Alessia

Alec and I had somehow already fallen into a morning routine, only three days into our relationship. Once again, I woke up with his body wrapped around mine. He got out of bed first and showered before drawing me a bubble bath. This time around, it was very much needed because my muscles were a bit sore from our tour of the Grand Canyon.

We’d switched our plans up a bit so we could spend the morning with Alec’s friends and family before heading as a group to McCarran Airport. We said our goodbyes and dropped them off at the private jet terminal and then headed over to the tour company’s hangar. Alec upgraded us to a private tour, with just the two of us on the helicopter. We went through VIP check-in, and less than an hour later our pilot descended four thousand feet into the depths of the Grand Canyon to touch down next to the banks of the Colorado River.

The rock formations on the western rim of the canyon were awe inspiring, and the picnic service included in the private tour was such a romantic touch. We ate a late lunch surrounded by the seventh wonder of the world, and then we’d hiked around the Native American Hualapai lands for about an hour. Alec was in better shape than me, which was no surprise since he was a professional hockey player, and I’d overdone it a bit to keep up with him. But it’d been well worth it for the amazing views of the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead, and the Hoover Dam, with the Strip as a grand finale.

Our excursion the day before, which we’d followed up by walking the Strip after we got back, had left me with a big appetite when I woke up. So I had Alec add scrambled eggs with American cheese to my order of waffles, while he stuck with his egg white and vegetable omelet.

“I feel like we have our orders reversed. Isn’t the woman the one who’s supposed to order healthy stuff while the guy eats whatever he wants?” I asked as I pushed my plate away from me after practically licking it clean.

He lifted his shirt and patted his washboard abs. “You married an athlete, beautiful. Even during the off-season, I have to watch what I eat.”

“What about our first breakfast together? You didn’t order anything healthy then.”

“I can have a cheat day every now and again.” He winked at me. “And I’d already consumed a shit ton of empty calories drinking with you and your sister the night before. Those frozen drinks she kept picking out during our walk were basically sugar mixed with alcohol.”

“You didn’t have to drink them.” I shook my head, laughing as I got up and grabbed my shoes.

“And risking pissing your sister off? No way. It didn’t take me long to figure out I’m better off being on her good side.” He held the door open for me, waggling his eyebrows. “A hunch that was proved right when she maneuvered us into that wedding chapel.”

“Keep reminding yourself of that today, when we use you for your muscles and get you to do all the heavy lifting.”

He stood behind me, wrapping his arms around my middle and lowering his mouth to my ear while we waited for the elevator. “Feel free to use my muscles whenever you want. For anything you need.”

His tone was thick with sexual innuendo, leaving me in no doubt exactly how he hoped I’d want to use him. I fanned myself with my hand. “Is it hot in here? I feel like it’s about a thousand degrees.”

His deep-throated chuckle followed me into the elevator. The sensual tension between us wasn’t the least bit dimmed by the three other people already inside. Or the ride over to a car rental place where we picked up a truck. It wasn’t until we headed out of the touristy area towards my part of town that things turned awkward. Gone was the glittery Las Vegas from all the commercials, and it reminded me of the differences between Alec’s life and mine.

“Hey, I can hear you thinking over there,” he claimed when he pulled into the parking lot of the complex where my sister and I lived with our mom.

“Maybe you should wait in the truck. Let my sister and I take care of bringing our stuff down,” I suggested, staring out the window with my arms crossed protectively in front of my body.

He parked at the curb, near the front door of our building, and I heard him turn in his seat towards me. “No can do, beautiful. I’m not going to sit in the truck while you two do the heavy lifting. Not only would your sister strip me of my white knight nickname for it; I already told you I take care of what’s mine. Part of that is doing the heavy lifting for you.”

“I know.” It’d been a long-shot, but I’d felt like I had to try at least.

We both got out of the truck, and he grabbed my hand when he caught up with me on the sidewalk. “Nothing I see inside that building is going to change my opinion of you.”

I stopped and looked up at his face. “And what is that, exactly?”

“That you’re the best damn thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Whoa. My knees turned to jelly at his declaration, but I didn’t have long to indulge my reaction because my sister called out to us from the top of the stairs, “Quit being lazy and get your asses up here!”

“Hold that thought, beautiful. We’ve got all the time in the world to have this discussion. I promise.”

