by Bethany-Kris
Not because of money.
Or status.
Or anything like that.
No, because she could care.
He stopped doing that long ago.
“The landlord was doing a walk through the apartment,” Lucia explained. “He said it was your mom, that she’s like this … pretty often. He let us in, and I got her cleaned up. Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Why are you even here?”
Lucia blinked, and hurt marred her features. He wished it didn’t affect him like it did to see the water that lined her lashes, but it bothered him all the same. He didn’t want to be mean to this girl, but Christ, they were two entirely different people from worlds that would never mix. She could keep being sweet and kind all she wanted because at the end of the day, Renzo was still going to be the same asshole wearing a leather jacket and combat boots.
He had to be.
He didn’t know how else to survive.
“Oh, don’t worry about Carmen, pretty thing,” Charlie said, moving past Renzo in the doorway. He didn’t miss the way his father leered at Lucia, either. That hot shot of anger that burned in his gut wasn’t new, but it was a hell of a lot stronger than what he’d been feeling earlier. Now, he really just wanted to get Lucia out of his father’s sights. “She’s always strung-out, or drunk … or a mixture of the two. Leave her be.”
Charlie came closer to Lucia, who kept looking between his father, and Renzo. “Now, who are you?”
“It’s time to go,” Renzo said to Lucia.
Firm.
Dark.
Cold.
He wasn’t accepting no for an answer. He needed her out. And it would be to all their benefits if she just stayed fucking gone.
Renzo didn’t know what did it. It could have been him speaking, or his father still leering at her, but Lucia got up. She grabbed her bag, and headed past Renzo in the hallway without a look back at his mother. She did slow down as she passed him by, though.
Just enough to whisper, “I only wanted to check on you and Diego. You hadn’t been around—I was worried. I wanted to make sure you both were okay.”
Yeah, sweet.
Kind.
Pretty.
All things Renzo really didn’t deserve or need.
“Does my life look okay to you?” he asked.
Lucia didn’t break his gaze as she replied, “I didn’t say your life. I said you.”
“They’re the same thing.”
“But are they, Renzo?”
She didn’t give him a chance to think that over, or reply. She was already gone.
Renzo kind of hoped she stayed that way.
And he also wondered if she might come back.
Fuck my whole life.
• • •
“Ren, where’s Ma?”
Renzo kneeled down to tug the blue blanket back over Diego’s tiny body. The only bedroom in the entire apartment, and he always made sure Diego was the only one who got to sleep in it. It was his space—safe from anything happening outside.
Diego didn’t have much in there. Just his bed, a beat-up dresser full of clothes that had been either bought at a thrift shop, or passed down from someone else, and a few toys. What he cherished the most were his books, and the model car that Renzo had bought him last Christmas and spent seventeen hours putting the damn thing together piece by piece.
“Uh, Ma’s … out,” Renzo lied.
Carmen had started choking on her vomit shortly after Lucia left, and an ambulance had to be called. Which made Renzo late to pick up Diego at the babysitter’s, and caused the chick to rant at him for a minute too long about making sure to pick Diego up on time or else.
Fuck it all.
Maybe later, he’d call the emergency room where he knew Carmen had been taken, and ask if she was awake and lucid. That was about the only thing he was going to do, though. It would be in her best benefit if the doctors recognized her for what she was—an addict in need of help—and forced her into inpatient rehab.
But that was unlikely.
It wasn’t how the system worked.
“Okay,” Diego said, holding tight to the book that Renzo had just finished reading him. “Night, Ren.”
Renzo leaned over the bed, and pressed a quick kiss to his brother’s forehead before he stood up, and left the bedroom. He didn’t bother to close the door. Often, Diego would wake up and walk the apartment to find his brother.
He rarely ever looked in the bathroom first which was the place someone could always find Renzo when nighttime fell, and he could finally go to sleep.
Yanking open the small closet in the hallway, Ren pulled out the pillow he kept hidden in there. Given there was only one bedroom, and it belonged to Diego, Renzo was not going to fit on the boy’s small bed. He also wasn’t sleeping on the floor. God knew he’d slept on the ground too many times as it was.
He also wouldn’t take the couch because for one, his mother used it when she was around, but right then, it still smelled like a mixture of bleach and vomit. It needed cleaned again. Or just tossed out altogether.
That was a more likely option.
But he’d have to go get another one.
So yeah, no bedroom, no floor, and definitely no couch. That really only left Renzo with one option, and that was the bathtub.
He’d slept in more bathtubs over his lifetime than he cared to admit, but out of all the things in his life, it was the one thing he didn’t find very much shame in. He found it comforting.
Climbing into chipped porcelain, resting the pillow behind his head, and unloading the shit in his pockets that he’d gathered over the day. A roll of small bills, a grinder for herbs, the small baggie of weed and papers he kept on hand for days like today, a lighter, a pack of smokes, and the gun he kept tucked into the back of his pants. He rested all the items on the edge of the tub, tucked his arms behind his head, and stared up at the yellow-tinted ceiling.
