by Eden Butler
“Get the fuck out of that damn car right now!”
A loud, hammering bang sounded on the hood and Luka leaned back, putting all his weight on one hand as he pulled Gia to his chest and the car door flew open. She could only make out the shape of a large man before a hand curled around Luka’s collar and he was jerked forward, off of Gia and out of the car.
“Gia Adelina Jilani! Get yourself sorted and out here. Figlio di puttana!”
“Uncle Mikey! Wait!” Gia scrambled, trying her best to moved herself between her uncle who had Luka by the collar, his face white, eyes reddening as a thick vein in his neck pulsed and Luka himself, who held up his hands, his words a muffled of sound she couldn’t hear of her uncle’s loud oaths of disappointment.
“Please, Uncle…”
“Madonna santa! …what will I tell my brother? He’ll be…”
“Will you please stop?” she tried again, tugging on her uncle’s arm. The man closed his eyes, running a hand over his face as he held Luka at arm’s length.
“And you! Cazzo, after all we’ve done for you, Hale! All the times... What did I say? I told you I would have your balls. Where’s my knife?” He reached for his pockets, patting his pants and jacket before he went for his keychain. “Going to cut you…”
“Uncle Mike, that’s enough!” Gia managed, stepping in front of the older man so that Luka could get away from him. When he reached for Luka, jaw clenched so tight his chin shook, Gia pushed on his chest to hold him back. “Stop it, please!”
“I told my brother…”
“I am not a kid anymore, and you know that. Papa should know that, too. I’m here to experience life…”
“Not that kind of experience!” He pointed at Luka, his top lip curling. “Dio santo, not that…”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m a good person. I’m a good student and a hard worker. You can’t say I’m not.” He opened his mouth, but didn’t speak and Gia took a step back, moving closer to Luka. “And so is he. So why wouldn’t we want to be around each other? We both like the same things. We run in the same circles. It makes sense and we…”
“No! There is no ‘we!’ Not with my players. I told them that from the beginning. I told you that, too! No. Players.” Mike waved between Gia and Luka, his mouth tight, eyes closed as he shook at his head. “No. Damn. Players.”
“I…I didn’t…”
“Enough! All I’ve done for you,” he said to Luka, head shaking, “and this is how you repay me? This…disrespect?” Then, the older man looked at his niece. “From both of you? Oh, Madonna…”
“That’s not fair. You know it’s not fair.” Gia’s voice was low, her breath felt weighed the longer her uncle glared at her. She could take his disappointment in her, but Luka hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t done anything she hadn’t wanted him to. “We both work hard for you. You know we do. Luka especially…”
“Gia…stop. Please,” Luka said, interrupting whatever defense she’d make for him. She turned away from her uncle, lowering her hand from his chest like she’d given up trying to keep her uncle from lashing at him. Luka wore no real expression on his face. He guarded whatever he was thinking, but Gia knew him well enough that she could make out the disappointment in his eyes. There was shame there, too. Mike had given him and his twin a lot of chances to prove themselves. He’d mentioned that to Gia often. He’d hated sneaking around with her for that reason alone. It had been the main reason they’d argued about coming out in the open about their relationship. Luka hated lying to people he respected.
“Really,” he said, stepping out of her reach when she made to grab for him. “It’s fine.”
“Luka, you know this isn’t right. The way he’s treating us both…”
“No. It’s good. I get it.” He leaned forward to squeeze her hand. “You’re lucky, you know. To have someone to tell you when you’re making a mistake. He’s got your back.” He shifted his gaze to Mike, but didn’t look at him directly. “Not many people have that. It’s good.”
“Luka…”
“I’ll see you around campus,” he told Gia, a frown pulling his mouth down. Then, he stared at Coach, blinking a few times before he straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin, looking the man directly in the eyes. “Coach, I honestly didn’t mean any disrespect at all. I’m sorry.”
And without a backward glance, without stopping when Gia called after him, when Mike did, Luka got in his new Mustang and drove away.
