ignoring the idiot when he continued to mutter, “this is great, just so awesome,” like a drunk frat boy on pledge night. Gia didn’t care. Her attention was on Reese and the smile she flashed to the crowd as she spoke.
“With the eighteenth pick in the first round, the Denver Broncos select the placekicker from Duke University…Grace Reynolds!”
The crowd went wild—some Broncos fans stomping and yelling with face splitting smiles accompanying their cheerful shouts, others booing, still not caught up to the fractures Gia and Reese had made in that thick glass ceiling.
When Reynolds joined Reese on the stage, Gia retreated, letting the women have their moment and the picture with the red-faced frat boy commissioner and she moved from the stage, and headed toward the water fountain, her gaze shooting for half a second to Kai as he stood next to the exit talking to a man whose features she couldn’t quite make out.
Until he looked to his left, nodding at two running backs from Atlanta Ricks had traded two seasons ago. That profile hadn’t changed much. The nose was still straight, still long. The cheeks were still broad and defined and he still had a cleft in the center of his chin. But there were a few faint lines crowding the corners of Kona Hale’s eyes and the faintest smattering of gray had started to appear around the temples of his black hair.
“God,” Gia muttered under her breath, stepping back, retreating to the modest safety of the curtains near the stage. Her stomach coiled and burned as flashes moved through her head, a thousand images she’d tried to bury. Moments she promised herself she’d never relive with anyone else because of what she’d had with Kona’s twin brother.
Luka. It always came back to him. A part of him, the smallest, remotest part of him, stood twenty feet away from her talking to Kai…talking to the man who professed to love her.
Gia felt her chest constrict and a vicious tremor rush through her hands that she didn’t seem able to steady. She hated the weakness she felt. She hated more that just seeing Kona reminded her that she’d been too scared in the past to even speak to him. He was no stranger to her. Despite what she told Keola, she’d more than just met Kona Hale. They were friendly. The man had warned her not to pursue his twin. He didn’t think Luka was ready for what she’d wanted from him. Kona had been wrong, but he’d never known it. He’d never known about Luka loving Gia. Or what losing him had done to her.
She’d stayed away from him for years. There had been chances to see him before.