He should light up a joint, and smoke the bathroom out.
He should go to sleep.
He should worry about tomorrow.
He should have done a lot of things.
Instead, when he closed his eyes, he thought about red-soled shoes, hazel eyes, and a girl that asked him a question he really wasn’t ready to answer.
Was his life who he was, too?
Did it make him?
He’d always thought yes.
She said it like the answer was no.
SEVEN
Streams of light basked in flecks of gold and streaked with slashes of white crawled across Lucia’s face. She wasn’t the type to enjoy sun on her face first thing in the morning, not when that meant it was time to get up. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting here staring at the light peeking between the opened slat in the curtains. Long enough that her alarm clock had run its course, and then went off again five minutes later in an effort to remind her that she needed to get up.
She never even turned it off. It played itself out.
“Lucia!”
Her gaze drifted from the window, to the closed door of her bedroom. Her father’s shout echoed from down the hallway, but she didn’t answer him back. She knew what he wanted.
Not that she hadn’t gotten up yet.
Not that she might be late for work.
No, it was her birthday.
He had a surprise for her.
Lucia could always bet on that when it came to her parents and her birthday. They never shied away from buying her beautiful things to remind her just how much she was loved by them. Maybe that’s what had made her pause that morning when she first opened her eyes and realized today was her eighteenth birthday.
Instead of being flooded with thoughts about herself, her life, the shit she had to do today … or anything at all that she would usually think about first thing in the morning, she saw the sunlight coming in and thought about something else entirely.
Renzo.
Where was he waking up this mornin
g? Was he already up? She didn’t have to wonder if he was sleeping in a California king-size bed like her. She didn’t have to wonder if he would have to walk down two flights of stairs just to reach his kitchen. And she knew—without a doubt—he didn’t have someone calling for him to wake up because they likely had something expensive to give him.
This seemed to be Lucia’s life now. Thinking about a guy who made every effort to point out that he either didn’t like her, or wouldn’t like her.
Funny how that worked.
“Lucia!”
“I’m up,” she called back to her father.
His shout had been closer that time. Before he came and knocked on her door, she figured she might as well just get the hell up. The last thing she needed was her parents thinking something was going on with her. They were predictable in the way they would likely pry into her issues until they found what the source was.
She loved them for that, really.
But not for this.
Lucia listened for the sounds of her father’s receding footsteps before finally kicking the blankets off her body, and sitting up in the bed. Instead of getting ready for the day right away, she continued staring at the light streaming in through the window until she was forced to blink because her eyes were getting too dry.
She’d tried, hadn’t she?
Tried to make Renzo see she didn’t think lesser of him because of where he came from, or the stuff he was dealing with in his life. She fully believed people weren’t defined by the number in their bank accounts, never mind the situation around them. A person could only make due with what they had. They couldn’t do anything with something they didn’t have in the first place.
And yet, she couldn’t act like she didn’t see the contempt in his gaze every time he looked at her. He couldn’t even be bothered to try to hide the heat in his tone whenever he had to talk to her.
Maybe that was his pride, or whatever, but at least she could say she tried. For now, though, Lucia was done trying. She didn’t need to keep making an effort where it seemed entirely pointless.
Even if everything about Renzo Zulla made Lucia want to get close, and learn more. Bad news was still bad news at the end of the day.
Though she didn’t want to admit it, Lucia was trying to protect herself a bit, too. The closer she tried to get to Renzo—because God knew curiosity was determined to kill the cat—the more he pushed to get her away.
That hurt.
Except, it shouldn’t hurt at all.
He didn’t owe her a thing. Not about himself, or his life.
So, yeah, she was done trying. If what he wanted was for her to stay far the hell away from him, then that’s exactly what she was going to do.
Or try.
Christ.
It took Lucia longer than it normally would to get ready for the day. She took extra care to make sure she painted the tiredness from under her eyes with careful strokes of a makeup brush; that her eyes looked wider and more open than they were with mascara and smudged eyeliner. She tossed her hair up in a high pony, and instead of her usual skinny jeans and blouse, she grabbed a dress instead.
A flowy, white dress because it was her birthday, and why the hell not. She might have been set to work in the kitchen that day, but it was her birthday, and she wanted to wear a damn dress.
Simple as that.
“Took you long enough,” Lucian grumbled as Lucia came down the stairs. “I didn’t think you were ever getting up, dolcezza.”
It was hard to ignore the fact her father was grinning, and looked like a kid in a candy store. It wasn’t often her father got excited about anything, really. Always cool, calm, and collected. That was Lucian Marcello in a nutshell.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
As soon as she was close enough for her father to reach out and grab her, he did just that. Pulling her into a tight hug, Lucia relaxed in her father’s embrace.
He felt like love, and home.
“Happy birthday, Lucia,” her father murmured, kissing her on the top of her head. “I just wanted to tell you happy birthday, that was all.”