8.
LUKA
Luka hated hiding out in his mother’s house. There was no real peace there. No comfort the woman offered. Nothing that settled him. But he couldn’t face the team house and risk the chance of seeing his coach. Worse yet, he couldn’t risk seeing Gia waiting for him downstairs because he’d refused to answer her calls or meet her in their usual places. She’d spotted him only once since the day he’d driven away from her and Mike. That had been near the coffee shop by the bookstore. Luka forgot how much she loved the place. It had been habit—one of their accidents that he found not remotely happy anymore.
“You’re avoiding me,” she’d told him, catching him as he left the coffee shop just before it closed.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then tell me what it’s like.” She’d taken two steps, bringing her smell, her beauty, the temptation of her, too close to him. He’d almost given in. He’d almost forgotten the look on his coach’s face, how disappointed the man had been when he’d found them together.
Almost.
“This thing between us…G…it’s not...” Then Gia moved her head, a small tilt, a withering frown that tore at his insides. One small head tilt and he couldn’t look at her. It was the smallest gesture, something he’d seen her do a dozen times. Something that Luka hadn’t realized until that moment he loved seeing. She watched him like she expected logic and reason. Like whatever he said would take the frustration from her features and relax the tension bunching the muscles around her mouth.
“Lu?”
He shut his eyes, taking two steps back before he walked away from her. “I gotta go,” he called over his shoulder and jogged toward his car.
“Coward,” he said to himself, laying on the bed in his childhood room, hating that everything in this place made him feel like he didn’t belong.
The living room held pictures of he and Kona when they were kids or his mother and her father when they were all younger. Younger versions of Luka were in some frames, but over the years, as they grew older and it became clear Kona was the stronger athlete, that he had something Luka never would, their mother’s favoritism showed itself in the shrine she’d begun to erect to his brother in this house.
Kona has more trophies, his mother had explained as reason for his twin getting the bigger room when they moved into this place. Luka didn’t argue. It wasn’t a lie. But other things bothered him. Things that he knew had nothing to do with Kona and everything to do with how his mother looked at them. They stopped being a packaged duo somewhere around their tenth birthday when Kona got leaner, taller, and looked more like their kuku, and Luka stayed chunky and round and looked like…whoever the hell the bastard was that left them all twenty years ago.
Maybe, he thought, that’s why he was a chicken shit. It was that turn-tail-and-run DNA that came from the man he’d never known. Whoever the asshole was that got his mother pregnant and then left her with two babies growing inside her, clearly had something weak in him. Had to be what he’d left to Luka. Had to be why he couldn’t find it in himself to face Gia or her uncle. Had to be why he couldn’t fight for her.
“He’s not here.”
“Like hell he’s not!”
The two rising voices were both female. Both very familiar and they pulled Luka out of the bullshit thoughts that had his head twisted up with the asshole who didn’t deserve a second of his attention.
“I have no idea who you think you are…”
“Luka! Are you here? Come out here and talk t
o me right the hell now, you cooch!”
He bolted from his bed, heart hammering as Gia’s voice rose, lifting over his mother’s own threatening tone.
“I will call the police, young lady. You have no right…”
Luka threw back his door and darted toward the entrance, spotting his mother with her arms blocking the open door and Gia, who stood a good foot taller than his mother but who had at least twenty pounds on her, shouting over the woman’s shoulder.
“Luka, you better…” The threat died on Gia’s lips when she spotted him.
Her frown softened and she rounded her eyes before glancing at his mother, jerking her chin toward him. The older woman looked over her shoulder seeming to give up her small sentry of the door to turn toward Luka and throw him the same disappointed, hard-pinched glare that seemed to always be on her face when she looked at him.
“Can you explain…this?” his mother asked, tossing her fingers in Gia’s direction. “I don’t recall agreeing to any visitors, Luka, and certainly not…loud ones.”
