The Player (Chicago Bratva 8)

“Da, da, da!” I want him to come. To feel as glorious as I do.

And he does. He slams in deep with a shout and drops to hold me tight again.

Tears prick my eyes because it’s so wonderful. It was so easy and wonderful and perfect.

I knew Flynn would be the guy.

But now, I don’t know what to do.

Now, I’m completely lost.

Because I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen head over heels in love with this man.

The player.

The guy who doesn’t want a girlfriend.

CHAPTER 9

Flynn

I wake to a loud, insistent banging on my door.

“Fuck,” I groan, rolling out of bed.

Nadia sits up looking spectacularly tumbled. Her copper-lit hair falls in her face, her cheeks are still flushed with sleep. She gets up and pads to the bathroom.

I want to kill whoever the fuck is at my door.

Especially because Nadia woke up with a nightmare during the night and could use all the extra sleep she could get.

Having Nadia sleep in my bed last night gave me a new purpose in life: Nadia.

I’m serious.

It’s like until this moment, I’ve just been drifting along. I was available to prop up my mom. I was a warm body in the band. But it’s like something in me just woke up. Or activated.

Some essential coding within me got turned on.

But to say my new purpose is Nadia isn’t quite right. It’s more like I was the lock and Nadia was the key. Now that she’s turned me on, I’m available for myself, too.

I’m willing to put some effort into my life.

I suddenly see my past self so clearly–who I was and who I was unwilling to be.

And this is the real me–the person I was previously unwilling to be.

I know it sounds like I’m on a mushroom trip right now, but I’m not. I’ve never felt more sober or enlightened in my life. That’s the other thing–I now see how my desire to party was a numbing mechanism. I used sex and drugs and alcohol to keep me from being my true self.

This man.

Because I’m capable of so much more, and I didn’t want to try. To be it.

I was afraid of failing, I think.

But for Nadia, I would totally try.

Anything at all.

I hop on one foot as I pull on my boxer briefs. “Hang on.” I call to Nadia in the bathroom, “I’ll get rid of them. I’m sorry.”

The thumping keeps pounding on the door. I close the bedroom door to give Nadia privacy and stomp to the front door. “What the fuck is your–” the word problem dies on my lips as Adrian pushes me aside to enter my apartment. Kat follows behind him, throwing me an apologetic look.

“Did you come to beat on me again?”

“Where is she?”

The toilet flushes, making the answer to his question obvious.

“Are you out of your fucking mind? Nadia is fine. She doesn’t need you to rescue her from me.”

Nadia emerges from my bedroom wearing–oh God, she looks glorious!–one of my t-shirts. The vintage Ramones shirt hits her mid-thigh and makes her look good enough to eat.

“Adrian, what are you doing here?” She shoves her hair out of her face. Her voice is still laced with sleep, and I revel in the fact that she sounds happy. Like she just had the best night’s rest.

Adrian narrows his eyes at her. “Why the fuck haven’t you answered my texts?”

“Um, I think that’s kind of obvious, Adrian,” Kat says. To me and Nadia, she says, “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“How did you even find this place?” Nadia asks.

“I have a tracker on your phone,” Adrian admits in a grumble. “For safety.”

“Well, I’m safe.” Nadia walks up behind me and wraps her arms around me. It’s the kind of gesture I normally hate from a girl on the morning after–and I don’t usually even do morning afters–but I absolutely love it this time. It feels like Nadia’s claiming me–which she has refused to do before now. Like she wants to stay and not run off with her brother this time.

I lift one arm over her head to draw her against my side. “Please stay,” I murmur. I sound like the clingy girls I try to avoid, but something about Nadia leaving today alarms me.

I want her with me, filling this apartment with her magical presence. I want to work on that song she inspired in me last night while I’m looking at her beautiful face.

Adrian tips his head toward the door. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

“I’m going to stay,” Nadia says, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

“How long?”

“Bro,” I cut in. “She’s not a child. She has your number if she needs anything, but she won’t because I’m not going to fuck this up.”

Nadia lifts her face to me in surprise. In fact, all three of them stare at me as if I’ve sprouted a banana tree from the top of my head, and I realize I’ve said way too much out loud.