“Eighteen, eighteen!”
It was only the sweet, sing-song voice of her mother that made her father step back from their embrace to let Jordyn in on it. Just like Lucian had done, Jordyn swept her daughter into a tight hug. Only this time, Lucia’s face was peppered with kisses from her ma.
“Makeup, Ma,” Lucia groaned, trying to pry herself away. It was pointless. She just ended up sighing, and letting her mother do her thing. All the while, her father stood a couple of feet back, chuckling. Soon, her mother stepped back, too. “Thanks.”
“Ready for your present?” her father asked.
Lucia gave him a look. “It’s a car, isn’t it?”
Lucian scowled. “John told you, didn’t he.”
It wasn’t even a question.
Lucia shrugged. “I have many informants, Daddy. Many.”
Lucian grumbled under his breath, and pulled a pair of keys with a familiar L symbol dangling from the attached fob. “Many, right. John. It’s John. Here—I know it’s not the Mercedes you might have wanted, but the Lexus is better. Coupe. Black with chrome. Better for you in California than the Mercedes will be since it’s a little smaller, and has better get up and go, so to speak.”
Lucia looked at the keys in her hand, silent for a moment. Was it sad that her father offered all that info to her about a car because he thought she might be disappointed he hadn’t gotten her a Mercedes instead? Like a Lexus wasn’t just as amazing … and expensive, too.
It was never more apparent to Lucia how much she was given in life while others had so little than it was right now.
“I love it, Daddy,” Lucia assured him.
Lucian smiled a bit, and passed a glance to her mother. “You haven’t even seen the car yet, Lucia.”
She shrugged. “It came from you—that means I’ll love it, anyway.”
“Mmhmm. Well, we were thinking dinner tonight to celebrate your birthday. How does that sound?”
“I’m at the shelter until nine.”
“Late dinner, then,” her mother put in.
Lucia nodded, still staring at the keys in her hand. “Yeah, okay. A late dinner.”
• • •
“How are we doing for potatoes and carrots down there?”
Lucia finished filling the plate of the waiting woman, and then replied to the kitchen’s manager. “A little low, actually. Maybe three more servings of each.”
“Okay, go grab more and then take your break, Lucia.”
They were nearing the middle of the lunch rush, and that was when it seemed like everyone decided to show up to be fed.
“I don’t mind staying on the line, if you need extra hands.”
The manager shook her head. “It’s fine. You’ve earned your break.”
The woman had an almost conspiratorial smile on her face when she said that, but Lucia just brushed it off. There was always one scheme or another going on in the kitchen. They always made it their first mission to have fun, and make sure the people who came in to eat were having a good time, too.
“Oh, and happy birthday, princess!” the manager shouted at her back as she headed into the kitchen.
Lucia just shook her head as the rest of the kitchen and dining area echoed that same statement. Happy birthday, Lucia. They’d already told her five times or more, but they just had to remind every single person that came through the line that it was her birthday, so she could be told again.
She really did enjoy working here.
As for the princess thing … well, she didn’t mind that so much when it was her coworkers. They never said it with malice, just amusement.
Lucia made quick work of grabbing the waiting containers of heated potatoes and carrots, and bringing them back out to the line to get them ready for whoever would handle her station while she took her break. She was just pulling off the apron, gloves,
and hairnet when she first felt it.
Like whispers crawling over the back of her neck, and making all her fine hairs stand on end. Like a clenching in her chest, and butterflies beating in her belly.
His voice only confirmed it when he finally spoke.
“You got a minute, princess, or …?”
Lucia spun around to find Renzo leaning against the food line. He wore his usual leather jacket, and worn jeans with holes in the knees. His typical T-shirt had been replaced with a white button-down. It pulled the whole look off and gave him that I-don’t-give-a-damn vibe that he didn’t even have to try very hard to put off. With his hair pushed back like he’d been running his fingers through it, and his dark gaze on her, Lucia thought Renzo probably had no idea what he looked like standing there.
A woman’s walking wet dream, really.
Bad boy appeal.
Lazy smile.
He looked like trouble all around.
Lucia had settled herself with not trying anymore where this guy was concerned. He was determined to tell her to fuck off at every turn, and frankly, she was tired of being told to fuck off.
So, why was he here?
“Ren,” Lucia greeted, “what can I do for you?”
“I just told you. I want a minute. Do you have one, or not? Seems busy.”
Lucia could have lied, said she’d be working the line, and sent him on his way. Something inside of her felt like a hand clamping around her throat to keep her from spilling that lie, though.
“I’m on a break, actually.”
Renzo nodded. “Outside, then?”
“Sure.”
It was only as she was following Renzo outside that she realized what he called her when he first greeted her. Princess.
“How long were you in the dining room?” she asked.
He shot a smirk over his shoulder. “Long enough, princess.”
Like her coworkers, there was no malice to his tone when he said it. His gaze still glinted with a bit of enjoyment when her eyes narrowed in on him.
“Where’s Diego?”
