Chapter 34
Nash
The text from Ellie is the first thing I wake up to. Of course, she sent it to the group chat with both Zamir and me in it. The name of it is also all hers.
Brigade of Cocks
Mi Amor
We have a little issue.
My car may or may not have been targeted and blown up in the parking lot of Shenanigans…
Don’t worry, though! I’m with Marcello at his place.
What the fuck is going on?
I tap on Zamir; he’s knocked the fuck out beside me. We may have had to share a room, but we sure as fuck didn’t have to share a bed last night. The cuddling was top-notch, so I can’t complain. He’s been working me up to the fucking so far. We aren’t anywhere near being able to fuck yet—his words, not mine. He blames my “horse cock,” but I just shrug and let him lead the way. I know I’m attracted to him, but he doesn’t want me to regret anything, so he’s forcing me to go slow. It almost seems like he’s prepping me too, and I don’t hate it either.
“Zamir, come on, wake up.” He doesn’t wake up, just moves his huge arm over my stomach, which in turn rubs right against my raging boner. So I say what I know will be a cold bucket of water. “Something happened to Ellie.”
He’s sitting straight up in the bed before I can even get anything else out of my mouth. He’s taken the covers with him too, both of our bare bodies on full display. I turn my phone towards him and let him see the text from Ellie. He’s mumbling Albanian, which I think are cuss words from what I can pick out.
I ask him, “What is going on? And is she safe with Marcello? You know he hates me.”
“She’s safe if she’s with Marcello, but I don’t know what the hell is going on. Who would be targeting her?”
I just shrug because how the hell would I know? He’s the one that grew up in this shit; my family was the complete opposite. My dad was so fucking straight and narrow I couldn’t do anything. I really hope no one is trying to get to Marcello, and they think hurting Ellie would get them what they want. Isn’t that how the mafia works?
“You need to get your head in the game, Nash. She’s okay until we hear otherwise.”
1“How can you be so fucking casual about all of this?”
“You forget what I was bred to do, Djale I Bukur.”
He’s pissing me the fuck off, acting like Marcello isn’t the most unhinged man any of us have seen. “Marcello and Ellie grew up around one another, Nash.” He’s sitting up in the bed now, looking down at me still lying here. God, I love what he looks like over me. “I have a feeling that Marcello is our girl’s stalker, and if that’s the case… we can all be on the same team.”
“What the hell do you mean the same team? He had me by my goddamn neck because Ellie was in my apartment! Are you high?” I start looking around the room for the blunts he’s always carrying around.
“What are you looking for, Nash?”
“Your fucking weed. You’ve got to be high saying shit like this. I would love to live in your brain for a day.”
He mumbles almost so low that I can’t make out what he said, but I do. “It’s not a good place, Djale I Bukur.”
That has me shutting the hell up. Does he struggle with his mental health? That little statement has so many questions coming to the front of my mind.
There’s an awkward silence until Zamir breaks it. “I smoke to quiet the noise.”
Really looking him in the eyes, so he knows I’m sincere, I say, “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have made a joke out of it. I’m just not used to all this crazy mafia shit.” A bad feeling sinks into the pit of my stomach that this is just the tip of the iceberg too.
He’s wearing a devilish smirk when he says, “What if I were to say I know how we can get us all on Ellie’s team?”
“How are we supposed to do that, Bebé? ” I spit out the last word.
He has the look of a killer covering his face. “We have to use Ellie against Marcello. He won’t stand to see her unhappy, and if he tries to take us away from her, that’s exactly what will happen.”
I demand, “I’ll follow your lead, but if he tries to kill me, you better save me.”
We’re in the Badgers away locker rooms getting all of our gear on for the game. This being our first away game has me slightly freaking out, hoping it goes as well as the game against the Devils did mainly so I can see what surprise Zamir has in store for me.
Zamir had to fill me in earlier on what the mafia life consists of, and none of it sounded good to me. Lots of holding shit over people’s heads, killing, and some kind of conspiracy theory that Marcello harvests goddamn organs. None of that sounds like a good time to me, but Zamir was lit the fuck up while talking about it. I think he misses all of it, but I don’t get the feeling that he likes his family or maybe how they run their shit. All I took away from the conversation was more stress, and Marcello has a big-ass bullseye on his back. Which, in turn, puts an even bigger one on anyone who gets close to him.
I can’t think about it too much, or I’ll start getting freaked the fuck out again. Finally getting my second cleat laced up, I’m up moving around, trying to stay warm. My headphones are on my warm-up playlist, and all the teammates know I’m not wanting to be bothered.
Before I know it, we were out on the field. I was calling out my cadence, “Set, set, dilly willy.” The first snap always gets the defensive line chuckling, and I bank on it.
I drop back into the pocket; Zamir’s running a post-route, full speed toward the end zone, cutting towards the middle right as I get the ball out of my hand. He barely has to reach out, the ball landing like a fucking baby in his hands. He’s so fucking fast it makes me sick sometimes.
I’m running down into the end zone to celebrate with him. Before I know it, I’m screaming in his face, and our helmets are touching. “Fuck yes, Z! You did so good, Bebé! Touchdown on the first fucking play! Let’s go!”
He’s looking in my eyes like I’ve hung the fucking moon. “That was all you, Nash. You laid that ball in there perfectly!”
Our whole team surrounds us, so I doubt any fans can see us in this intimate moment.
1.Often - The Weeknd