Rough and Ready, page 13
“She really has,” Rafe agreed.
“She’s going to make some lucky guy an incredible wife. I pray every night she’ll meet a good man, someone who will love her for exactly who she is and make her happy. I keep telling her she’ll find the right guy eventually, but after so many years on her own and looking, kissing all those damn frogs, as she calls them…” Kayden sighed. “She wants to fall in love, wants what our parents had, and I can’t fault her for that because I want the same thing.”
Kayden and Aldo had graduated from high school the same year as Tony, the three of them, plus Rhys, the oldest in their gang of friends. Kayden had put a few good dating years on hold when he became Keeley’s guardian at the ripe old age of twenty-five, sacrificing a social life for his sister.
“You’re both going to find what you’re looking for,” Gio said, squeezing his shoulder. “You just need to hang in there.”
Kayden smiled, then walked out to the porch, the smell of pepperoni and cheese filling the air.
Gio started to follow, but Rafe held him back. “I think Keeley’s been talking to that guy, JT.”
“How do you know?” he asked, scowling.
“I overheard Liza asking about him.”
Gio digested that information, then turned his attention back to Rafe. “You ready to admit it?”
Rafe nodded. But Gio wanted to hear the words.
“You want her too, don’t you?” his friend pressed.
Rafe gave him a sad grin. “Yeah. I do. But, Gio, my feelings haven’t changed about wanting a long-term relationship.”
“I know, but…” Gio ran his hand through his hair. “If we pursue this, I don’t see me walking away from Keeley…ever.”
Rafe knew that was true. His friend was falling, and falling fast. “I know that, so maybe we don’t pursue it. Only you do.”
“You could do that? Walk away without ever knowing…” Gio frowned. “You’re attracted to her too, even if you don’t like admitting it. What if we leave the decision up to her?”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Gio stared at him a long time, and he got the sense his friend could see more than he wanted him to. Because Gio was right. He wanted Keeley more than he’d ever wanted another woman.
Rafe schooled his features the best he could, hoping Gio didn’t see any of the confusion—or desire—drowning him.
“Might be a moot point anyway,” Gio said at last. “Do you think we waited too long to make a move?”
Rafe foolishly rejoiced over Gio’s use of the word we, even though he knew that pronoun was wrong. Then, he shrugged and sighed heavily.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Chapter Eight
A buzzing sound roused Gio from a deep sleep. He waved his hand in front of his face, thinking it was a fly. Then he realized it was his phone.
It was his first night in his new bedroom in the mansion, and he felt slightly disoriented.
Rolling toward the nightstand, he picked up his cell and looked at the number. It wasn’t one he recognized. Ordinarily, he would have turned his phone off and gone back to sleep, but his sixth sense was telling him to answer.
Immediately, he thought about Luca, the twin bond between them a very real thing.
“Hello.”
“Gio?”
Gio sat up at the sound of Keeley’s voice, looking around the dark room, trying to get his bearings. It was darker and quieter here than it had been in his fifth-floor apartment in the city. No streetlights, no noise from the traffic below.
“Keeley? What time is it?”
“It’s a little before two a.m. I’m sorry I’m calling you so late.”
Gio’s heart started to race. Her voice sounded…off.
“Are you okay? Where are you?”
She paused just long enough that he knew she wasn’t okay.
“Keeley. Where are you?” As he asked the question, he rose from bed, reaching for the jeans he’d shucked before crawling beneath the sheets a couple hours earlier. When Keeley left today for her manicure, she’d said she was going home to do laundry and relax. He hadn’t thought to worry about her because he’d taken her at her word.
From the sound of loud music in the background, it was clear she’d lied about her plans.
“The Dolphin.”
Gio growled. The Dolphin was in South Philly, and nowhere he wanted her to be at this time of night. “Who’s with you?”
She evaded his question. “I was wondering if you could come get me.”
