Page 54 of Made in Love and Blood

“Ignoring,” Salvatore chose to say.

A snort came from Sissy.

Carina patted his hand again.

A horn blew, and the girls booked it to the field. Carina muttered something about not being able to watch as the teams faced off in center. This time, she used her fingers as a shield in front of her eyes, yet they were spread to peek.

Salvatore chuckled but found himself standing the second his daughter entered the middle fray. Players used an arm’s reach to keep one another away from a ball that got shot back and forth between whoever happened to be closest. The clocked ticked down past thirty seconds remaining. If the girls out on the field knew it, one couldn’t tell.

Larkin and the guys shouted. Nico paced the barrier wall with his arms crossed, and gaze locked in. Every so often, he tilted his chin up and yelled. Carina and Sissy both joined Salvatore to stand again, both now watching.

“What’s this about a party?” Salvatore asked Sissy.

“I don’t think she wants to go, but...” She trailed off with a shrug. “What if she does?”

He couldn’t answer. Nico started hollering, and everyone around them cheered loud enough to snap Salvatore back into the moment where he needed to be.

“That’s my fuckin’ girl!” Nico yelled as Frankie took the ball down field. “That’s my girl!”

Carina squeezed his hand painfully. It didn’t matter.

Frankie took a long shot with three seconds left on the clock, and she got it.

“I think she might have asked him to go to the party later, too,” Sissy added like it was an afterthought. “But it’s nothing.”

“Nothing,” Carina echoed.

Since when did these two even like each other?

This time when she came to the stands, Nico pulled her up into their section entirely. Frankie bolted straight for Salvatore and into his arms.

“You made it,” she said.

“You did it,” he told her.

That was more important.

He chose to let the rest go.

•••

“Where did you put the keys to my Rolls?” Carina asked at the master bath’s doorway.

Salvatore, fresh out of the shower and combing through his dark hair peppered with gray, had to think about it. “Did you check my pockets?”

“And down by the front door. The hangers next to the garage door. Kitchen counters.”

“Sorry, you’re on your own.”

Carina sighed and stepped out of view from the reflection he could see in the mirror. “Did you hide them on purpose?”

Her question came from somewhere inside the bedroom. A space the two of them had only sparingly shared in over a decade of marriage. Even during the better, more tolerable points, the two rarely slept in the same bed together.

“Why would I hide your keys?”

“Because you want me to stay the night, hopefully.”

“Why are you so interested in finding your keys if you want to spend the night?” he asked, curious.