by C. D. Gill
Confusion flashed in Gia’s eyes before her narrowed gaze landed on Tommy. “Yes. Reinforcements. Tommy loves to save the day.”
Tommy laughed and threw his hands in the air. “I’m repeating what your ma said when she called me at the crack of dawn to tell me I was getting on a plane with this crazy kid. I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to be your hero.”
Joey made a show of glancing around. “You have a great place, Gia. Tons of space. I’m sorry we couldn’t see it before now.”
Gia’s smile faded. “Me, too. It’ll get fixed soon. The contractors are coming in tomorrow morning. The detective has been here for hours asking questions.”
With a sage nod, Joey turned to Xander. “Nice to meet you, Xander. Heard a lot about you.”
Xander schooled his features with a smile. It was never easy to be the man who hadn’t heard anything about the others. “How long has it been since you’ve all seen each other?”
“Two years.” Joey’s face darkened as he gave Gia side-eye. “Best friends for twenty-five years and then Gia initiates the ghost protocol.”
Gia punched his arm and motioned them into the kitchen. Xander hovered on the outskirts of the party while they laughed and reminisced. Detective James left without asking Xander any further questions. The fleeting temptation to chase him out the door and tell him about Grant disappeared when Gia called to him.
“Will you and Joey grab some boards from the garage to board the broken windows for tonight? And Tommy would probably love to take a look at Chachi.”
Xander led the way, stopping at the pile of boards leaning against the wall. Joey paused while Tommy chattered to himself about the vintage car. Joey analyzed the board sizes, pulled one out, and pinned the rest together with his hand. Xander took a step back and met Joey’s gaze.
“You really didn’t sneak roids into those players’ Gatorade for months, huh?”
Joey really had heard a lot about him. Xander crossed his arms. “If I had, I would have been a whole lot smarter than to be drugging them right up until the university’s drug test.”
Joey huffed. “You never know with some people.”
“You dropped your job of running an architecture firm to come help her. That’s admirable.” These guys loved Gia. They’d find out the truth one way or another. Xander ran his hand across his jaw. “Listen. Gia’s tough and she can walk through hell with a smile, but—”
“But you don’t think the fire was aimed at you.” Joey widened his stance and leveled his gaze at Xander. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about the mess Gia’s in before she lets this go too far?”
There were many words for what he was about to do, but none of them were words he wanted used to describe himself. “Gia is all I have right now. Not in a lifetime commitment kind of way, but she’s allowed me to sleep upstairs and use space in her office to make money to help me get my life back together. I’m not interested in snitching on Gia and throwing that all away. She can tell you.”
Xander grabbed another board and moved to leave.
Joey blocked his path. “A name. I’ll do the rest.”
“Grant Harrington has made a nuisance of himself recently. Start there.”
Lifting the second board, Joey trailed Xander to the master bedroom and hammered the boards into place. Xander strolled to the door.
“Xander, I thought you should know Gia’s connections are not interested in breaking any laws to help you get closure,” Joey said. Xander ducked his head and turned to leave. “But you saved Gia’s life and were there for her when she needed someone most. And that means something to us as her family.”
His throat tightened. At least one of them had a family who cared. Would his family ever be able to have his back again? Would he be allowed to be there when they needed him? Not unless something changed. And something was going to change.
*****
The next morning, Xander left a note for Gia on the door that he’d taken Chachi and drove to the University of Colorado. Football players would be pouring out of the locker rooms soon. Too chatty, overconfident, and mistakenly invincible.
Strategically placed, he waited. None of the students were around when he’d been arrested and football wasn’t his sport, so his odds of being recognized were minimal. A group of four guys swaggered out of the locker room laughing and cursing loudly. He followed them and sidled up to a lagger.
When the kid noticed him, he stepped back and crossed his arms. “You flunk out of college and get sent to summer school, old man?” The guys elbowed each other as they laughed.
