by Eden Butler
Wilson shook his head, his voice loud as he laughed. “That wasn’t you messing with nobody.”
“The hell you know about it?”
“I know you’re starting shit when you shouldn’t.”
“Man, please…” Hanson sounded bored, indifferent.
Kai turned, fishing inside his bag for a clean shirt. Really, though, Kai used the distraction of finding a fresh shirt to watch Gia, see where she’d go. Reese took another step back, looking like she was ready to leave, then both women glanced his way. Noble smiled at him, head shaking as though she found it funny that she’d caught him watching Gia yet again. The GM, though, stared a little too long at Kai when he stood with his clean shirt in his hand, tugging off the sweaty one. He watched her right back, unable to stop himself but when he angled an eyebrow at her, Gia blinked, crossing her arms before she returned her attention to Reese.
“Keep running your mouth, see what happens,” Wilson said from behind as Kai pulled out his phone again when it chirped with a text.
You’re staring again. It’s getting sad, Reese texted, and Kai shot her a look, glancing around him, catching Ryder’s hard stare and quickly ignoring it when the QB squinted between him and Noble.
Mind your business, woman. And I’m not staring.
“What the hell you think is gonna happen to me? I got a contract. Rookie of the year, bitch!”
Kai turned toward Hanson’s voice, frowning at how high it rose, but then stared back at his phone when another text alert sounded.
I’m trying to save you some embarrassment. I happen to know she refers to you as ‘that kid.’
Ouch. That one stung. Kai looked up, frowning at Reese when she stared at him. He reminded himself that Gia hadn’t thought of him as too much of a kid when she was kissing him, or standing close to him in his apartment. And he almost texted that back to Reese, but stopped himself, remembering just before he began to type that she didn’t know anything about them…probably.
“Contract or not, you pull that shit again and watch how fast Jilani throws a penalty at you. Shit, she did that to Pukui and she seems to like his big ass.”
Again, Kai turned, squinting when he spotted how close Wilson and Hanson stood to each other. They didn’t seem like they were gearing up for a tussle, but it didn’t look like they were plotting strategy for next week’s game either.
“That means dick to me,” Hanson said, moving closer to Wilson, standing with his feet apart and his fingers tucked in the front of his jersey. He glanced at Kai, tilting his head to look down the sideline.
Following his gaze, Kai’s temper flared when he noticed Hanson watching Gia standing alone on the field, her hands moving as she took another call.
“And let me tell you something about Jilani…like you don’t already know… Hanson faced Wilson, his attention shifting to all his teammates except Ryder, who’d pushed off from the bleachers and watched the running back, standing just behind Wilson.
“You think Jilani has any real clout? You think a bitch in this league will ever have any real clout? Man, please.” He adjusted his stance, moving his mouth to twist up in a mocking grin. “Bitches in the NFL? It won’t last, I can promise you. Jilani got her gig the way females always get anything. That shit started at CPU with her uncle putting her on the sidelines and from what I hear, that shit didn’t end when she left there either. Every college she went to, every franchise that took pity on her gave her a shot because she had something on someone or because she…gave that ass up.”
When Hanson glanced at Kai, the smile dropped from his lips, but he didn’t seem to take the seething glare Kai was shooting his way for the warning it was. He blinked, slowly looking away from the man before he continued.
“And with us, turns out the shit Ricks dealt with all came down to his old lady not being happy that he had this fine, hot thing coming in to run shit. Coach lost half his bank because his old lady got pissed that he let his bitch in the front door.” Hanson nodded, his head moving back toward where Gia stood on the sidelines, and he pushed that stupid grin back on his face. “That bitch you think I should be fucking worried about.”
Kai felt a little punch drunk. There was a swell of rage that bubbled to the surface the longer Hanson spoke, the more venom that frothed from his mouth. He didn’t know why he moved, what had made him turn completely around, dropping his phone, barely letting the words exit the running back’s mouth before he had the asshole by the collar of his sweat-slick jersey and then up in the air, slamming his fist into that asshole’s face.