Luka rubbed his neck, unable to keep the smile from his lips. He’d only ever seen one other woman stand up to his mother. Kona’s girl, Keira and it fascinated him. These haole girls were bold and rude and just didn’t seem to give a solitary shit about pissing off his mother.
Gia folded her arms, waiting for his answer, standing calmly at his mother’s side, both women quiet, expectant as though they wanted him to make a choice. Neither one would be easy. Either Luka would have his girl and be happy, and his mother would never stop yelling at him, or, he wouldn’t have Gia and…
Hell.
There was no ‘and’ for Luka.
“Makuahine, this is Gia Jilani. She’s my…” He licked his lips, glancing once at his mother’s angry frown before he decided to ignore it. “She is my girlfriend and wherever I am, she’s welcome. Always.” He ignored the noise his mother made when he waved his fingers, silently calling Gia over to him. She moved around his speechless mother, muttering a quiet, “excuse me,” before she let Luka pull her against his chest. Gia curled into him, taking his kiss when he stole it, oblivious to the noises his mother continued to make and how they got louder.
“Luka, this is not appropriate. You are not allowed to have…”
“Ah moʻopuna … is this your milimili?”
He paused, tapping Gia’s back when his grandfather shuffled into the entrance, his wide smile stretching as he looked between Luka and the girl he held in his arms.
“Yeah, kuku. This is Gia. But don’t…”
He didn’t get the warning out in time before his grandfather picked Gia up, hugging her tight, speaking to her in words she’d never understand. And then, like the good grandfather he was, kuku started telling stories. Lots of stories Luka had heard a thousand times. Stories about how he’d met his first and second wife while he was stationed in Paris during World War II (divorced) and then in Germany (annulled). Then how his third wife, Luka’s mother’s mother, “an ugly woman with a plump ass from the Big Island,” according to kuku, had chased him until he caught her.
The stories had the effect the old man had aimed for and within ten minutes, Luka’s mother forgot her anger about Gia barging into their home. She forgot it enough that she waved kuku off when he asked her if she remembered another story he’d always told about the girl of twenty-two he wanted to marry when he turned sixty-five and had been widowed ten years.
Luka led Gia from the entrance, grinning at the wink his grandfather shot him before he opened his bedroom door for her.
“Here, let me get that,” he told her, pushing a stack of dirty clothes off his bed to give her a clean space to sit. But Gia seemed to have other things on her mind than sitting down to chat with him about his grandfather or viper-mean mother.
“So,” she said, arms crossed as he faced her. He wasn’t sure what to make of the expression on her face or if the tightness around her eyes was from anger and some lingering irritation she felt after confronting his mother.
“So,” he tried, standing in front of her. God, it felt like months and not just a week since he’d seen her. He itched to touch her, taste her again. “Gia…” He leaned forward, stopping short when she held her hand over his mouth to stop him. “Hmm?” he said against her palm.
“Girlfriend?”
Luka moved his eyebrows up, realizing his mistake. Realizing only just now what he’d called her and to whom. The label had always bothered him. He’d never wanted to be settled down with anyone, not when he was this young. He didn’t want to do everything like Kona. God knew they were enough alike already. But as he looked down at Gia and the label bounced around in his head, the thought of it attaching him and Gia together didn’t fill him with the dread he expected it would have only a month ago.
“Yeah,” he finally said, tugging on her wrist to pull her hand away from his mouth. “I think it suits the situation.” He pulled on her waist, lifting Gia until her legs wrapped around him and Luka sat them on his bed.
“There’s one small problem,” she told him, a smile teasing him, the smallest hint of a laugh shaking her words.
“What’s that, nani?”
“This isn’t a situation.” Gia kissed him, lifting up to push Luka back onto the mattress. She hovered over him, lips soft, sweet against his neck.
“If this isn’t a situation,” he started, pulling her down, needing her against him, wanting to feel the heat of her skin next to him, not wanting any space between their bodies.
