Sunday

by Kaia Bennett

  He’d managed in six seconds flat to grab Luca by the collar of his shirt and press him hard into the brick wall. People walking by had started to take notice, murmuring and exclaiming as Flynn let the third punch crack into Luca’s jaw.

  Gia was in a state of utter shock. How the hell did he get over there so fast? How did he manage to get two more punches in before she realized what was happening, let alone wedge herself between them? She couldn’t wrap her head around it, even though she knew her body had sensed this would happen.

  She should have known better than to underestimate Flynn’s reaction to Luca. Now she just had to figure out how to separate the two of them before Flynn broke something on her ex. She was operating purely on instinct as she put herself in the line of fire and covered Luca’s body from Flynn’s increasingly brutal blows.

  As soon as Gia came into his line of sight his rage hit the brakes. His fist was poised in midair, aching to connect with Luca, who was huddled and almost falling against the wall. He’d managed to get in a punch that grazed Flynn’s shoulder instead of connecting with his face. That had spurred him on, making his blood boil with the anticipation of making him cry like the little bitch he was.

  But then suddenly Gia was there, pushing at his chest and screaming at him to stop. He was still trying to get to Luca, and the sound of her voice was only just then able to reach his ears in the form of coherent words.

  “Calm down! I said stop, damn it! He didn’t come here to harass me!”

  Flynn was barely registering her existence, his eyes plastered on Luca with the type of intensity reserved for snipers and stalking cheetahs. Luca was coming to his feet, wiggling and clutching his battered jaw.

  “His grandfather just died yesterday,” she whispered.

  It took all of Gia’s strength to keep Flynn at bay when Luca looked up and gave him a carefree smirk.

  “I said stop, Cam, please!”

  He was operating largely on instinct now, but he was no fool. In the back of his mind he knew Luca, for the moment, was fitting snuggly into the “victim” category for Gia. He’d always prided himself on being a good judge of character, but he realized as he watched Luca eyeing him brazenly from behind Gia’s shield of protection, that the boy was no slouch either. He may not have known Flynn was going to hit him, but he knew either way Gia would be eating out of the palm of his hand. Either way he was going to win this battle.

  “Sorry about your loss,” Flynn said over Gia’s head. “Now what the fuck are you doing here?”

  Flynn stared Luca down as he righted himself. Luca sobered, the smirk replaced by anger at Flynn’s mock condolences. Meanwhile, Gia was giving Flynn a look that could scorch the side of his face.

  “I was just asking Gia to come to the funeral,” he said softly, a dimple coming out of hiding. “She said yes, by the way.”

  Flynn was having a hard time processing the fury sweeping through him like a hurricane. It was so blatant, so transparent what Luca was trying to do, that he wondered if the guy shouldn’t just hoist a sign that said, I’m trying to take her away from you—and thanks for helping my cause!

  Honestly, he didn’t give a shit why Luca was there. He wanted him gone, but Gia was turning back to him to inspect the damage.

  “Are you okay,” she asked wincing at the cracking sound emanating from Luca’s jaw as he stretched it out.

  “I’m fine,” he said with a little nod and then turned to Flynn. “Look man, I know how this looks, but I didn’t want anything from Gia—”

  “Do I look stupid to you,” he asked menacingly, and Gia’s hands once again had to hold him back.

  The girl was stronger than she looked. It was lucky for her that he liked her, or she would’ve been snatched up by the neck and tossed aside on his way to his target.

  “I thought I warned you if you came near her again I was gonna fuck you up. Did you think I was playing, man?”

  “Flynn, that’s enough!” Gia said. “Flynn? Flynn, look at me,” she pleaded.

  He hesitated for the longest of moments, his green eyes blazing as he stared Luca down. When he finally turned his eyes to Gia, he wasn’t sure if he was growing calmer or angrier. She shouldn’t be getting in his way. She shouldn’t be defending Luca. In fact, he should never have felt like it was possible to ask her to go to his grandfather’s funeral in the first place. This was all so fucking ridiculous and tired.

  “We’re leaving,” he said, starting to turn and grasping her hand.

  Gia tugged back a little. “But we still have—”

  “Now.”

  Such a scary, simple word. If her gaze was a forest fire, his was a frozen tundra. She turned to Luca apologetically.

  “I’ll call you later,” Luca said, and Gia sighed as Flynn’s grip tightened around her wrist at the other guy’s words.

  As Flynn dragged her through the small crowd of spectators to his car, she looked down and noticed the red and scraped knuckles of his right hand. He was letting her go and unlocking the passenger side. She got in and growled in frustration as he slammed the door closed. She was going to have to invent a new curse word, because this was beyond a “fuck” moment.

  This was so bad. She rubbed her hands down her face and shot a glance towards him as he opened the driver’s side door and lowered himself in. She almost expected him to squeal out of the parking lot and give Luca the finger as he walked towards his car. But Flynn pulled into reverse calmly and drove out of the parking lot without a word.

  He didn’t trust himself to speak. So he stared ahead as trees and stores and other cars whizzed past them. The silence after a while began to carry a weight he knew Gia couldn’t stand. Sure enough, she turned to look at him, then down at his hand. It was like trying to pet a tiger when her fingers grazed gently over his bruised knuckles.

