Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(171)

Oh man.

“I think I got that, sweetie,” I told her quietly. “For a year, Hap’s down every weekend. For the last three weeks, we don’t see him and barely hear from him and this is all after we left him with you. What went down?”

Again, she wasted not a second and informed me bluntly, “I made a pass at him.”

I blinked.

Okay, I was thinking that was what happened or something akin to that but for some reason having this assumption confirmed threw me for a loop.

“What?” I asked.

“You and Sam left, Hap and I kept drinking then we drank more. We were laughing and talking but he wasn’t doing anything,” she griped, definitely griped, all sexy, sultry, deep-throated, Italian-accented griping. It was cute coming from Luci. It still threw me.

“What do you mean, doing anything?” I asked.

“He wasn’t hitting on me!” she snapped.

There it was.

This was bad. I knew it. This was definitely bad.

“So you did,” I whispered, worried.

“Of course I did. I learned not to play games. Not to waste time. So I kissed him.”

Oh man.

“What did he do?” I asked.

“He kissed me back, of course.”

I blinked again.

That wasn’t what I expected to hear. I expected Hap would deflect her pass and he was avoiding her in an effort to keep deflecting it.

Clearly, I was wrong.

“Seriously?” I queried and her brows shot together.

“Yes, seriously. Of course, seriously. It was a good kiss!”

Oh man!

“How good?” I asked.

“So good, he picked me up, carried me inside, put me on the couch, joined me there and we did more than kiss. A lot more.”

Oh man!

“Luci –” I started but she kept talking.

“And that was good too. Very good. Unbelievably good. Then, when it was getting amazingly good and close to phenomenally good, suddenly, out of nowhere, he stops, gets to his feet, mutters, ‘Luc, so sorry, so f**kin’ sorry,’ and he leaves!”

Exasperated, she threw her hands up on the last two words.

I got closer and grabbed both of them.

Then I did the only thing I could do.

I gave it to her straight.

“Honey, Hap…” I shook my head. “You can’t go there.”

“Why?” she snapped.

“Because he’s Hap,” I explained but obviously this was not enough of an explanation.

I knew this when she snapped again, “So?”

“He was tight with Gordo,” I reminded her.

She nodded her head sharply and repeated a curt, “So?”

I shook my head gently and kept explaining, “So, to Hap, no matter what, you’re Gordo’s and always will be.”

“Travis is dead,” she returned shortly and I sucked in breath.

She yanked her hands from mine, took a step away and dragged the fingers of one through her thick hair.

Then her eyes locked on me.

“I know,” she told me. “I know how it is with these men. But he feels it, I know he does. It started awhile ago, months ago. Months, Kia. He made me laugh. He always made me laugh but suddenly, the sadness was gone and he made me laugh. And I saw the way he would look at me. And I liked it, cara mia. Not just noticing a man’s attention but noticing the attention of a man who could make me laugh like that.”

I’d heard that before in a way.

“Honey –” I began again only to be cut off again.

“And he’s handsome.”

She was right about that. Hap was beyond muscle bound but that didn’t mean he wasn’t very good-looking. He was. Totally.

Luci wasn’t done.

“And he is who he is. You take him how he is. He’s rough around the edges and that’s all he’ll ever be. He knows who he is and he isn’t going to change for anybody. I like that. And I like that, even being like that, he senses things about me. The laughter and that, just that, when I noticed he senses me, that was when he wasn’t just Hap anymore. He was Hap. And rough or not, his eyes would be gentle and his tone would be gentle if he sensed I needed that. And it was beautiful. This man, so coarse, who could also be so, unbelievably gentle.”

Yes, I’d noticed that too, Hap being gentle with Luci.

And I’d also noticed its beauty.

“Sweetie,” I said carefully, “he may feel things for you but you know these guys. They’re about honor and he would be dishonoring Gordo’s memory if he took anything anywhere with you. He won’t do it.” I got closer to her again and whispered, “He’ll never do it and he’s probably struggling with what happened. I hate to say this to you but it’s the truth. You need to back off and let this be. It’ll only be hard on him, hard on you and you might lose what he can give you if you –”

“That’s stupid,” she interrupted me to hiss. “He has one life. I have one life. Why would you not explore something that might mean happiness? There is no reason. I won’t accept there is. And I do not believe, not for one second, that the man I fell in love with and married who died way too young would not encourage both his friend and me to find happiness even if it meant with each other.”