Chapter 9
Alec had numbed himself beneath his fair share of ice packs in his day, but the clunky resealable snack bag Marisa handed him was a first.
An assortment of loose change, newly chilled from their temporary bout in the freezer, slid between the tracks of his fingers until they’d found a home on top of his swelling knuckles.
Had she really just given him bloody pocket pennies after he—
“I still can’t believe you threw a punch.
A punch! An actual, literal flying of fist into face.
Why would you do that?” Marisa opened and closed cabinets with more ferocity than the injury that had landed him in the States.
But it wasn’t until she’d slammed the cabinet shut above the stove that he truly felt it, not only in his clenched fingers but the back of his jaw as well.
Damn, the woman was angry, and if this was what an irate Marisa looked like, he’d do well to gird far more than just his fists.
Alec adjusted the—was he really meant to call this an ice pack?
—bag and gentled his tone as best he could.
“Because three threatening men cornered you outside your door in the dark,” he remarked wryly.
“Forgive me if I didn’t wish to see your pretty head clobbered against the side of a building and all your money stolen. ”
Marisa paused her frantic rummaging to regard him through sharp brown eyes that were rounder than the coins cooling his knuckles. Her gaze grew more introspective, as though just realizing how her circumstances would have looked to someone with more sinister interests.
Or to someone determined to protect her from those more sinister interests.
Alec took the opportunity to smooth away what fear he could.
“I can see the anxiety ping-ponging behind your eyes. Regret doesn’t get paid by the hour, so best not give it so much airtime.
We’re all fine. Besides, I must know”—he reached into the ice pack stand-in and pulled out a silver coin with a gold center—“what the hell kind of currency is this anyway?”
That thousand-yard stare of hers had just come back into focus, earning him a small smile of thanks—another bonny keepsake he’d managed to earn.
She started up again with the drawer perusal.
“A subway token. And it’s not regret that’s twisting me up.
It’s reflection. Ugh. Absolutely nothing about tonight is going as I thought it would.
” Then Marisa poked her head out of the kitchen and yelled, “Hey, Sid, did you find that antibiotic ointment yet?”
Sid, or Sid the Sparrow as Alec had come to learn, was a sturdy man with a shaved head, an impressive beard, and a preponderance of neck tattoos.
He was one of three similarly costumed individuals who were not, as Alec had incorrectly assumed, street thugs intent on hurting Marisa.
Instead, they were some of her closest friends.
Friends who had a familiarity with her apartment that had yet to allow Alec’s muscles to relax.
Sid and the other two men, who were equally meaty and tattooed, squeezed out of the small bathroom in cartoonish unison. One of them—the lad with the long queue of white hair down his back but not much on top to speak of—held a tube high in victory between his clubbed fingers. “Got it right here!”
“Thanks.” Marisa grabbed it, rising to kiss the grizzled man on his pockmarked cheek, and returned to Alec’s place on her couch, where she began dabbing bits of the ointment across his cracked knuckles.
“Such a sweetie. You know, Captain’s got two older sisters, and it shows.
When he told me stories about what those women managed to convince the correctional officers to let them bring to Cap during visitation, everything about him made so much more sense. ”
Captain grunted, then folded his arms across his massive chest. “Why do you think I got out so early? It sure as shit wasn’t for good behavior, I can tell you that much.
It was because Emily and Maya made the guards jumpy.
I bet those guys figured the less they’d have to deal with my sisters, the better. ”
Alec took over the ointment application from Marisa but nearly dropped the tube at this little newsflash. “You were in prison?”
Marisa sighed. “They all were. That’s how we met.
A fact I would have been happy to tell you had you let me get around your freakishly large shoulders downstairs before you went all Street Fighter on them.
” Then her words cut off, and a familiar chagrin from his earlier point rejoined the conversation.
“Not that I wouldn’t have been grateful,” she added.
“You know, if they really had been bad people who’d wanted to hurt me. ”
Her apology, or whatever she considered it to be, never landed, though, as all the air rushed out of Alec’s lungs, abandoning him to choke through its absence. “You-you were in prison with them?”
Marisa’s features scrunched in confusion a moment before the fog cleared, and she rounded on him with unnatural shock. “What? No! I mean that we met through a prison reentry program.”
Alec blinked. “Oh, of course. Because that makes much more sense.” Then he waited—really freaking patiently, all things considered—for her to elaborate on what the hell any of those words meant.
Once she finally registered his worried confusion, her mouth formed a delightfully adorable, not entirely helpful O as she offered an explanation to calm his discomposure.
“When I was a freshman in college, there was an activities fair of sorts where different groups on campus and organizations in the area recruited members. One local company was offering an industry skills tour for candy making. It sounded fun at the time and met on the weekends, which was one of the few places that did, so it fit into my schedule. Turned out, the class was also associated with a prisoner rehabilitation program aimed at helping former inmates transition into food service jobs once they reenter society. That’s where I met these loves of my life,” she said, turning to the three men who had begun emptying their pockets onto her kitchen counter.
“The big bald guy is Sid the Sparrow. Captain Slate’s the one with the ponytail, though we just call him Captain, and the mohawk-loving brute who’s currently unwrapping his third blueberry candy cane is Manic Boy.
And don’t let their history fool you. They’ve come an insanely long way.
Actually, together, they now own the largest snack chain in North Jersey called Incarcer-eats, which not only works to employ former prisoners and offer them a leg up in a society that demands their reformation but actively still refuses to employ them, but they also make the best damn prepackaged churros you’ve ever put in your mouth. ”
The one called Manic popped the candy cane free from his blue-tinged lips and smiled an alarming number of gold teeth at Alec.