He smirked. “Actually, I have something I’m trying to find out I thought you boys might help me with.”
Eyebrows raised. “You asking where the girls are?” Typical frat boys.
Xander exhaled, praying for patience. “Who do you go to for roids around here?” The guys backed up six steps, ready to bolt. “I’m not a cop. I’m looking for something to help my gym time and my normal sources have dried up.”
The glances at his upper body must have convinced them he was a gym rat. He was in good shape.
One kid shrugged. “Athletes around here get tested randomly every few months. No one touches that stuff. If you do, you’ll be signing up for community college before you blink.”
“And the regular gym rats like me who don’t have to pee in a cup?”
A taller guy with a buzzed head. “Look, man. We could ask around, but you’d probably be better off asking around at the YMCA or fitness centers in the free weight sections. These days, guys are probably making their drugs themselves. It can jack you up if whatever you take isn’t pure.”
He nodded and stepped away. “Thanks, guys.”
Next stop, a gym parking lot right off campus. Someone had to have a contact into the drug underworld. He did not waste five years in prison for nothing. He was going to get answers whatever it took.
Chapter 16
The morning after Joey and Tommy appeared on her doorstep, Gia found a note from Xander on the door saying he’d gone out. One-on-two time with the guys would give her a chance to hear the latest news from home. While they slept in, Gia set to work on plans for her master bedroom redesign. Tommy’s presence had certainly been a surprise. Not every day your ex-boyfriend gets hand-picked by your mother to come to your rescue. Gia had trusted Tommy with her life once. That lasted eight months until a mutual friend finally had the decency to tell Gia that Tommy had been cheating on her for five of those eight months.
Every piece of her heart thanked her for not going all in, although that could have been why he cheated. It didn’t matter anymore. That mistake stayed where it belonged—in the distant past. If Ma thought their past would compromise Tommy’s ability to protect Gia, she wouldn’t have sent him.
Ma was the first female leader of the Ferra empire. She played things smart and didn’t let her emotions affect her decisions. Sophia Ferra, a rare petite specimen with shiny black hair and sparkling brown eyes, practical and fair were her middle names with a personality bigger than Capone’s bank account. Not every female had that distinction. Much to her dismay, Gia inherited small portions of Ma’s best qualities and large doses of Dad’s adrenaline junkie habits. Ma loved her all the same.
A head poked into her office. Tommy slapped the door. “We’re going for a run. Let’s go.”
She pulled her attention from her project to find two floating heads peeking in at her. Laughing, she dropped her pencil to the board and changed into workout clothes in her charred master bedroom. The boys loved fitness and it showed. Joey had never let her slack in her workouts growing up. She envied his discipline. They ran for ten minutes before both guys had their shirts off and girls were slowing their cars and honking. Tommy ate it up waving and smiling like a celebrity while Joey stayed focus. They hadn’t changed in that regard.
When a girl hung out her car window to take a picture of them running, Gia had enough and sprinted to the front to take the lead. The thought of that
image popping up on social media where more negativity could breed gave her the shivers. She led the guys into the forest, running parallel trails to ones she’d run with Xander. The meadow was her destination once again.
“Who do you think it was that torched your room?” Behind her, Joey was panting, not from lack of fitness, but from the altitude.
Gia shook her head. “My guess is whoever leaked that story about me is behind this.”
Joey’s footfall behind her was the only response she received. That didn’t mean the conversation was over. It meant that he was thinking through what to say next. Never a good sign. The clearing was ahead when he said, “Who’s Grant?”
“Are you kidding me?” Gia broke into the clearing and whipped around to face Joey. “What did Xander say?”
Drying the sweat from her eyes, Gia circled and relaxed into a sun salutation. Joey’s posture relaxed as he worked to slow his breathing. They ran through a series of poses and stretches, each one more difficult than the last.
Tommy stretched against a tree, observing. He thought yoga was a chick thing.