“Pukui!” he heard, not sure who’d called after him.
There was a lot of noise then, a lot of thick arms tugging on him, trying to get him to release the punk who didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. Wilson tried, grabbing Kai’s shirt, then Pérez and Baker, then Ryder pulled on Hanson, at least getting the man to the ground, though Kai wouldn’t let go of the hold he had on him.
Then, that same sweet, rich smell that had wafted around his sinuses on the breeze earlier came whipping toward him right along with the soft, fearsome touch of Gia’s firm grip and her sharp tone. “Let go of him,” she told Kai, standing at his side, her hand wrapping all the way that it could reach around his forearm. “Mr. Pukui,” she said, her voice louder, her touch tighter, but all he wanted to do was bash Hanson’s flat nose into his stupid face.
“You hold your fucking tongue, you piece of…”
“Kai!” Gia shouted, getting between him and Hanson, her hands on his chest shocking him. “Let. Go. Of. Him.”
He obeyed immediately, glancing from the running back being pushed away by their QB, to the round, dark eyes of the general manager as she watched him. Vaguely, Kai noticed several of the coaches jogging toward them, Mills and a few of the conditioning staff, but thankfully not Ricks. Though, the way Gia glared at him had the man wishing for the loud, filthy berating yells their head coach liked to level at them when they’d fucked up.
“Explain yourself,” Gia told Kai when she dropped her hands from his chest. When he didn’t answer and glanced at his teammates, Gia shook her head, as though she already understood this wouldn’t be an easy situation, she could come in and resolve. “Oh, I see.” She stepped back, glaring at Wilson, who avoided looking directly at her, then to Baker who seemed consumed by the sudden interest in the full bottle of water he held between his fingers.
Pérez glanced at her, unblinking as he held her stare and Kai understood immediately why the man would always be single. “I saw nothing, senorita. Honestly.” The asshole could lie with very little effort. He’d always get away with everything because he’d always be able to convince anyone of his innocence.
“Glenn?” Gia said, staring at the QB, who’d already sent Hanson away from Kai and their GM. When he blinked at her, rubbing his hands over his mouth, she stepped back, shooting a final look to each of them, head moving as though she organized her own agenda in her head and it sealed the fate of everyone standing around her. “Fine,” she said, her voice sharp, cold. “Then every last one of you get off of this field and be ready for a conversation bright and early in the morning. Mandatory.” She whirled on Kai, her mouth hard, the muscles around her lips pulsing. “I’ll be starting with you, so I suggest you get some rest.”
One by one, the players left under the unshakable glare of their GM, each man worried what fate waited for them in the morning; each one unsure if they’d ever see that field again.
6.
GIA
GIA HAD NEVER SEEN Kai Pukui nervous. Even when he’d first sat in her office back in February, trying to sweet talk her into a small extended vacation that he turned into something he took advantage of, the man had carried himself with confidence. He’d looked her directly in the eyes, meeting her careful scrutiny with a genuine, warm smile and honest answers.
Now though, his smile wasn’t as easy to come, and Kai held himself with a lot less confidence. More than once, in the fifteen minutes that he’d sat in
the chair across from her desk, Gia had spotted the way the lineman rubbed the pad of his thumb against the black pendant he wore around his neck. The obsidian pendant Gia was convinced was identical to the one Luka had hung around his neck every day twenty years before.
“Coach Ricks is disappointed,” she tried, wondering if the man had actually let her handle this like he promised. Ricks was demanding, maybe a little bossy but when it came to how their players interacted, he was out of his depth.
“You have to let me have this one,” she’d told him when she informed him the night before of Hanson and Pukui’s fight.
“They’re men. I’m not sure you understand how they function.”
“I have four brothers, Ricks.”
“Brothers aren’t players. It’s different.”