I knew my sister was watching us over the railing and that she’d tease me mercilessly for it, but that didn’t stop me from yanking on Alec’s shirt and kissing the heck out of him until we both almost forgot why we were there in the first place. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on how you wanted to look at it—Ariana was there to remind us.

“Get a room!” she hollered. “Oh, wait. You already have one waiting for you, and so do I. An entire suite, in fact. The faster you get up here and help me move this shit, the sooner you guys can hole up in your room and kiss all you want. In private. Where you can follow it up with whatever else you’d like to do.”

“We’re coming!” I called back, reluctantly pulling away from Alec to head up the stairs.

“Not yet, but later on you will be,” he murmured as he followed behind me. “I think I’m going to try for a triple this time around.”

When we made it up to the apartment, my face was beet red and it had nothing to do with the climb. Ariana gave me a knowing look, but she resisted the urge to give me a hard time and shoved a box into my arms instead.

“You and I are going to stick with the light stuff only.” She pointed at a stack of them near the kitchen. “Those are the heaviest of the bunch, so Alec can lug them downstairs. They’re fragile, so be careful,” she warned. “I decided I’d might as well take the dishes and pans with me since I’ll need them sooner or later.”

I glanced at the counter and noticed all the small appliances were missing. “You’re taking the coffee maker and stuff, too?”

“Yup.”

“What about Mom? You won’t need them while you’re at the hotel, and—”

Ariana held up a hand to let me know she didn’t want to hear it. “She’s welcome to anything we leave behind.”

“It’s not going to be much,” I replied softly, feeling Alec’s hand at my lower back.

“Which is no less than what she deserves.” Ariana looked over my shoulder at Alec. “You’d better make sure you protect my sister’s soft side. She’s too nice. Too forgiving. It opens her up to people taking advantage of her. Like our mom. And that damn boss of hers who fucked her over.”

“I’ve got her,” Alec promised. “I’m already taking care of the situation where she used to work, and I’ll make sure your mom doesn’t take advantage of her either.”

“Good.” Ariana nodded firmly, walking into the living room. “Then let’s get a move on. Alessia bragged to me about how amazing the tubs are at the hotel, and I’m dying to take a bath when we’re done.”

She grabbed a couple small boxes off the couch and brushed past us out the door. I turned to follow after her, but Alec stopped me with a gentle touch on my shoulder.

“You told her about the bubble baths, eh?” he asked with a cocky gleam in his eyes.

“Whatever,” I grumbled. “You heard my sister. Get a move on it.”

It only took us about an hour to finish packing up everything we wanted to take from the apartment and loading into the back of the rental truck. When it was all done, I wandered through the place to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything important. Not that we owned a lot, but with the eviction only two days away I knew we wouldn’t get another chance. It was weird walking through and seeing the empty closets and cabinets, with only my mom’s personal belongings left behind along with the furniture.

Ariana rapped on the doorway to my bedroom to get my attention. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, I think so. But we should probably leave Mom another voicemail and let her know we’re gone and she has two days to stop by and pick up her stuff before the landlord clears out the apartment and sells whatever he can to try to make up for the back rent.”

“Like I told your hubby, you’re too nice for you own good,” she grumbled.

“She’s our mom, Ariana. Nothing’s going to change that, no matter how badly she messes up.”

“Fine,” she huffed, yanking her cell out of her pocket to make the call. “But if someone’s got to do it, it’s going to be me.”

I moved closer as she put the phone to her ear. Once again, it only rang once and was sent to voicemail. Underneath the anger in Ariana’s eyes was the same pain I was feeling. Seeing it in my sister made me want to yank the phone from her hand to yell at our mom, but it wouldn’t have done any good because she probably wouldn’t listen to the whole thing anyway. Not with how she was ignoring our calls. So I just listened as Ariana warned her about the looming eviction date and what would happen to her stuff if she didn’t come pick it up. When she was done, she offered me a weak smile.

“Your hubby’s waiting in the truck with the engine running. He said something about not wanting anyone to steal our stuff. I didn’t have the heart to tell him nobody would bother since none of it’s worth anything anyway.”

With the quick change in topic, it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about our mom anymore. So I followed her lead. “That wouldn’t stop them from stealing it anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Of course I am. I’m the smart sister,” I teased.

