James frowned down at me. “How did you accidentally rip her shirt?”
I shrugged. “The Hulk doesn’t know his own strength.”
When Willa went to move by James, he blocked her path and not on purpose. He was eyeing her body, getting his fill, and I’d guess he didn’t even know he was doing it. When she swallowed hard, blushed, and muttered, “Excuse me,” James moved. A little. As she walked by him, she brushed against him.
My brain smiled smugly, and just as she passed me, I flicked my pen off of my desk. Willa immediately bent down to pick it up, giving James a front view seat to her firm ass. James looked down, gripped the side of my desk, then turned and walked away. Fast.
Oh yeah. He was totally into her. If only he could see what was right in front of him.
It was sad.
Really.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Helena
“Turkey on white okay?” I call out to Asher as he works on my leaking showerhead.
He calls back from the bathroom, “What the fuck ever.” His New York accent thickens when he spouts, “I’m starvin’ here.”
Nat laughs at something on TV, sitting on my sofa, eating chips from the bag, while I go ahead and work on feeding her apparently famished husband. How famished he is, I couldn’t tell. It seems Max, Ash, Nik, and Trick eat almost all day long. I’m not even sure how Mama Leokov wasn’t eaten out of house and home.
As I grab the Turkey and mayo from the refrigerator, I side-eye Nat, biting the inside of my cheek. I know I shouldn’t say anything, that it isn’t my business to tell, but the longer I think about it, the faster my heart beats. It beats faster and faster, when suddenly I blurt out, “I need to tell you something and it’s important, but you’re likely to overreact, and I’m sure she would just tell you if she was sure you wouldn’t overreact and blab to Mom and Dad, but we know you, and you have a tendency to overreact, dammit.”
Nat turns to me slowly, searching my face. “What the hell are you talking about, Cheech?”
I slap the bread on top of the sandwich and growl, “You’re so slow. I actually can’t believe you don’t know this already. Granted, I shouldn’t know, but I did some detective work and found out, because I fucking care.” I glare at her. “Don’t you care?”
Her brows rise to her hairline before she calls out to the bathroom, “Ash, baby, I think we need to take Helena to the hospital or some shit.”
He calls back, “She bleeding?”
Nat looks over me. “No, but she’s talking crazy.”
He grunts, “She is crazy.”
I glower at the bathroom door. “Crazy like a fox!”
Nat chuckles before asking, “What are you talking about, Lena?”
I make a sound of exasperation. “Nina.” Nat’s face tells me she clearly doesn’t know what the eff I’m talking about. I roll my eyes, throw my arms out by my sides, and boom, “She’s gay!”
Her eyes widen in disbelief a moment before she bursts into laughter. She laughs and laughs and coughs then laughs some more. But I’m not laughing. I look at her with a firm eye, and slowly, her laughter dies. After a moment, she sputters, “Are you joking? You’re not joking, are you?” She chuckles humorlessly. “Why do you think she’s gay?”
I look her in the eye and utter, “The simple fact she has a girlfriend.”
Nat’s eyes widen comically a moment before she jumps up from the sofa and paces, clearly shocked. “A girlfriend? What the fuck? How do you know this?”
I tip my head to the side. “Like I said, I did my research.”
She turns to face me with her hands on her hips, looking more hurt than I’ve ever seen. “And she would hide this from me? Like I’d give a flying fuck if she preferred tuna to a hot beef injection? Why would she hide this?”
Leaning my hip against the counter, I purse my lips. “I think she’d hide this, because of Mom and Dad.”
Nat looks up at me, determined, but her voice is small and unsure. “Mom and Dad wouldn’t care. They love her. They love us.”
My mom and dad are from Eastern Europe, one of the only places left in the world that is still ridiculously homophobic. I love my mom and dad, but on this issue, I’m not sure they would be okay with it. I raise my brow. “You so confident that you would put money on that?”
At that moment, Ash walks out of the bathroom, wiping his hands on a rag. “Done. Now feed me, woman.”
Smiling, I hand him his plate. “Thank you, best brother-in-law ever.”
Taking a bite out of his sandwich, he raises it in the air in acknowledgement and jerks his chin at me, but Nat stands there looking more confused by the minute. She turns to Ash and asks, “Did you know about this?”
He swallows before scratching his brow. “That Nina’s a rug-muncher?” He nods, completely oblivious. “Yeah. So?”
Oh my godfather, Ash. Has no one taught you anything about women? Deny, deny, deny!
Nat’s turns to her husband in false calm. “You didn’t think I should know about this?”
Sitting on the sofa, he reaches into the bag of chips and shoves some into his mouth, then garbles, “If she wanted you to know, she’d have told you, baby.”
Face turning a nice shade of pissed-the-hell-off, she reaches into her back pocket, pulls out her cell, presses a few buttons, and then holds the phone to her ear. My eyes widen.
Uh oh.
After a few seconds, she screams into the phone, “You like taco and you never told me?”
As Nat continues to hurl weirdly supportive abuse at Nina through the power of telecommunication, Ash chuckles at me. “Oh, now you’ve done it.”
I wince. Yikes. Reaching for my own cell, I type out a quick message, hoping she won’t be pissed.
Me: Um…surprise?
A moment later, my display lights up and I mope.
Nina: You are so fucking dead, bro.
Nat paces, flailing her arms animatedly and rambling, “…because, hey, I know lesbians! I’m totally cool with lesbians! What I’m not cool with is my lesbian sister hiding her sexuality from me like I’m a goddamn anti-lesbite!” She pauses in her tracks, listening, before her brows narrow dangerously and she fires back, “It totally is a word! Google it!”
I look over at Ash and mutter, “You think she really didn’t know?”
He looks over at me, brows raised, before looking at the scene his wife is making, then looks back to the TV, reaching for more chips. “She really didn’t know.”