Playing For Keeps

Part Twelve

We walked back to his car. I'm sure I had a cat-like grin. Driving me home he played No Mercy's, When I die and knew every lyric he sang with his heart melting voice that'd give Trey songs a run for his money. I felt as though he was singing it to me. I was so happy. When he pulled up to the house to drop me off, he said he had to go run a few errands so we said our goodbyes and I watched him drive off as Tavita walked out of the house with no shirt on...again. The girls who lived across the road walked out of their house to sit on their balcony. So wasn't obvious they weren't there to peeve on Tavita.

"Hilson come for a drive."

"K wait. I just need to make a call brb" I went in my house to call my work to see if I can take night shift to make up not going in earlier. Once that was taken care of I got in Tavita's car.

"Where are we going?"

"Movies. Fast 6 is out"

"Aye you've already seen it on your copied dvd"

"Yea and now I wanna watch it the legal way" I laughed and let him have his way.

The whole drive there I was lost in thought, thinking about the kiss between me and Sam. When we got back from the movies we went to Tavita's house to hang out. Tavita was asking me what I wanted to do tonight but seeing Sam walk in the kitchen had me tongue tied. We said hi like we didn't just spend most of the day together which got us a lot of ribbing from Tavita because we said our full names.

"I'm working tonight"

"Algoods go get ready and I'll drop you off"

"But"

"Go get ready Hilson. I'll meet you outside."

I looked at Sam hoping he would have offered to drop me off but Tavita kept pushing me out the door to change so I had no choice to comply without Tavita noticing something was going on between me and Sam. Once me and Tavita got in I couldn't stop laughing at his confidence in song choice when One Direction came on. We laughed and teased each other but when Tavita asked me if Sam thought I was a funny joker, I went dead quiet. I don't know how he knew but he did. I narrowed my eyes at him trying to suss how much he knew I liked Samuel. He just did the family trademark arching his brows in return before he showed that devilish smile showing off that damn left dimple that I've seen girls swooning over. When we got to my work, his friends were leaning against their cars all dashing in their own right that I thought it should be criminal for a bunch of good looking guys to be friends.

During my shift we had a karaoke comp on and my happy buzz from earlier quickly turned sour seeing Lauina there with her friends and her man. Her laugh straight irritated me. Tavita could see I was getting all worked up, every time he tried to calm me down I would hear her grating voice in the background laughing like a hyena.

"Idk what the hell you saw in that tramp cub but I'm ready to kogi(throw) this glass at her head."

"Easy Hilson, who cares about her"

"Uh huh" I walked back to the bar to grab my phone as I begun hatching a plan to bring Lauina down for good and out of Tavita's life, texting my cousins who I can rely on everything and would do what I asked without question. I got a quick reply back giving my plan the thumbs up. Taking a round of Corona's to the boys table I heard the hyena behind the mic. I watched the emotions cross Tavita's eyes before he covered it up with a blank look and giving me his fake 'I'm fine' smile. Shaking my head I went back to serving the other customers. I wanted to fukislam her off the stage with her song choice. 'He wasn't man enough for me'?? Really?! I was burning! Even when Tavita came to the bar to ease the tension it wasn't helping..

"Hi Kaylana" and just like that, the sound of his voice drained the hatred away like a soothing balm.

"Hi Samuel" I saw Tavita roll his eyes and mimic me behind Samuel's back making me pretend to scratch my nose with my middle finger. Tavita looked surprised at my gesture and started shaking his head in mock disappointment, the smarty pants. The night was going great, Kenai showed up with his friends as well and the place took off in full swing. All thoughts of Lauina were gone until I heard the horrid MC call for the staff to take a crack at karaoke and Kenai's big mouth calling me to go up. I wasn't going up if my life depended on it. I was trying to see if Sam will give any indication of what happened earlier. I heard the hyena retort to Kenai and I can only vaguely remember walking up to the stage. I was ready to show her who sang like a cat. When I started singing I had every intention to make Lauina choke on her words, seething with jealousy thinking me and Tavita had a thing going on. But when I saw all three brothers standing at the bar and I locked eyes with Sam, I put everything I felt into my performance as I tried expressing everything I wanted him to know in the song. We never broke eye contact throughout the song. When it ended and everyone was clapping and cheering I forgot for a second why I went up in the first place. I was so distracted by Samuel's gaze I couldn't function properly, I felt so flustered. Once I was back behind the bar Tavita leaned over to talk to me and after being sprung staring at Sam, he gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek and his blessing to be with Sam before joining his friends back at the table. I sighed as I watched him walk away and wondered why I never fell in love with Tavita who is every girls dream. Kind, strong, giving, protective and understanding. I looked at all three brothers and saw that Love, Family and God was their strongest virtue..