  “Is your hand oka—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, snatching it away and switching to the other hand on the steering wheel.

  “Flynn, you’re overreacting. It’s a funeral, not a secret rendezvous. You didn’t have to hit him.”

  He said nothing.

  “I didn’t even know he was coming and I was going tell him to go to hell when he told me about his grandfather. That’s the only reason I hugged him… And when he calls later to tell me the specifics that’s all we’re going to talk about. Nothing’s going on between us. I swear, he understands I’m with you now.”

  Silence. Nothing but silence.

  “Will you please say something? Anything?”

  No. He wouldn’t.

  “I’m trying to talk this out with you, but if you’re not going to be an adult about this…”

  Apparently he wasn’t because he came to a stoplight, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as he continued to ignore her. It was a silent “Fuck you”, a mental declaration that this time she wasn’t going to get off so easily.

  He wasn’t too keen on being treated like the unreasonable one, the one who need to be placated and coaxed into submitting to the stupidity that was Luca and his incessant presence. She should have let him beat the shit out of him; that would have made him nice and calm. Then they could have talked it out, but no, oh no, he couldn’t hurt dear, old Luca.

  “This is really mature, Flynn. Really mature.”

  Gia could feel her face getting hot. Who was he to judge her, or make her feel like she had done anything wrong when she truly hadn’t? Being a decent person didn’t mean she was inviting Luca back into her life. Why couldn’t he see that? And why couldn’t she articulate it in a way that didn’t make her sound like she was making excuses, even to her own ears?

  “You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Flynn turned a corner without so much as a glance in her direction. His face didn’t concede one bit and he remained a portrait of rage-induced impassivity. She wondered through her own escalating rage if he was any good at poker. He could make a lot of money if he got himself this pi

ssed before every game.

  “Fine. Whatever. Be that way.”

  She sat for the rest of the trip with her arms crossed and her bottom lip poked out like a large child, waiting for him to acknowledge she was pissed. She wasn’t as good at this game as Flynn though, and after a while she sunk into the seat and stared out the window, angry and defeated.

  If he weren’t so pissed he’d have laughed. The last time this had happened she’d ended up being his girlfriend. Either that son of a bitch was going be the death of them, or he was going to have them rushing to the altar before the semester was over.

  Fucking Luca…

  They picked up her car, the silent treatment still largely intact on his side. She put on a happy face for Bobby, thanking him profusely for fixing her car and giving her a generous discount. But she could tell Bobby noticed something was up with Flynn. They got into their separate cars, and when they came to the intersection that would lead to Flynn’s, Flynn turned left towards his apartment and Gia turned right towards hers.

  The fight with Luca may have been over, but theirs was just beginning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Gia lasted a whole day before she caved.

  She felt like she was going through withdrawal symptoms. She shook her head as she gathered up her keys and smirked to herself, imagining her body huddled into a corner, swaying back and forth as she wailed, “I’m not gonna make it” repeatedly.

  It was absurd how much she missed him, all of him, and how ill at ease she was knowing he was angry with her. The only problem was she hadn’t quite figured out what she was going to say to fix things. Flynn was just so damn stubborn. He had been from the very beginning, but she knew if she could just get him to talk to her, they could get back on the right track.

  She was convinced he was keeping things bottled up, and it was her job to make him get over himself and nip this brooding man-tantrum in the bud. She gathered up a generous helping of patience, swallowed as much of her pride as she could, and made the drive to his place.

  Flynn was in a bad mood.

  That was the easiest way to put it. He hadn’t talked to Gia since he separated from her yesterday, and though he was largely responsible for that fact, he still didn’t like it. Seriously, was he always this whipped, or was this just another in a series of new and confusing emotions revolving around Gia Kessler? It wasn’t like they had the kind of relationship where they always had to be near each other; their schedules didn’t allow them that luxury, especially with finals coming up. But yesterday had been rough.

  He hadn’t gotten the chance to tell her the good news. He’d gotten the job in L.A. and he wanted to take her out to celebrate. Seeing her in Luca’s arms had changed that in a heartbeat, and now he was coming home from a very long, very tiring shift at the restaurant feeling like shit warmed over. All he wanted was to take a shower and finish up his work so he could get some sleep.

  He was in for quite a surprise when he unlocked the door, walked in, and found Gia waiting for him on the couch. It was Monday night and she didn’t usually use the key he gave her unless it was Saturday.

  “Hey,” she said. She was sitting cross-legged on his couch, looking a little too good in pair of denim shorts and a yellow tank top.

  He paused for just a second, swallowing down the relief he was feeling. She smiled slightly, her eyes assessing his mood as he walked in and peeled off his jacket.

  “Hey,” he said, tossing his keys on the coffee table and his jacket on the edge of the couch. She cleared her throat when he started to unroll his sleeves and sit on the arm of the chair across from her.

  “We need to talk.”

  She said it firmly and then stopped, her eyes watching him for signs of dissension.

  Flynn waited for a moment, then tilted his head to the side and said, “Well…are you going to say something?”