“I also have eleven male first cousins and have spent the past twenty years surrounded by men in this league in one capacity or another. I get the concept that your people are aggressive and tend to piss around each other to mark their territories, but this, I don’t think this has anything to do with that.”
Ricks had looked doubtful. He would and Gia knew it. For all his support and encouragement giving his blessing to the board and the owners at wanting her for the GM position, Ricks was still somewhat of a good ole boy. He still had his doubts.
“So, what was this about?”
That was something Gia didn’t have to guess at. “Loyalty,” she told him, and Ricks made a promise that he’d let her unearth the Fort Knox level secrecy that seemed to permeate every pro field. Players tended to police themselves. Gia had witnessed that herself. She guessed that’s what was happening with her players.
Didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to do some sorting herself, though.
“How mad is he?” Kai asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Mad…enough,” she told him, her gaze dropping to his fingers when he gripped that pendant again. It seemed he used it as some sort of talisman—a token that fed him strength when he needed it most.
Gia understood. Luka had been that for her once.
Hell, she thought, banishing the thought of him before it became too clear. This wasn’t the time and certainly not the company for jaunts down memory lane.
“Do you drink, Mr. Pukui?”
He sat up straight, dropping his hand to his lap. “Are you…asking me if I was drunk when I…”
“No,” Gia said, pushing back from her desk. She slipped behind his chair, closing her door and walked to the window, pulling out a bottle of Four Roses Single Barrel Expressions and two Waterford crystal tumblers. “I meant, are you thirsty?”
She poured two fingers in each tumbler and offered one to Kai. He was wary, as though he might be worried that she was testing him, but still took the glass, waiting until she sat behind her desk again and sipped from her drink before he would have any for himself.
Kai watched Gia, keeping his expression neutral, but his eyes communicative. There was a spark behind the gleam in each flicker Gia spotted, some curiosity that had him drinking faster than her, like he had a hundred questions for her, but wouldn’t ask her a thing until he knew he wouldn’t be punished for it.
“So,” Gia started, leaning back in her chair, the warm buzz from her bourbon like electricity fueling her insides. “I take it from your silence and the multiple rescheduling requests Cat has been fielding from everyone’s management that no one is going to tell me a damn thing about what happened on that field.”
Kai started to take another drink, but stopped at his mouth, his lips parting as though he’d only just realized postponing this meeting was an option. Gia smiled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “You really do have the worst management. Take my advice and ask Wilson if his agent is looking for new clients.”
He slouched in his chair, two fingers moving over his forehead before he rested his half-empty drink on his knee. “Ricks…wasn’t the only one who was mad, was he?” Kai looked at her through his fingers, dropping his hand when Gia stared at him but didn’t answer.
Instead, she took a longer drink, her focus on his face before she set her tumbler on her desk and leaned forward, folding her fingers together. “I have some guesses.” Kai copied her, resting his drink on the corner of Gia’s desk and leaned forward, moving to lean his elbows on his knees. The black pendant swung from his neck, but Gia ignored it, keeping her attention on Kai’s face and those round, bottomless eyes.
“I’ve been in this business a long time, Mr. Pukui. I know Hanson’s type. Mocking Reese, trying to distract her from her job, trying to humiliate me by spreading rumors.” Gia laughed when Kai’s face tightened. “People like Hanson have to make everyone else around them small because they don’t feel good enough, strong enough. And when it comes to women doing a job they think should only be for a man? Well, they will likely never let up. To them, women like Reese, even like me, are a threat because they are stuck in a box they don’t want to ever be out of.”
Gia polished off her drink, carrying the tumbler to her makeshift bar by her bookshelf, refilling her glass. “That box is awfully small and confining and it’s been my experience that the sooner you figure that out, the better off you’ll be.”
