Butterface (The Hartigans #1)(48)

“Old habits are hard to break.” He smiled ruefully. “Anyway, you know it’s just because we love you.”

Isn’t that what he and Rocco had always said when she’d come home, beat down after another day of being teased at school? At home with them, she was just Gina, their annoying little sister. She’d never told them the worst of it or how she’d gotten her nickname. Some humiliations couldn’t be avenged, not even by a pair of brothers willing to take on all comers.

“I love you too,” she said, giving her brother’s arm a squeeze. “But I’m not that girl barely making it through the school hallways without crying anymore.”

“Grandpa would be proud of you.” Paul looked over at the cantaloupe she and Ford had been checking out earlier. “He always told me and Rocco you’d be the one in the family to make the best choices. He wasn’t wrong. Look at you. I’m proud of you, sis.”

And this had officially gone to a place her conversations with Paul didn’t usually go. It made her stomach hurt. “Everything okay?”

“Always.” He smiled at her, and it almost reached his eyes. “Who knows, maybe Rocco and I are getting ready to follow in your footsteps.”

“You two want to be wedding planners?” She grinned. She couldn’t even imagine what that would be like. “Or dating a cop?”

His laugh was all the answer she got, because that’s when they both spotted Ford coming their way with a blue carton of extra-large eggs. “Talk to you later, sis.”

“When are we going to have that bowling night?”

“How about Thursday? Bring your boy,” he said. “Rocco’ll be by before that, though. We’ve got a surprise for you.”

That did not bode well. “You know I hate surprises.”

“Not from us. Ours are always good.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “See ya, sis.”

Then he walked away, clearing the produce area before Ford made his way to her side.

“Everything okay?” Ford asked.

“Yeah, fine.” She watched the back of Paul’s head until he turned down the cereal aisle.

Something was off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

She was rolling it over in her head when Ford handed her a cantaloupe with the worst thunk sound possible, and she turned her attention back to teaching him the correct cantaloupe tapping technique.

…

Losing had never been as hard as it was right now as Ford tossed his bright yellow bowling ball into the gutter with enough skill to make it look like an accident when it was anything but. Growing up Hartigan pretty much equalled competitive to a fault. However, if he wanted to make some sort of connection with his thick-necked opponents, kicking their asses wasn’t the way to make that happen.

“You’re so far back, Hartigan, that you need to go find you a St. Christopher’s medal,” Rocco said from his spot closest to the overflowing plate of nachos and pitcher of cheap beer.

“Stop trying to stir up shit,” Gina said as she walked up to the line, her hot pink ball at chin level, and chewed her bottom lip raw, staring at the pins at the end of the alley like this time she was going to get a strike. “Silence, please. I’m gonna do it this time.”

The woman had a lot of positives—the sweet curve of her ass, the sound of her laugh, the way her smile made her eyes twinkle—but amazing bowling skills weren’t among them. Gina was straight up awful. Her brothers were even worse. That meant that Ford was trying not to eat his tongue in an effort to play as badly as possible in order to not sop up the spilled beer on the floor with them.

Gina threw her bowling ball down the waxed alley. Oh, some people rolled their balls—not Gina. The hot pink ball landed with a thunk a few feet in front of her and did its drunken wobble down the alley toward the pins that were not shaking in fear. The ball smacked into five of them, knocking them over. It was pretty close to her high roll of the game. She did a little shimmy dance move, threw her arms in the air, and turned to face her brothers and Ford at the table with a smile that lit up her whole face.

Maybe there was some asshole out there who could look at her and not return her grin. Ford was a dickhead, but he couldn’t stop the ends of his lips from curling upward. Her no-good brothers did the same.

“I told you this was going to be my game,” she said, seemingly forgetting that she had a second turn in this frame and making her way back to their table. “And you guys thought I was crazy for insisting Ford join us for our monthly game. He’s my lucky charm.”

The look Paul cut at Ford behind his sister’s back would be enough to kill a weaker man. For all Ford knew, that was the loan shark’s favored glare when it came to collecting past-due debts.

“That may be so,” Rocco said from his spot in the booth overlooking the lanes. “But you have another turn.”

She swiped her mug off the table and took a quick drink. “Having the game of my life really worked up a thirst.”

Then she took off back to the bowling ball return.

“This Friday’s a go,” Paul said in a low voice to his brother.

“You sure?” Rocco asked.

Paul nodded.

“What’s on Friday?” Ford asked, his attention caught by the date they were talking about.