  She bit at her upper lip and looked away for a moment, as if stopping herself from saying something snide.

  “What happened yesterday with Luca…”

  He suppressed a sigh and bit the inside of his cheek.

  “…I don’t want you to think that…I need you to know nothing is going on with him. He stopped calling because I told him to. He stopped coming around. He knows I’m with you and that’s where I’m going to stay. I’m sorry things got so out of hand.”

  He looked at her for a moment, the anger he’d let seethe over the past day starting to melt away. She got it, she understood. He could relax a little.

  “So, just promise me you’re not going to go crazy on me again just because I’m going to the funeral. It’s really not that big a deal.”

  Never mind. False alarm.

  The anger was back.

  He started unbuttoning his shirt, coming to his feet.

  “Crazy, huh? Is that what I was being?”

  She blinked and realized her mistake too late. He didn’t see defending his girlfriend as the act of the crazy person. He didn’t see any of this as “no big deal”.

  Shit.

  “Wrong choice of words, maybe?”

  “Definitely,” he said.

  “How about crazy-esque?” It was a lame attempt to lighten his mood with levity. It was like throwing a pebble at an iron wall, hoping for a dent. He was looking down at her as if he were bored, but there was the telltale clenching of his jaw again, the only thing that could give him away.

  “Is that all?”

  “Well…yeah, but I thought you were at least going to say something back. That’s kind of what conversations are like. I say something; you say something. So on, and so forth.”

  He wasn’t looking at her as he un-tucked his shirt and finished the last of his buttons. Of course, he could feel her eyes on his body as he revealed the line of his abs and the sliver of his tattoo. It wasn’t doing much for his anger that he was getting turned on just thinking about her wanting him. But this wasn’t going to be a repeat of the last time he caught her giving her ex a little taste of the affection he’d claimed for himself. No, the silent treatment would work just fine for now. He started walking towards the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. There was the finest tremor of anger in her voice.

  “To take a shower.”

  She sighed, her anger dissipating as she thought of him wet and naked. She surprised herself when she asked, “You want company?”

  Flynn’s cock lurched and he paused in the hallway.

  Was she serious? Was this a trick? He would be hard pressed to ignore any beautiful naked girl in his shower. But Gia’s golden brown curves, her full lips, those big doe eyes; they would be like kryptonite. He was supposed to be making her as miserable as she was making him. Burying his dick in her over and over again wouldn’t work.

  He gritted his teeth against a forlorn sigh and said, “No.”

  Was he serious? Was this a joke? No, that was the bathroom door closing a little louder than necessary. She couldn’t believe he was turning her down, turning her away because he was the one who couldn’t keep his anger in check. She should be the one giving him the silent treatment, not the other way around.

  It didn’t stop her from wishing he had said ‘yes’. She would have been more than willing to continue this argument after she had fucked him thoroughly. And if she were honest with herself seeing him like this, all angry and silently brooding, was kind of sexy.

  It made her wonder if she could break him down to her level, the one that left her craving him in spite of her anger. She sat for a moment, eyes narrowing as she thought it through, and then came to her decision. She stood peeling off her tank top, unbuttoning her shorts and slipping them off along with her panties and flip flops. She told herself to be patient with him, to swallow her pride so they could talk things out rationally. That would come later, after she tested just how much he wanted her.

  After she had her fix of him.

  Flynn was in the shower letting the water cascade over his body, his hands leaning on the wall as he dipped his head under the warm spray. He blinked through the water when Gia opened the shower door and let herself in. He perused her body hungrily in spite of himself. Anger was mental, but his body always had its way when she was near him. She didn’t speak. She just stroked a hand over his back as she kissed his shoulder, tasting the beads of water bursting against the softness of his skin.

  She literally felt a pang in her heart when he gave her a cold look and turned away. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. She continued to stroke his back while the other hand stroked over his outstretched arm, feeling the beads of water stretch and form a thin barrier between her fingertips and his skin. He didn’t move away. That was a start at least.

  She hooked her hand under the sturdy muscles of his arm, walking under it until she was between both arms and could hold him to her. She kissed around his mouth in supplication, pressing her lips softly to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. The water was beating down on her back drenching her hair and misting over her pleading eyes. She could hardly feel it when she looked up and saw his eyes blinking down at her. They were no less penetrating for the water which was cascading over his head, causing them to blink rapidly as he stared down at her.

  None of his expressions were completely unreadable at this juncture, but this one was close. It was as if her actions hadn’t tripped the sensor that made him reach out and touch her as soon as she was near. There was a calmness to him that unnerved her, an anger she realized had its roots buried deep. She was sorry for that, and she apologized with a kiss to his lips.

  At first Flynn couldn’t bring his lips to move. Or, more honestly, he forced them not to move. But she was tentative and gentle, turning her face this way and that, slowly trying to find the angle or touch which would make him open to her. She was pleading so beautifully with her mouth and her eyes, he found his lips pressing softly and weakly back against hers, as if they were slowly coming back to life under the power of her need. They were opening now, giving her just a taste of the treasure she sought beyond the softness of his lips.

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