by Shandi Boyes
“Tomorrow may never come.”
The ink on my right rib healed months ago, but it feels like a fresh tattoo anytime Willow mentions it. She’s the only one who can quote it as she’s the only one who knows of its existence. She held my hand at the funeral of my childhood best friend after she lost her battle with leukemia, then again when I had a portion of her obituary inked onto my skin as a reminder about how short life is. I made a promise to Cecily six months ago that I’d slow down and enjoy the life I’m living instead of the one I’m hoping to achieve.
I’ve yet to keep my promise.
Chapter Twelve
Lorenzo
“That’s not true, Gio. Nonno loves you, he’s just hard on you as you’re the man of the house now.”
As I break through the door of my bedroom, I run my thumb down the face of the boy on the screen. Giovanni is so upset, the bad connection at the foothills of a ski resort can’t hide the moisture flooding his eyes.
“He got angry in front of everyone. Said I didn’t try hard enough, that I should have tackled my opponent even if it resulted in a penalty. We won, but that still wasn’t enough for him.”
I almost say, nothing you do will ever be enough, but I hold back. Giovanni is only eleven, which means he’s too young to understand he’ll never live up to my father’s expectations. Not even playing in the professional league at seventeen got my father off my back. He wanted better, and he demanded nothing but perfection.
“What about Nonni? Was she there?”
Giovanni wipes under his eyes to ensure his tears won’t fall when he jerks up his chin. “Yeah, she said I played good.”
“Did she make you Margherita pizza?”
For the first time during our five-minute conversation, Gio smiles. “Sì. She brought enough for the entire team.”
“Well, there you go. You must have played well. Nonni only brings out the good stuff when she’s bragging.”
His laugh has me forgetting we’re only chatting because my sister recalled how upset I got when my father slayed every match I played. He wasn’t like other parents. He didn’t record my games so I can reminisce on my youth when my hair is gray. He did it to strategize new game plans, to scrutinize and analyze every move I made. He made me a better player, but I hated him for it.
I still do.
“Where’s your mamma? Is she still hoovering like a mama bear ready to defend her cub?” I say the last half of my comment in Italian to ensure my big sister, Alessia, can understand. Her English is worse than mine.
“More like a vulture,” Giovanni chuckles a mere second before the iPhone I gifted him on his birthday is snatched from his hand.
The screen blurs when Alessia says in Italian, “Vulture is right because they’ll only be carcasses by the time I’m done punishing anyone who upsets my boy.” She plants a super sloppy kiss to Giovanni’s cheek before ordering him to wash up for dinner. She waits for him to stomp up the stairs before shifting her focus to me. “Grazie, Enzo. He was beyond devastated.”
Her thanks are appreciated, but my mood is still hostile. “Then why did you invite padre? You know what he’s like, Ales. He’s toxic.”
“I didn’t invite him. He must have heard about the match in the local giornale. Gio’s team got quite the following when they discovered who his uncle is.”
I give her a stern look not even a thousand miles would wear the sting off. “The media wouldn’t have made a connection if you signed Gio up to play under his father’s last name.”
“And give that coglione the satisfaction of seeing his name in print? Nessuna possibilità.”
I could argue her son’s wellbeing should come before a tiff between her and her ex-husband, but it won’t get me anywhere fast. Even with Giovanni being upset at my father’s scolding at his local match, it was most likely the lesser of two evils. They say Italian men marry women who represent their mothers. Alessia flipped the coin on its head by wedding a man who’s the exact replica of our father—abusive tirades and all.
“You need to keep our father away from Gio, Alessia, before he moves miles away from you to escape him.” I stop just before saying like I did.
My eyes float up to the door when I detect I’m being watched. Skylar is standing in the doorway with her brows pulled together, and her expression dumbfounded. I want to say her confusion stems from overhearing my conversation with my sister, but since a majority of it was Italian, I doubt that’s the case. She’s shocked about the reconfiguration of our room. Gone are the three beds, replaced with the one I’m sitting on.