“But Hanson…the things he said…I can’t let that…”
“It’s not your place, Mr. Pukui,” she told him, her frown drawn down when he looked away from her. Gia knew her mistake the second she made it. Kai didn’t look up from his tumbler, seeming interested in the way the ice melted together as Gia sat on the edge of her desk, her feet next to his by his chair. “I don’t need a rescue,” she started, willing him too look up at her, holding her voice even, clear. When Kai glanced at her, nodding once, Gia hurried to give him something in the way of an explanation. “Hanson isn’t the first asshole to start rumors about me, and I doubt he’ll be the last. All you bloodying his nose does is make paperwork for me when his agent hassles me about bugging the league with penalties and fines, and bullshit I know you don’t want to deal with.”
“No.” Kai shook his head, rubbing his hand over his face. “No, I don’t want that…” He looked on the verge of saying more, but decided instead to down the rest of his bourbon.
“I will say,” Gia started, unable to watch his expression for long, “that while a rescue from you isn’t needed and is, in fact, more trouble than it’s worth…it…uh, is very much appreciated.”
Kai leaned back again, the tension that had made his face seem harsh and worried loosening as Gia’s words seemed to penetrate, and something new, something she had to admitted that she liked seeped into her chest: his warm, beautiful smile.
“How much do you appreciate it?” he asked, grinning at her like he’d done a thousand times before. She squinted at him, suspicious already of the question. “Enough, say... to ask McAddams to drop the penalty?”
Gia’s laugh was loud and automatic. She had to give it to Kai, he was fast and bold. A combination she would have normally loved.
“Not a chance in hell, Kai.” She laughed harder, holding her stomach when he shrugged as if to say, “can you blame me?”
“You know,” he said, standing when Gia moved to circle around her desk. Kai kept still, his attention on her. “I think that’s the first time you haven’t called me ‘Mr. Pukui.’”
She considered him, her attention fractured between the importance of settling the issue with the fight and wanting Kai to know that she appreciated him sticking up for her.
“There aren’t many people who are loyal anymore,” she told him, not withholding her smile. “Yesterday, you showed me you’re loyal to Noble. I respect that.”
“She wasn’t the only one I was sticking up for, Gia. You have to know that.” Kai took a step, moving to Gia’s side and she didn’t stop him. The same buzz she always felt anytime the man came near her hummed close, but Gia pushed it back, pretending, like always, it was something she could go on ignoring. He smelled like cologne, something rich, sweet that got closer when he shifted
next to her. “You have to know,” he continued, “that asshole, any asshole who puts your name in his filthy mouth like that will catch my hands again.”
“I…appreciate that. I do, but you know it’s not necessary.”
“I know it’s not, but that’s what you do for your people.”
“Oh, I’m your people now?”
He hesitated, watching her, his dark gaze shifting over her body, his mouth twitching as though there something he wanted to say but knew it would spoil the mood. “Yeah. You’re my people. Don’t doubt that.”
He left without another word, offering her a wink over his shoulder before the soft click of her door sounded. Gia stared at the woodgrain of that closed door, seeing nothing, second guessing the wisdom in shortening the distance she’d put between herself and the beautiful lineman. He’d defended her, proven to her he could be loyal. Gia knew Kai was a good man, someone any wise woman would be happy to have at her side. Problem was, for Gia, someone that loyal, that beautiful at her side, especially that particular someone, was a very dangerous combination.
7.
KAI
KAI CAME to the French Market for the fresh fruit the old man with the worn straw cowboy hat offered four days a week. On Thursdays, the guy had pineapples—fat, dark pineapples that Kai bought by the armfuls and spent hours cutting into chunks, with the sticky sweet juice dripping over his island and onto the floors of his kitchen. Next to the pineapples he got on the island, these were the best Kai had ever eaten.
“Mr. Pukui!” the old man said, when he caught Kai’s attention, nodding at him as he weaved through the crowd. He waved him over with his hat, fanning his sweaty face before he picked up a canvas bag that he offered. “I’m afraid I’ve only got four for you today.”
“Four?”
“Well, we’re getting close to the end of the season, aren’t we? This ain’t Hawaii. Pineapples don’t come year-round.”