“I asked Xander who he thought was responsible for the fire in your house. He told me that he was suspicious of Grant, but he wouldn’t tell me why. Said it wasn’t his story to tell. You get that honor, so spill.”
Gia wavered in her Vriksasana.
“Your balance isn’t as solid as it used to be. You need more practice,” Joey said. It was manipulation. Prodding. Riling her with his words so she lost her focus. She wasn’t so rusty that she forgot that part of their training.
“The problem with men is they get territorial over things that aren’t theirs.”
Joey blinked. His posture stiffened. Since he was mentally thrown, she transitioned into Tai Chi. For the next thirty minutes, Gia went all out, focusing all her frustrations, her embarrassment, her guilt, her anger into her poses.
As much as she wanted to continue, she made her final move and crouched into position. After every Tai Chi session, she and Joey did a wrestle burnout where they funneled all their calm into a battle of strategy. It was strange, but it was their thing. She hadn’t been in his weight class for a very long time, but she’d been able to hold her own with keeping her head level.
Not this time though. She invited the punishment. She’d run from New Orleans. She blamed herself. She hid. She refused to let her family in to love her. She didn’t deserve love after what she did to Joey’s dad.
It took Joey five seconds to pin her to the ground and freeze with his arms cinched tightly around her. He growled. “Fight.”
Gia didn’t move. He hovered on the edge of his control and it was written all over his face. Tommy moved into Gia’s peripherals. He’d seen it too.
“Fight, Gia.” Joey tightened his grip on her. Gia sucked in a stuttered breath. The fire blazed in his eyes, his breath harsh. “You don’t get to quit. You don’t get to run again. You don’t get to watch the world collapse in on the people you love and disappear when they need you most. You stay. You fight for what means something to you.”
Two more seconds of their stare down passed. All at once, Joey released her, turned his face to the side, and exhaled. He jumped to his feet and strode away, scrubbing the sweat from his body with his shirt. Tommy offered her his hand and yanked her to her feet.
“That was intense,” Tommy mumbled.
Gia moistened her lips, her heart hammering in her ears. Fresh pain seared her soul, leaving her raw and twisted. She longed to have her family back. If they gave up on her, there was no one left that mattered. And Joey was as close to walking away as she’d ever seen him. It was time to give him what he asked for. “He forced himself on me.”
Joey froze and cocked his head, his back still to her.
“Grant was the guy who took me on a date the night I thought Bronc was around. At the end of the night, he walked me to my door, I unlocked it, turned to say good night and he jumped me. I broke his fingers before he got my dress any further than my waist.” Joey faced her now. His expression veiled. “Xander saw the whole thing from his room above the garage and confronted me about it the next morning. Grant’s not a bad guy. He got desperate when I didn’t offer him what he wanted and acted on it. And he’s been trying to make up for it with random acts of kindness.”
Joey glanced at his watch. “We should get back. The contractors are arriving in forty-five minutes.”
With that, the conversation ended in true Joey form, leaving a sensitive topic open like a gaping wound that would fester into a gangrene of the spirit. Vulnerability that never experienced closure was on her long list of reasons she was single at twenty-five. Something had to be done to get control of herself again. These emotions wouldn’t work themselves out through talking. A hint of an idea sparked in her mind for later. The guys stood at the trail waiting for her direction. In no mood for any more off-hand comments, she led them back the short way. Together they pounded onto the driveway and into the house. Gia snagged the shower first, then sat in front of her remodel plans.
The contractors, the security system people, and the insurance adjusters were scheduled for today at some point. No part of her desired to be pinned down for decision making. The upside was the master bedroom and bathroom remodel. The architect in her should enjoy the process, but dread had her cornered.
If she hadn’t left New Orleans, this would have never happened.