I angle my head so Skylar won’t see my smirk while also returning my focus to my sister. “Alessia, I have to go. Give Mamma a kiss for me, and tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.”
“Okay. Ciao, Lorenzo.”
I return her farewell before hitting the end button on the screen of my phone. After dumping my cell on the bed, I raise my eyes to Skylar. She’s still stunned. I don’t know why. I told her I don’t field a game unless I plan to win. Chasing her is no different.
“Am I in the wrong room?” She slants back before swinging her head to the left, then slowly to the right. Once she counts the three doors on each side of our room, her focus diverts back to me. “Fourth door on the right, right?”
“Sì, amore mio.” A rush of adrenaline thickens my blood when my endeavor to bridge the gap between us shortens her breaths. She’s tried to act unaffected by my presence all night. I’ve not once believed her ploy. “I did some redecorating while you chatted with Willow.”
Her lips twist. “Redecorating… right.” She steps deeper into the room, filling it with her honeydew scent. “Where did the beds go?”
I take a few moments to relish her delicious smell before moving back toward the bed I plan for us to share. “Two beds become one,” I announce while showing her the seam I hope doesn’t interfere with my plans.
“And Danny’s bed? Where did it go?” My chest puffs high that she immediately clicks to the fact the giant bed is ours to share. Danny was not as clued on as her. I discovered a new meaning for a double-adapter quite awkwardly this evening.
“I moved Danny into his own room.”
Like a perfectly timed skit, Skylar’s name comes tumbling out of Danny’s mouth with an echo, compliments to the bathtub he’s using as a bed frame. He wiggles his fingers at her, more than happy with his new digs that are costing me a cool five thousand dollars a night to secure. He didn’t tell me until after we stuffed his mattress into the tub that he would have slept on the couch for free.
Lesson learned.
When Danny pops in a set of earbuds, Skylar’s wide eyes zoom back to mine. “You moved Danny into the bathroom?” When I nod, she squeals. “Why?”
My cock twitches when the faintest touch of my fingertip causes goosebumps to break across her skin. “I’m a private man, amore mio. I do not like others watching me when…” My words trail off to silence when I fail to find an appropriate one to describe my reasoning for moving Danny out of our room. My English is good. I’m just unsure about vocalizing my motives.
Regrettably, Skylar doesn’t face the same language barrier I do. “You don’t like others watching when you… snore? Drool on the pillow? Fart in your sleep? Demand for your mamma to check the bogeyman isn’t under the bed? What exactly are you hoping no one will see, Lorenzo?”
“Farting in your sleep is perfectly normal. Since you’re relaxed, so is your sphincter.”
She doesn’t find my attempt at humor amusing. It tightens her crossed arms, which hoists her fantastic tits even higher in the hideous sweater she’s wearing. She’d be covered head to toe in the finest threads if she had accepted my offer to take her into town for clothing.
Alas, she is as stubborn as she is beautiful.
Realizing she’ll never be railroaded into submission I try another tactic. “I’m an adult who refuses to sleep in a child’s bed, so I fixed the error.” I move to the right hand of side of the mattress, fol
d back the covers, then slip between the sheets. “Unless you’re afraid your libido will override your senses in the middle of the night, I’m sure you’ll have no issues staying on your side of the bed.”
“Oh, don’t you worry. There’s no chance of that ever happening.” She stomps my way, her steps remarkedly thunderous for her tiny frame. “I also didn’t agree to this arrangement, so you’re shit out of luck, Shortie J.”
I keep my smile on the down-low when she grips her side of the mattress and yanks it with all her might. She grunts, groans, and curses numerous times in a row, but she doesn’t lodge an inch of air between our beds.
“What the hell did they stuff the mattresses with… rocks?”