He pulled the phone away from his ear for the two seconds it took to pull a T-shirt over his head. “I can be there in fifteen minutes. You inside? Safe?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Stay there.” Then he recalled the unrecognized number. “Whose phone is this?”
“I had to borrow one. Mine is broken.”
“How did it get broken?”
Apparently, Keeley wasn’t in the mood to give details because once again, she changed the subject. “Could you maybe not call Kayden? He’s leaving in a few hours for his trip, and I don’t want to ruin it for him.”
Gio sighed. “I won’t tell him. But, Keeley, when I get there, you’re answering all my questions.”
They hung up, and Gio quickly slipped on his shoes. He knocked on the door to Rafe’s room, surprised when it opened instantly.
“Who were you talking to?” Rafe asked. Then he noticed Gio was dressed. “Where are you going?”
Gio had chosen the guest room right across the hall from Rafe’s, and he hadn’t kept his voice down, his concern for Keeley overshadowing everything else.
“Get dressed. Keeley’s at The Dolphin. She needs a ride,” Gio explained quickly, not wanting to keep Keeley waiting a second longer than he had to.
Rafe didn’t ask another question. Instead, he quickly threw on clothes as Gio attempted to find his keys.
“I thought she was staying in tonight,” Rafe said as the two of them climbed into Gio’s truck.
“Yeah. Me too. Apparently, she lied.”
“Why would she do that?”
Gio pounded his palm against the steering wheel. “It’s the middle of the night and she’s in a nightclub in a not-great part of Philly with no phone,” Gio said, unable to let his anger and concern go.
“She’s an adult, Gio,” Rafe replied calmly. Too fucking calmly.
“And yet she’ll be lucky if I don’t turn her over my knee and spank her ass after this,” Gio said through gritted teeth.
Rafe sighed, shaking his head.
“Aren’t you pissed?” he asked hotly.
“I’m not happy, but one of us needs to keep a cool head, and since you have out-of-control rage covered, it looks like that’s me.”
Gio took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, aware Rafe was right. Losing his shit wasn’t going to help a thing.
“So much for keeping an eye on her,” Rafe murmured. “Kayden hasn’t even left town and we’ve already screwed that up.”
“She lied,” Gio repeated.
“Was she okay?” Rafe asked.
Gio threw his hands up briefly, releasing the steering wheel before quickly gripping it again. If Gio was talking, his hands were moving. That was true of all the men in his family. But…it was a problem when he was driving. “That’s the thing that’s really killing me. Because I don’t think so. She sounded upset.”
“Shit.” Rafe turned and looked out the window, neither of them speaking again until they found a parking spot one block away from the nightclub.
The pressure that had been weighing on his chest since Keeley’s call instantly lifted the second he saw her standing at the door with a bouncer.
“Those are my friends,” she said to the man.
She walked over to meet them, and he instantly noticed she was limping slightly, something that, from the grimace on her face, she was working hard to hide from them.
The bouncer nodded at them. “You guys got her?”
Gio lifted his chin, appreciating the man’s concern. “Yeah. She’s with us.”
“Cool. I’m gonna go finish closing up. I’ll call you, Keeley, if we find your credit card.”
“Thanks, Alec,” Keeley said with a weak wave.
Gio wrapped his arm around her waist, while Rafe claimed her hand. He had to give it to her. She was working overtime to mask the obvious pain she was in. If the car hadn’t been so close, he would have picked her up and carried her.
She pulled up short when she spotted Gio’s truck. If he hadn’t been out of his mind with worry, he would have told Rafe to drive. There wasn’t a backseat in his old, beat-up Ford. Just a bench seat.
Rafe opened the passenger door and helped her climb inside, while Gio crossed to the driver’s side. Once they were all in, Gio turned to look at her.
“How bad is your ankle?” he asked.
“What?”
“How bad, Keeley?” he repeated impatiently.
“It’s fine. I just twisted it.”
He studied her face, trying to decide if she was lying. “Do you need to go to the ER? Or we could swing by Tony’s and ask Rhys to take a look at it.”
