Chapter 2
Evan
“I’m here because it’s past time that I stopped running from my past and started making up for it.”
“You were a Reiver?” I ask, even though Luca just told me he’d worn the Reiver patch.
“Yes,” he says simply, standing in front of me, arms at his side as if waiting for judgment.
I don’t know what to think or how to feel about this news, so my journalist brain takes over and starts assimilating facts. “How old were you when you became a member?”
“Joined when I was seventeen and walked away right before I turned twenty-four.”
“The Reivers aren’t known for letting their members just walk away.” I’d researched enough to know that once a prospect became a patched-in member, it was considered a lifetime commitment. Members who tried to leave tended to end up on missing person’s lists.
He lifts his shirt to reveal a delectably muscled upper body.
For a second, I think he’s flashing me his abs to distract me from my question, but he turns slightly to reveal his left side.
From his rib cage to down past the waistband of his jeans, his skin is covered by twisted, still-angry skin that looks to be the result of a fire. “I fought my way out.”
Once he’s sure I got an eyeful, he drops his shirt.
“You don’t get to ask me about what made me willing to go through that to leave, but I’ll tell you I’d go through it all again to get away from those bastards.
” He looks at me, gauging my reaction. “But if knowing about my past makes you not want me in your home, call Cash back and tell him to get somebody else. I’ll stay and make sure you’re safe until he gets somebody to take my place. ”
For the first time since I opened the door to Luca, I have some control over his presence in my life.
One call to Cash, and I can have Luca gone.
I wouldn’t even have to feel guilty about it.
He just admitted he was a Reiver and he’d done terrible things.
He is, or at least was, the enemy. I should judge him and send him packing.
But I heard the pain and shame in his voice at his confession. I was amazed I had to fight off the need to go to him and try to soothe his hurt.
I’ve done enough research on how the Reivers recruit vulnerable kids into their ranks.
Luca said he was seventeen when he joined.
The Reivers target boys who have few job prospects and typically come from dysfunctional homes for a way to make money and have a pseudo-family structure.
In a lot of ways, they’re like a machismo cult.
He also made the dangerous decision to cut ties with the Reivers, and he paid a painful price for it. I can’t imagine the pain he endured if the severity of his scars is anything to go by.
Not to mention, this fight I’ve joined against the Reivers involves several Reivers members and some other participants whose CVs I probably don’t want to look at too closely.
If I haven’t added up any of their misdeeds against them, it’s unfair to judge Luca.
None of them may be staying in my home, but I know Cash well enough, arsonist that he is, that he wouldn’t have moved anyone in with me who he didn’t trust.
I must have taken too long with my thoughts. Luca takes my silence as his answer. “I’ll let you make that phone call,” he says and turns to walk out my bedroom door.
“Wait,” I call to him, and he slowly turns around. His brown eyes seem to take me into their depths, and I want to stay there forever. Startled at the thought, I shake myself free from his gaze and tell him my decision. “Your past is your past,” I say. “You can stay.”
He nods. “Then, I promise on my life to keep you safe.”
No wonder I don’t have any friends.
I’m socially awkward. I’m uptight and obsessive. And if my actions this week are to be judged, I’m a total asshole.
Luca pledged his life to keep me safe. I truly believe he and the others are exaggerating the danger I’m in, but that doesn’t matter. He is here in my tiny, grungy apartment, sleeping on my lumpy, used couch and doing his best to keep me safe, and I can’t stop being horrible to him.
I’m worse than an overstimulated three-year-old coming off a sugar binge as I throw multiple tantrums throughout each day, screaming at Luca, who watches my meltdowns with no reaction and calmly waits for my rants to tire me out.
Afterward, I never apologize. Instead, I usually slam the door on Luca and play some jazz music—which I’ve figured out he’s not a fan of—really, really loud.
It’s not like I’ll get a complaint notice from my landlord.
The second day Luca was here, he went and had a little talk with him.
Tim showed up right after their meeting, his face pale and his voice trembling as he apologized about the heater.
Before the end of the week, he’d fixed it, gave me a three-month credit on my rent, and updated all the security features Luca suggested.
And how did I say thank you to Luca? A twenty-minute rant at him for refusing to let me go for a walk to the ice cream shop for a hot fudge sundae.
If I were him, I’d walk out on me mid-tantrum, call the Reivers with my address, and let them do their worst.
Each night, after my final door slam of the day, I throw myself into my bed, and the shame and remorse fill me up. Each night, I swear I will act better the next day.
I had hopes that today would be the day I finally managed to behave.
I’d made it to noon without incident, but then I started yelling at Luca for sipping his soup too loudly.
I accused him of slurping it, which he hadn’t been.
He didn’t defend himself. He continued calmly and quietly sipping his soup while watching me destruct before him.
My rant was so unfair that my shame didn’t wait for nighttime to hit me. After the soup incident, instead of doing the research I needed for an article about a Tennessee church having ties to the Reivers, I lay in bed trying to figure out why Luca brings out the very worst in me.
I’d never been like this with anyone else before. Sure, when I’m in journalist mode, I can be driven and unrelenting, but if anything, my interpersonal relationships always fail because I’m too needy and eager for approval.
It would be easy to blame it on the unrequited sexual attraction I have for Luca that intensifies every hour I’m cooped up in my apartment with him.
It manifests in several unexpected symptoms, like how my blood warms at the sound of his deep voice, the obsession I’ve developed with his large, calloused hands and forearms, and my addiction to breathing in the tangy, woodsy scent of him.
But attraction isn’t to blame for my tantrums. Maybe it adds a little gasoline to the fire of my rages, but I’m not subconsciously trying to push Luca into a hate fuck.
One, I don’t even know his sexual preferences, and even if he is into men, Luca made it pretty clear the day he showed up at my door he didn’t want me.
Add in my recent actions toward him, and I’m sure I’m the last person in the world he would ever want to get naked with.
I need to talk to my therapist for a second opinion when they’re back from their family emergency.
Though, I think I might be acting the way I am because Luca, even though I’m sure he doesn’t like me very much, is the first person to care about my safety in a long, long time.
It's fucked with my head and brought up a lot of shit that, instead of dealing with, I’m taking out on Luca.
Issues or not, my bad behavior has to stop. It's way past time for me to apologize to Luca; I just don’t know if I have the courage to do it.