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B/c I think my life just got a lot more complicated.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tray
I got sprung from the hospital on Monday. Halle-freaking-lujah. From there, I picked up my hefty prescription of anti-inflammatories and antibiotics and went home to Long Island with my parents and my dog. That lasted until approximately seven-eighteen a.m. on Friday, when my mother asked me for the fourth time when I would be contacting the admissions counselor at Yale. Then she proceeded to cut the crusts off my wheat toast.
One of those two things was the final straw.
By mid-morning, Vey and I were back home. Home home, in Brooklyn. I might’ve kissed the floor in my joy at being back in my own place if the dust wasn’t a concern. Sneezing with eye socket fractures—not so good, I’d discovered. Blowing my nose? Even worse. The pocket beneath my right eye tended to swell up like a balloon. And it hurt, a fucking lot.
So I sniffed pretty much constantly and spen
t plenty of time with my head back. I’d also taken to popping cold medicine about every eleven minutes.
Good times.
I lay down on my couch with my dog at my feet and relished the faint smells of home through my plugged up nose. The dirty socks under the coffee table. The scent of dog. The lemon furniture polish.
Huh?
Propping myself on one elbow, I dragged a fingertip over the top of the coffee table. No dust. And my socks were gone.
What the fuck? Had my mom come here and cleaned when I’d been laid up? That didn’t seem like her. She had an army of maids, butlers, and assorted house staff for a reason.
Ten reasons actually, and they were the claws she lovingly called fingernails. She wouldn’t risk them for such a menial task as polishing a table.
I dug my phone out of my jeans and called Slater.
He answered right away. “Yo. You home already?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Just called the Domicile of Doom and they said you were no longer ‘bedding’ there. I’m assuming you’re bedding at your place again? Or did you find somewhere else to go?”
I didn’t miss his implication. Nor did I respond to it. “I’m at my place in Brooklyn. Hey, did you clean my apartment?”
His guffaw answered my question. “Hell no. I barely clean mine, dude, and that’s only because clean sheets get me laid.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. You have live-in pussy now. Rub it in.” The hard-on I’d woken up with every morning in the hospital hadn’t helped my bitterness issues. Somehow it didn’t seem fair that even when I could barely string words together, my dick remembered Mia and everything we hadn’t finished in this very living room a week ago.
Weeks had become lifetimes in my world.
Slater didn’t say anything for a minute or two. “Yep. All roses and rainbows up in here.” Before I could ask what was going on, he continued. “So, ah, I have news about your girl. You’re not going to like it.”
With just those few words, my eye started pounding. Stress wasn’t good for my injury, and I had to wait two more weeks to have my surgery. Supposedly I’d benefit from waiting for my cold to get better and for the eye swelling to subside as completely as possible, but I had my doubts.
“She set up the fight with Costas.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because I already knew the answer.
“Yeah. She swapped it out with your fight and booked him instead.”
“Why did he agree? What the hell kind of man is he?” One that didn’t give a shit about gentlemanly ethics, that was for sure. Costas had built his reputation on getting down and dirty with anyone who asked. He was a talented fighter, I’d give him that. Mia ranked as a strong competitor against anyone, male or female, but I didn’t like how easily she had convinced him.
Maybe she’d used other ways to persuade him…
As quickly as the sneaky thought arose, I shut it down. Nope, no way. This wasn’t about that. Whatever her reasons for wanting to fight Giovanni in my place, I didn’t believe she’d resort to anything shady to get him to agree to a bout. Didn’t want to believe it.
“I don’t know why he agreed, but he did. I was stuck pulling doubles for the last few nights. If I’d known she’d go right down there and corner him—”