“Since you found me a lush place to crash for free, I’m not going to argue with you over which one of us is smarter than the other.” She reached for my hand and tugged me out of my room and through the apartment. “Except to remind you whose idea it was to walk into that wedding chapel on Friday night.”

“Yeah, but which one of us got married to the white knight?”

The smile she flashed me this time was genuine. “The one who deserved him the most.”

“Hey! You deserve an amazing guy, too. Once I figure out what I’m going to do with mine, we’ll be on the lookout for yours,” I promised.

“You’d better keep him, that’s what you should do.”

“We’ll see,” I told her as we neared the truck, where the topic of our conversation was leaning against the back end.

“We’ll see what?” he asked.

“If Alessia’s—”

“Car starts,” I finished for my sister. I dug in my purse and tossed her the keys. “She volunteered to drive it over to the hotel for me if it does.”

“Yup, that’s exactly what I did,” she laughed before heading over to where my car was parked.

Alec opened the passenger door of the truck and helped me inside. “Can we wait for my sister? Just in case my car doesn’t start? It’s been acting up lately, and I haven’t driven it since Friday so I’m not holding out much hope for it.”

“Then we’ll wait.” He shut the door and rounded the truck. After he climbed in, he started the engine and drove around the lot to pull up behind my car.

My sister got out, shaking her head. I scooted over and made room for her next to me. “Sorry,” she said as she joined us and handed me the keys to my car. “It might just be the battery since it didn’t turn over when I tried to start it.”

“Do you want me to take a look at it?” Alec asked.

“Maybe later. We’ve got all this stuff to finish moving, and the car isn’t going to get any worse than it already is if it waits a day or two.”

“Listen to my sister,” Ariana suggested. “Or better yet, call one of those places that buys junk cars because it’s a lost cause. Another five years wouldn’t make it worse.”

She was exaggerating, but not by much. I wasn’t too disappointed that it wouldn’t start. My old junker would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the hotel parking lot. Thinking of which...

“This isn’t the way to the hotel.” I pointed behind us. “You should’ve taken a left at the light instead of a right.”

“We’re making a pit stop at a storage place I found. While you and Ariana did your final walk-through, I called them up and rented a small unit so you guys would have somewhere to put all the stuff you won’t need at the hotel,” he explained.

“I wonder if that dinner theater place, the one where you eat with your hands and the guys put on a show with the horses and full suits of armor, is hiring. I bet your hubby could get a job there in no time flat.”

"I'm pretty sure jousting would violate my team contract, even in the off season,” Alec chuckled.

“Shit, there goes that plan,” Ariana laughed. “I forgot you were a hotshot hockey player. But hey, at least we have a team here now.”

I zoned out as Alec and Ariana joked back and forth. It was nice to hear my two favorite people in the world—and it was one heck of a shock to realize I was already thinking of Alec that way—getting along so well. Although it was a sad day because of the reason why we were moving, I decided to focus on the good instead of the bad.

When we walked into the owner’s suite of the hotel about an hour later, I realized how stunning those positives were. Suite was too tame a word for the luxurious space which was about five times bigger than the apartment we’d just moved out of.

“Holy shit,” Ariana breathed. “This is where I’m staying? For free?”

“Maybe we should have swapped rooms and let my sister stay in yours while we took this place.” I twirled around in a circle, taking everything in.

“Too late. No take-backs,” Ariana laughed.

But then the bad just had to rear its ugly head when Alec’s phone rang. “Alec Rourke.”

I couldn’t hear what the other person said, but I watched as the happy expression wiped from Alec’s face. “Thanks for taking care of this so quickly.”

He listened for a moment and then rattled off an email address. “It’d be good if you could send it over now. Don’t bother with a courier service. I’ll handle delivery.”

“Who was that?” I asked when he ended the call and shoved his phone back in his pocket.

“One of Alison’s lawyers.”

“Lawyer?” Ariana repeated. “Why do you guys need a lawyer? And if you say it’s so you guys can get a divorce, I’m going to have to kick someone’s ass.”

“Someone’s ass is going to get kicked alright,” Alec muttered. “But it’s not going to be mine or your sister’s. And you’re not the one who’s going to be doing the kicking. That’ll be me.”

Crap. That was definitely not a good sign.