After yanking off the sweater hiding her svelte frame, she does another four frantic pulls. The color drains from her face, and her thighs wobble, but her endeavor to separate our beds never transpires.
I could ease her dilemma by announcing there’s a zipper keeping them joined, however, this is more fun.
When she flops onto the carpet with a huff, I think it’s the end of her campaign to have us sleeping apart, however after a quick breather, she teaches me I still have a lot to learn about the feisty blonde who stole the land from beneath my feet more than my trip across two continents.
With a smug grin, she steps into the corridor, shouts two names, then twists to face me with her arms folded in front of her chest. My brows join when two massive men join outside my bedroom door a few seconds later. She whispers something to them, but since my heart is in my throat, I don’t hear anything they say.
I’m not scared.
I’m five seconds from taping Danny’s sweater to Skylar’s barely covered body. The men’s height gives them a fantastic vantage point to take in the valley between her breasts, and they know it. They’re so focused on checking her out, I guarantee neither of them know her eyes are more cobalt blue than oceanic.
I watch the men with interest when they enter the room with a grinning Skylar following them. I’m anticipating for them to give me my marching orders, or to demand we have a ‘talk’ in the corridor, so you can imagine my surprise when they grip the mattress Skylar’s been tugging the past twenty minutes to flip it over.
I try to hold onto the mattress as if it’s the last snippet of my dignity, but determination has nothing on gravity. It doesn’t care who you are or how tall you are. If you fight against it, you’ll land on your ass—which is precisely what I do with an almighty bang two seconds later.
After tossing me to the ground like trash, the men return the mattress to its rightful spot and leave. Then, even quicker than that, Skylar slips between the sheets.
“Uh-uh,” she growls in warning when I attempt to join her in bed. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law in this country, meaning this is now my bed.” She pulls the bedding up under her chin, covering her beautiful body. “Don’t make me call the po-po on you, Shortie J. A jail-cell floor will be even more uncomfortable than the one you’re about to sleep on.”
“I’m not sleeping on the floor!” I shout, exasperated.
I am a multimillionaire.
I do not sleep on the floor.
With a smirk of a woman determined to bring me to my knees, Skylar replies, “It’s either the floor or the couch… which is on the other side of the cabin… far far away from the other naughty men who might scheme up ways for me to sleep in their beds.”
When she rolls over to spoon the pillow my head was resting on mere seconds ago, I snatch it out from underneath her chin. “If you fart in your sleep, I’m going to record it and upload it to every social media outlet in the country.”
She’s not the least bit bothered by my threat until Danny says, “Tighten those Kegels, baby girl. He has over sixteen million followers on Instagram alone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Skylar
I wake up with a loose mouth, drooping eyelids, and the tightest butthole you could possibly imagine. If it isn’t bad enough I’m sleeping in a house full of men who are gods in their own rights, I’m bunked with two who bring new meaning to the term ‘Adonis.’ Danny may be gay, but that doesn’t mean his naked torso hasn’t given my eyesight a daily workout since we became friends over a month ago, and Lorenzo, there’s only one word I can use to describe him. Roasting.
Even while grumbling about the carpet piling scratching his sexy-ass skin, his face had me feeling like I was floating down a river in an inflatable tube. I was drenched from my backside to my crotch, but the rest of me was bone-dry.
I want to say my lack of sleep wasn’t also compliments to Lorenzo’s threat to upload my nighttime toots to the World Wide Web, but that would be a lie. Willow’s assets might have Elvis convinced he can put up with her rank farts, but I’m not willing to test the theory.
I’m not saying I fart in my sleep. However, I can’t guarantee that this isn’t the case either. I’m asleep. How the hell do I know what I’m doing when I’m sleeping?
After checking the time on my cell phone, I roll out of bed with a groan. I agreed to hike with Willow and the gang through the dense woodlands of the estate before I knew about Shortie J’s plan to shorten my night even more than he has the past four weeks.