She shook her head. “No, really. It’s okay. I just need to get out of these heels and prop it up. It’ll be better by morning.”
“Where’s your phone?” Rafe asked.
She pulled it out of the back pocket of her jeans. The screen was shattered and the case dented.
“What the hell happened to it?”
She blew out a long breath, exhaustion, and something else Gio couldn’t put his finger on, etched in every line on her face. “I fell on the dance floor. My phone took the worst of it.”
“You lost your credit card?” Rafe asked, doing a much better job at moderating his voice.
She nodded. “The credit card was in the same pocket as my phone. I guess it fell out when I pulled my phone out of my pocket to look at it, but I didn’t notice at the time. My apartment key is…somewhere else. The dance floor was kind of crowded. The Dolphin closed a few minutes before you guys got here, and Alec, the bouncer, helped me look for the card, but it’s long gone. I’m going to have to cancel it.”
Gio started the truck. “This sounds like a long story. You can tell it to us when we get back to the house.”
“No. My landlord has a spare key. I can go to my apartment.”
Rafe took her hand in his. “You’re staying with us.”
Keeley dug in her heels, and Gio suspected it was because she didn’t want to tell them about her night. “I’ll be fine at my place.”
Rafe shook his head. “You don’t have a phone. It’s not safe.”
“I’ll get a new phone first thing tomorrow morning,” she said, continuing the argument.
Which was tough shit for her because Gio was driving, and he wasn’t taking her to the apartment.
“Until you get a phone, you’re staying with us,” Gio said, making it clear the subject was not open for debate.
Normal Keeley would have put up one hell of a fight at that point, would have insisted and put her foot down, pitched a fit even.
This Keeley?
Well, Gio didn’t know what to make of this Keeley. She was tired and sad and completely beaten down.
The anger that had been simmering since he’d discovered she was out alone faded, replaced with concern.
“Fine,” she said softly after a moment.
The three of them rode in silence, and for a second or two, he thought perhaps Keeley had fallen asleep.
Glancing over, he saw that she’d rested her head on Rafe’s shoulder, her eyes closed, as his friend held her hand, his thumb softly stroking her fingers.
It was her breathing that betrayed her, that told him she wasn’t sleeping at all. She’d closed her eyes as another evasion tactic because her breathing wasn’t the deep and easy rhythm of someone slumbering. It was shallow and shaky.
When they pulled up to the house, Gio put the truck in park and killed the engine. Rafe got out, then helped Keeley down as well. Keeley had complained once that his truck needed a damn stepladder to get in and out of.
She walked a bit steadier as they entered the house, and he realized that—at least as far as the ankle was concerned—she hadn’t lied. She also seemed to have gotten her second wind somewhere between the nightclub and here.
She slipped off her shoes just inside the front door, closing her eyes in obvious relief. “I know where the guest room is. I can get there myself. Good night.”
She started for the stairs to the second floor but turned back around when Gio chuckled humorlessly and said, “You don’t really think that’s going to work, do you?”
“I’m tired. Can we table this conversation until tomorrow?”
Rafe shook his head, walking toward her. “No. We can’t.” Putting his hand on her waist, he guided her to the living room couch, gently pressing on her shoulder until she sank down. Rafe sat next to her.
Cricket made her way into the room, yawning. They’d clearly woken the dog. She walked over to her doggie bed in the corner and lay down. Gio knew for a fact the dog typically slept in Rafe’s room, something his friend pretended to be annoyed about, claiming his grandpa had spoiled the dog, letting her sleep with him. Despite Rafe’s grumbling, it was obvious he cared about the tiny creature.
Gio followed them to the couch, claiming her other side.
Keeley leaned back, sinking farther down in the cushions, sighing heavily. “Okay. Let me have it.”
“Have what?” Rafe asked.