“This, my friend is an entanglement.” Another kiss as she rested on one hand, steadying herself, Gia used her free hand to lift his t-shirt up his stomach. “You and entanglements…not such a good…”
Luka stopped the explanation with a twisting movement, reversing their positions with his hands on her hips and a spin that had Gia under him and her hands in his over her head.
He got close enough to kiss her, using his tongue to open her lips and his knees to spread her legs apart, resting them over his thighs because he wanted to feel her close. He’d been thinking these thoughts for weeks. They were the same things he tried to tell himself were pointless and stupid. The kind of things Kona would say about Keira. The things Luka never believed in because he thought they’d make him weak.
“Let me be clear.” Gia did things to him no one ever had before, and it scared him. But he loved that fear. It filled him like a fire, consuming and burning. “You stand stronger than anyone I’ve ever met. You want bigger things than anyone else I know. You see hurdles and you want to clear them. You make everything look boundless, Gia. Hell, if you can pull off half the shit you want, then I’ll believe in anything. Aliens, Yeti…flying damn pigs.”
“Flying pigs?” she said through a laugh.
“Flying pigs with giant wings. That’s you, G. The boundless hurdle jumper. The woman who makes me believe in flying pigs. Of course I want entanglements with you.” Her face relaxed, but Gia moved her eyebrows together, as though she knew there would be more but didn’t know how much to expect. Luka touched her lips to keep them still in case she tried to interrupt him. “I think, maybe, I could be happily entangled with you…for the rest of my life.”
“Lu,” she whispered against his thumb before she pushed his hand away. “What are you…”
“I love you.” Once he said it, it felt real. It felt comfortable and Luka had never been comfortable anywhere in his life. Not until Gia. He shifted close, not wanting her to see what happened to his eyes when they burned like they were right then. Luka moved his forehead to hers, kissing her slowly before he inhaled. “I think this might be a forever kind of love, nani.”
“Forever is a long time, Lu.”
He kissed her again, mouth on hers, stealing her breath like he needed it just to stay tethered to the earth. “I hope so, baby. That’s how long I want with you.”
9.
GIA
“But this is ridiculous.”
“G, please. I don’t want you getting
sick.” Luka didn’t sound sick, but there was a gravel-tone in his voice that reminded Gia of an old man. “It’s bad enough that your uncle is riding you because of me. If I get you sick, too, then he’ll add laps to the five hundred I’m already doing.” Luka sneezed again, and Gia stopped inside of her building lobby, debating turning back for the parking lot and driving to the team house. Her boyfriend was being ridiculous refusing, yet again to see her because he was sick.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a job I do? Take care of you?” She leaned against the lobby security stand, holding her keys between her fingers, ready to bolt.
“Lolo, when have you ever done jobs you were supposed to?” Another cough and then Luka exhaled, the sound coming out wet and phlegmy. “Sorry. Anyway. I don’t need you taking care of me. I got it.”
“Lu…”
“Baby, please. I’m fine, I promise you. Totally fine.” He yawned, releasing another cough, rustling the covers around him before the noise around him stilled. “Go get some rest. I’m going to down some more Nyquil and crash.”
“If you need anything…” she started, still worried. Still unconvinced that she should stay away.
“You’ll be the first person I call. I swear.”
“Fine,” she said, pushing off of the guard stand.
“I love you, nani.”
Gia smiled, her irritation depleting. “Yeah, me, too, Lu.”
It was a weird sensation—hearing Luka be so casual. Saying back all the things she’d kept hidden from him for so long. Right now, this was theirs. It was private. His mother knew about them. So did his grandfather and, of course, her uncle. But her friends didn’t know. Claire and Mimi kept busy with their boyfriends and finals and the things they did that never interested Gia. Kona, Luka had told her, had Keira and that was an entanglement that kept him out of everything except for the last remaining games they’d played.
But no one knew anything about Luka and Gia. They’d been seen together, but never holding hands. Never kissing. Never doing anything that would draw suspicion.