The chime of the doorbell echoed through the house. She opened the door with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. The contractor introduced himself as Larry Stevens. Johnnie recommended him for any fire-related renovations. The arm of her opponent extended to senators, lobbyists, newspaper outlets, hitmen for homeless men, and a pyromaniac, security-video conscience man who knew where her bedroom was in the floor plan of her house.
With a stop to her office for the plans, Gia showed Larry her room. He opened the plans and scanned them before unlatching the tape measure from his belt. Gia was pretty convinced that contractors had an entire preliminary class on using the tape measure before they were allowed into the Residential Construction programs. What if this guy didn’t have his degree? Johnnie wouldn’t recommend someone who was unqualified, right?
Gia texted Johnnie about his qualifications. She was holding one end against a wall with Larry on the other side when Joey leaned against the door jamb and Tommy popped up behind him to watch.
Larry threw out some numbers like “$5,000 for demolition, ripping out the old to check for structural damage” and “a minimum of $10,000 to implement the designs.”
Gia fed him a line about the insurance adjuster coming and then she’d call him. She needed the man out of her house. There wasn’t a moment of peace though because the security company pulled in as Larry was leaving. And the insurance adjuster was right behind him. Her house was Grand Central Station today. Joey met the adjuster in the yard and took him to see the damage. A small saving grace since it was all proving to be too much for her. What had she done without her family and friends all these years?
The security guy agreed to write a detailed report for the detective when he replaced the wires and checked the cameras. At least this man seemed capable. A pounding built to a roar behind her eyes. Gia excused herself and swallowed pain killer in the kitchen. She set her forehead against the cool exterior of the refrigerator. The pain eased a fraction.
“Your eyes were glazing over with that contractor. Thought you were about to chew him out.”
Gia huffed. “You would know that look, wouldn’t you, Tommy?”
Tommy laughed. “It’s seared into my memory. Don’t play poker. You’re too easy to read.” He fumbled with a spoon sitting on the island. “When life is too much to handle, your eyes get this crazed look which is a dead giveaway. And your mouth is only minutes behind it.”
With a laugh, she faced Tommy and really looked at him for the first time in years. Light crow’s feet crinkled when he grinned. His tan complexion and dark eyes hadn’t cha
nged, but their levity had. The lines on his forehead furrowed deeper than she remembered. After he cheated on her, his wellbeing hadn’t crossed her mind. He deserved whatever was coming to him for being a lying, cheating scumbag.
“What’s going on in your life, Tommy? Any children come claiming you’re their dad yet?”
Tommy snorted and smiled, but the humor didn’t reach past his lips. “They haven’t found me yet. I blocked my address from public record so they’d really have to search hard to find me.”
Gia smirked. “Hard work builds character.”
“Exactly.”
In the silence, Gia leaned her elbows on the counter and rested her chin in her hands while she stared. The blatant, awkward, see-your-soul kind of stare.
Tommy sighed. “I married Kimberly six months after you left.”
Gia sneaked a glance at his hand. His ring finger was bare.
“Three months in, she lost a baby and sank into an earth-shattering depression. It was the most horrible thing I’d ever seen someone go through. Then one day after five months of staying in bed, she got up, packed her bags, and vanished. She left a note on the dresser about how she couldn’t build a life with me anymore. One month after that, I was served the papers.” Tommy stared out the kitchen window as if nature held the answers or at least some comfort for him. “Divorced with a miscarried baby in nine very short months. It was like watching two semi-trucks play chicken. You’re powerless to stop it, but you can’t pull your eyes away.”
She rested her hand over his and squeezed. To her surprise, he didn’t flinch or yank his hand back. He opened his hand and covered her hand with both of his. His Adam’s apple bobbed once then twice. “The last year and a half I’ve been rebuilding. That’s why Ma Sophia picked me. I’ve worked really hard to put the pieces of my life together again and joining the ranks has played a huge role in that. I’ve got the summer off, but Sophia made me promise I’d get my bachelor’s degree. So I’m taking night classes during the year and I’ve got one miserable semester left before I’m done.”