“You’re obviously pissed off at me, so just say it, give me the Kayden-like lecture, tell me I was stupid—which I know—and reckless and…” Keeley closed her eyes wearily.
“Keeley,” Rafe said gently. “We’re not your brother. And you need to understand, that’s not what this is about.”
Her eyes opened, and Gio could see his friend had surprised her with his calm, patient tone as well as his words.
“What happened tonight?” Gio asked.
“The same shit that always happens.”
“Be more specific,” Gio said. “And if you really are as tired as you say, you might want to just go ahead and give us all the details instead of making us drag them out of you one question at a time. Otherwise, we could be here awhile.”
She frowned angrily, but it felt like an act. Like she wanted to give the appearance of being annoyed because she couldn’t work up enough energy to feel the actual emotion. Finally, she just gave in. “You remember that guy at Eclectic?”
“There were three guys hovering around you at Eclectic,” Rafe said. “Black shirt, Chad, and JT.”
“JT,” she specified.
Gio had known in his gut tonight’s bullshit had included that guy.
“He called me last weekend, like he said he would. He was just as I remembered,” she said, with a wistful smile that quickly faded. “He said he’d regretted going back with his ex five minutes after he’d broken things off with me, but they’d shared a long history, and she’d genuinely been trying to make things up to him. He said it took him eight months to get out of that mistake, and by the time he did…he figured too much time had gone by for him to call me.”
None of that sounded bad, but given the way the night had ended, Gio could tell the asshole had found a way to knock her down again. Maybe literally, when he considered her broken phone.
“Anyway, we’ve been texting and talking on the phone, catching up on the last year, and it felt like we were right back where we’d left off. He called last night and invited me out for dinner tonight. Obviously, I said yes.”
“Why the secrecy, Keeley?” Rafe asked. “Why not tell us, or Liza, or your brother you were going out with him tonight?”
“Liza and Kayden don’t like JT. They’re both still pissed about the way he dumped me, and they were upset when I told them he’d called me last weekend. I wasn’t sure if it was going to go anywhere, so I just didn’t tell them when he kept calling.”
“And us?” Gio forced himself to ask.
“I was afraid you’d show up. It was okay with the other dates because I didn’t know those guys, but I wanted a night alone with JT. Just to see if what I’d thought was there a year ago still was.” She stopped talking, and neither he nor Rafe pushed her for more.
Gio really didn’t want to know what she’d discovered.
Mercifully, she continued without prodding. “Dinner was awesome. We laughed and talked, and it was all so perfect. By the time it was over, neither of us wanted to say goodbye. So JT suggested we go dancing. I left my car at the restaurant, and he drove us to The Dolphin. I left my purse in his car, tucked the necessities—my credit card, ID, and phone in my back pocket—we paid the cover and went in.”
“You didn’t lose your ID?” Rafe asked.
She shook her head. “No. It was still in my pocket. Just lost the credit card. Which reminds me…can I use your computer? I really should cancel—”
“Later,” Gio interjected. “Finish your story.”
“We were dancing, and it was a lot of fun…until I discovered his ex was there with her new boyfriend.”
“Did he know she was going to be there?” Rafe asked.
Keeley leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, her eyes cast down at the floor. The entire pose was so totally not her that Gio felt his anger toward that prick JT begin to rise again.
“Keeley.” Gio put his hand on her upper back. “Sit up and look at us.”
She took a steadying breath, then did as he asked. “I’m tired,” she repeated, and he didn’t think exhaustion was the cause for that. Instead, she looked like a woman who’d reached the end of the line and couldn’t take one more step.
Gio nodded slowly. “I know you are. Just finish the story and you can go to bed.”
“You’re a bossy son of a bitch.”
Gio laughed. “Yeah. Tell me something I don’t know. It’s probably the most annoying of the Moretti traits.” He twisted so that his back rested on the arm of the couch. “Come here.” Parting his legs, putting one up on the couch, he shifted Keeley until she was sitting with her back leaning against his chest.