“What can we say? With Marisa, it was love at first Busch Light. We’ve all been taking care of her ever since.
” Then he leaned forward and stage whispered, “And the churros were my idea. Took a hell of a lot of R and D, but we got there. Still our best seller. Oh, and I’m sorry I bit your hand.
What can I say? Old habits die hard, and when you rushed me back there, my golden chompers sort of went on autopilot.
You got in a good hit, though.” Manic pulled down the collar of his graphic T-shirt to show the barely pink patch of skin that Alec had thrown all his bloody power into after the man’s teeth broke through Alec’s skin.
Alec’s head hinged back and forth among the inhabitants of Marisa’s small apartment. “Are you lot taking the piss out of me?”
Captain ran his hand over his chin. “Not sure what any of that means, but we always wipe the seat down after we use Marisa’s bathroom.” Then he punched his thumb into his chest. “Older sisters, remember?”
“Older sisters,” Alec said through a throat gone way too freaking dry. “Right.”
“No, we’re not teasing you,” Marisa added from over in the kitchen, where she was holding up all sorts of pumps and tubes the men had brought her, which only added to the bizarre picture Alec’s brain was frantically trying to piece together.
“Oh my gosh! You guys got me a sugar pulling hook! Wow, it’s all here.
New cylindrical chocolate molds, a sugar-blowing pump .
. .” Marisa kept digging around at everything the men had placed on the counter, pure elation lighting her features.
“Phoebe will never know what hit her. There’s no way she’ll put out anything at the Ball even half as good as I can, not with these puppies. ”
Manic chomped on another bite of candy cane and raised his hand like an eager and remarkably well-behaved kindergartener sitting cross-legged on a classroom carpet. “Can I hit her?”
Marisa twisted her lips in what Alec hoped was mock contemplation. Then a defeated sigh fled her lips. “I’m going to say no.”
“Boo,” he said, his voice full of dejection, and lowered his oafish hand.
When she returned her attention to the silicone molds and lifted them higher for closer examination, Alec saw the curve they took, especially when rolled for transport, and how they looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun.
A gun he had sworn Sid the Sparrow had been carrying when he’d approached Marisa outside.
“I . . . Wow,” Alec said, shocked by just how much vocal fry shame and fear could wreak on one’s words. “I am so, so sorry, lads. I thought you all were carrying a gun.”
Curious glances passed between the three men, which made Alec certain he’d just been put on some sort of list that he didn’t want to be on.
Then Sid lifted a brow. “And you still attacked us.” A statement. Not a question.
With his faux ice pack abandoned, Alec stood, his voice dropping into a register he only ever used when some big, hairy center on an opposing team saw fit to get mouthy before a match. “You’re bloody right, I did.”
He hadn’t meant for his words to be threatening or to scare Marisa into dropping her equipment on the floor.
But he had meant them, even if he wasn’t sure why.
Sid stepped forward, with Captain and Manic standing on either side of him. Together, they looked like a wall of monstrous muscle that hadn’t just been carved from a mountain but had terrified entire rock structures into creating mountain ranges around them.
In the kitchen, Marisa still stood quiet, her nimble fingers that had cared for his a moment ago now twisting into knots of uncertainty.
Despite it all, Alec wouldn’t budge. If there was one thing that could be said about him, even with his aging body and even more aged career, Alec Elms didn’t fucking back down from a fight.
Especially not when it came to a woman he’d sworn to help.
Then Sid leaned his tall frame over Alec, his bald head eclipsing the living room lights and casting them both in an eerie shadow. “Good. We’ll let her keep you, then.”
The handshake that came next was so strong, it nearly crushed Alec’s swollen knuckles. But his muscles had managed to strengthen themselves just in time, especially as the back slaps and shoulder squeezes came into play.
From within the cheerful circle of newfound pseudo-acceptance from Marisa’s friends, Alec had yet to check on his own friendship with her, however.
Was that what they had? A friendship? Or was it more of a partnership?
One that had originally been steeped in surface-level deception but had now come to grow with far deeper implications?
After what he’d done this evening and who he’d met and had likewise somehow ingratiated himself into their company, though he still had no fucking clue how?
Calling what Alec shared with Marisa a mere friendship, though, felt equal parts right and wrong and made his chest itch.
As if owing to his tumultuous thoughts, when his gaze sought Marisa out and she threw him another one of those quiet smiles, he hesitated. The reward wasn’t quite as sweet as before. No, this time, it was strained.
Because before, he’d not met firsthand the people in her life who loved her enough to defend her heart—with perhaps less-than-legal tactics—if he were to crush it.
And crush it he would. Because none of what they were doing was real, was never supposed to be real. After the holidays, he’d have to go back to England, where he’d hopefully be cleared to resume play and prove to his agent and team that he wasn’t just owed a new contract but worthy of it.
For the first time, he saw the true dilemma of their charade. The hesitancy in her smile. The lack of certainty in her eyes.
Without examining things, they’d entered into something there was no going back from. Not easily, at least. Not without a bit of pain on her part. Pain he would acutely, selfishly, cause when he’d return home so he could get on with the life he’d worked so hard to build.
But the stakes had been made clear and were punctuated by three blokes with criminal records who now had an abundance of money, resources, and immense brotherly affection for the woman Alec had just claimed to care for, in a way.
If he broke Marisa’s heart, even falsely, he’d have far bigger problems to worry about than a stupid contract renewal.
Problems that came in the form of a mess he’d be leaving Marisa behind to deal with on her own.