Looking to Mateo, I ask, “Is she drunk?”
He shakes his head no. “Just crazy.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, she says, “You love it, Morelli.”
“I never denied that,” he replies.
Mia looks as exasperated with me as I usually am with her. “Just agree to one round or we’re gonna be here all night.”
Sighing heavily, I approach the bed with no small amount of trepidation. “This is hands-down the weirdest thing I’ve ever done in this house.”
Clapping victoriously, Meg says, “Yay! This is going to be awesome.”
“This is going to be epigrammatic,” I inform her, sitting at the edge of the bed, and uncomfortable even there.
Meg grimaces. “I don’t know what that means.”
Mateo smirks at her. “It means you’re going to lose.”
—
It takes me less than a half hour to soundly beat them.
“Did you cheat somehow?” Meg asks, lifting my letter tray to search under it.
“I’ll take my audience with the king now,” I say, dryly.
“You have to promise to come back and do this again. Mateo was crushing us before you came in.” Now she waves him off, like he’s insignificant. “Next time we play teams, and I want you.”
“Hey,” Mateo says, as if offended.
“Sorry, baby. I wanna win.”
Mateo shakes his head in mock-disappointment, but Mia comes to his rescue. “That’s okay, I’ll take Mateo.”
“Yeah,” Mateo says, unaccountably sliding his arm around Mia’s shoulder and tugging her against him. “Mia’ll take me.”
Mia turns several shades of red, losing her humor but making no move to pull away.
Meg just rolls her eyes at Mateo’s attempt to annoy her, somehow less concerned about this than me or Mia. “She can have you; I’ve got an ace in the hole over here.”
“You’re so cold,” Mateo tells Meg.
“That’s why you love me,” she states.
Releasing Mia, Mateo climbs off the bed. I got up as soon as I possibly could, so I’m already halfway to the door. We don’t go far—just out in the hall, but he closes his bedroom door behind him so we have a little privacy.
“What’s so important?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
This is not what I came to ask, but I’m feeling very confused right now. “Does Mia live here now? Is she still with Vince? What the hell is going on?”
“No,” he says casually. “She’s just staying until the Castellanos threat has been lifted. I invited Vince, too,” he adds, rolling his eyes. “He was not interested.”
“In Scrabble parties and sleepovers in your bedroom? Go figure.”
“I assume he doesn’t know about those things,” Mateo replies, clearly not caring either way.
I feel ten times heavier now than I did when I walked up here. If I die, who in the hell is going to keep this man alive? “That poor fucking kid.”
“It’s perfectly harmless,” he assures me.
“Nothing you do is ever harmless,” I state.
Mateo rolls his eyes at me, sighing. “Did you really come up here at this time of night to talk about Mia again? I’m starting to think you’re the one with a thing for her.”
I glare at him for that one. “Not hardly.”
“Then what’s on your mind?”
I shake my head, still hung up on his shit. Not even this, specifically, just the ballpark figure of how many of this man’s messes I’ve cleaned up over the years, that I continue to clean up, and he had the gall to doubt me.
Even now, when I think it’s over, I don’t really know what to expect from him. I always get to a point where I think I know what to expect from him, where he stands, and then I blink and it changes.
“You’re the most unstable person in the world,” I inform him.
“That’s what’s on your mind?”
I force myself to stop pacing and meet his gaze. “I need to know what happens to Elise if something happens to me.”
Mateo scowls, suddenly serious. “If something happens to you?”
“Yes.”
Frowning, Mateo says, “Adrian, I already told you we’re good. We’re fine. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“I didn’t mean at your hands,” I tell him. “We both know I do dangerous shit. We both know the risks of this Castellanos situation, and I’m not on the sidelines, I’m right in the thick of it, calling the shots. I want to be there to give Elise the life she deserves, but I need to know you’re going to make sure she’s taken care of if I’m not.”
He watches me, gauging my seriousness, and finally he nods. “Of course I would, Adrian.”
“None of your bullshit,” I specify.
Mateo rolls his eyes. “Trust me, that’s the last thing I need.”
“Promise?”
Nodding, he assures me, “You have nothing to worry about. In the event anything ever happens to you, I will make sure Elise has the life you would’ve given her.”
It makes me feel a little better, but I’m still damn aggravated that I even have to make these arrangements.