My steps to the bathroom are sluggish and slow, weighed down by the blankets Lorenzo used to make an impromptu bed on the floor. He must have awoken hours ago as his bedding is stone-cold.
Once my clothing is dumped on the bathroom floor, I switch on the faucet in the shower before making my way to the toilet for a wee. With my mind still slow from tiredness, it takes me a good two to three seconds to comprehend why the sensation of skin touching skin shoots through my body when I plop my backside onto the toilet seat.
Danny is asleep with his arm braced across the bowl. Mercifully, his joke about tightening my Kegels saves him from being peed on, but regretfully, it doesn’t stop his hand from getting friendly with my nether regions.
While screaming like a banshee, I leap up from the toilet. My squeals alert Danny to the horrific situation unfolding without his knowledge. With his eyes locked in on my recently waxed pussy, he screams blue murder while scampering back in shock.
His movements are so quick, he whacks his head on the faucet. As blood gushes out of his wound, I charge for the main bedroom. I’m not sprinting to get help. I’m charging for the bed to hide my mortified face under the bedding.
Regretfully, Danny squeals loud enough to alert the cabin to the burning his retinas just undertook. As I exit the bathroom at the speed of a rocket, Lorenzo enters it. We collide like oil and water, my naked body extra slippery compliments of the steam billowing out of the still-turned-on shower.
Lorenzo skedaddles, I scamper, and our chests slap. By the end of the fiasco, Lorenzo is on his ass, my naked torso is pinning him to the floor, and Danny is rocking in the bathtub, murmuring that he saw a vagina on repeat.
The situation could get worse, but mercifully, Lorenzo’s ego-inflated head saves the day. No matter how many times Elvis tries to barge open our bedroom door, Lorenzo’s thick forehead stops it from happening.
If he’s tolerating the pain to save my dignity, he should just let them in. I’ll never come back from this.
“I saw a vagina.”
After placing down a mug of hot chocolate in front of Danny, Elvis soothingly rubs his arm. “I know, Danny, I know. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.”
“It was right there.” Danny holds his palm six inches from his face to replicate how close he came to his very first vagina. I could permanently scar him by telling him his hand was more sullied than his eyes, but he’s on the verge of a breakdown, so I keep my mouth shut. “It growled at me.”
I’m about to give him the what for, but Willow slots into the seat next to me, saving him from being born-again for the second time today. “Give him a little leeway. He’s a platinum gay.”
I arch a brow. “A platinum gay?”
Willow’s grin is smug, pleased she finally has me s
tumped on something. “He was born via caesarian and has never touched a vagina. I don’t think he’d seen one before today.”
“From his response, I don’t think he should go to a peep show anytime within the next year.” I glance over her shoulder to check if the color in his cheeks has returned. He is still as white as a ghost. “How is his head? Any stitches?”
Willow shakes her head. “No, but E has assured him he’ll pay for the best barbie in the country to trim out the glue once his wound has healed.”
I lick my dry lips, praying it will ease out my next set of words. “And Lorenzo?”
Willow’s smile weakens the knot twisted in my stomach. “He assured the paramedics numerous times his increase in blood pressure isn’t from a knock to the head.” She bumps me with her shoulder, her brows waggling. “Who knew sleeping pants were so sturdy.” I try to act ignorant to her underhanded compliment of the considerable bulge I felt when pinning Lorenzo to the floor, but she knows me too well to fall for my tricks. “If we get snowed in, I know someone who can drill us out.”
“Shut up.” I return her shoulder barge. Mine is more to maim than play. “I caused two head injuries in under a minute.” It’s the fight of my life to hold in my grin. “I did warn Lorenzo irreparable damage occurs within thirty seconds of ogling these puppies.” I jiggle my chest, my smile uncontained. “He might believe me now.”
I stop shaking my enhanced assets when Lorenzo enters the eat-in kitchen.
Talk about the devil, and he shall arrive.
