The Kingpin

•24•

Amelia

Amelia stands behind Kalani while about ten screaming children run around in front of them. Her attention is drawn away from them at the tugging on the bottom of her shirt.

"Miss Amelia, why are they so loud?"

Something about the little girl's inability to recognize normal kid behavior made her heart ache sometimes.

"They're having fun, love! You get to do that tonight too, and maybe meet some kids your age if you wanna."

"For real?! Daddy said we could?"

"Yes, baby. And he should be coming any minute now. He had to go hang out with Uncle Emmi for a while."

                                             ••••

  "You're most definitely cheating!" He protests, pulling her away from the skee-ball machine with his arms wrapped around her waist. "There's no way someone is this good at it."

  "Mad 'cause you're losing, Casal? Kalani would say that you're being a bad sport."

  "Kalani is crawling around in a big ass tube maze. She won't be saying anything to us right now."

  She turns around in his arms to smack his chest and says, "That's not fair." It's made worse only when a smirk makes its way across his lips.

  "I never knew you were so competitive about these things. Jesus."

  "I'm competitive about everything, kid," He responds smoothly before giving her a quick kiss.

  Amelia shrugs, giving him the closest thing to an agreement as he would be getting. When he looks away, she slips out of his hold and throws a lame toss into his lane of the game.

  Her back is turned to him now, so she doesn't see his face fall in exhaustion. He wasn't sure what had even been going on lately but his muscles ached in a way he wasn't used to and he was beyond tired. They would lay down at night and he would fall asleep hours before her.

What he didn't know was that she stayed up and held him close, just to make sure he didn't go anywhere. Her fingers had traced each tattoo on his skin a hundred times and ran through his hair until her arm went numb.

"Rafa? Hey, you even listening?"

He snapped his attention toward her in a heartbeat. "What? Oh yeah! I'm sorry, baby. What were you saying?"

"That we need to tell Kalani it's almost time to go. Five more minutes max and then we can go count her tickets."

  "Got it. That sounds fine."

  "Is everything alright?"

  "I'm just tired is all. I've been doing a lot with Emmi lately."

  "Don't be doin' anything stupid. Emmi knows what he's doing and doesn't need you there all the time stressing yourself out."

  "Almost sounds like you care," Rafael cracks a wide smile and narrowly escapes the playful hit she tries delivering to his arm.

"You're a person like anyone else," She responds smoothly. "Only heartless people don't care about those."

He wouldn't tell her that he didn't care about anyone unless they were beneficial to him. It'd ruin the moment entirely. Instead, he gave an easy nod and pulled her close so they could walk over to the giant indoor playground together.

  Kalani came feet first down the yellow slide, giggling the entire way. Her bright eyed expression went away the second she saw her father but she tried to hide it.