15. Crack. Not the cocaine kind
Chapter 15
Crack. Not the cocaine kind
Ariana
L uca glares a lot. Almost constantly. Tuesday, he glares when we order extra shots in our coffee at the cart on campus, when we eat pizza and candy for lunch, and when we have a water gun fight in the kitchen before dinner.
But I see cracks forming in his armor.
Because that’s what his grumpy grunts, grumbles, and glares really are: armor to protect his heart and soul. I don’t know what happened to make him put it on. I do know his parents pretty much suck. How his dad and Marco can be brothers but so very different as fathers is beyond my comprehension.
I recognize Luca’s armor. I’m quite familiar with it. When shit gets too heavy, I put my own armor on for a few days. But I rarely need it anymore and have people who help me through the days I do. I don’t think Luca’s had much of a support system. No wonder he wears his armor all the time.
Tuesday evening, Lil and I are sitting at the kitchen counter. She’s doing homework. I’m looking at cake recipes.
Dad and Luca walk in, so I’m guessing the baseball game they’re watching is on a commercial break.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Ariana,” he says back with a smile.
“What kinds of rum do we have?”
“Rum?” Dad asks as he grabs a couple of beers out of the fridge.
“I want to make a rum cake.”
“Oh, remember the last time you made rum cake?” Lil rests her chin on her hand and has a dreamy look on her face. “It was so good!”
Dad opens the beers and hands Luca one. “You stole the whole bottle, soaked the cake in for two days, and got drunk when you ate it.”
“We were such lightweights,” Lil says.
“Well, we were fourteen,” I shrug. Luca raises that sexy eyebrow. I raise my regular eyebrow right back. “But I found a new recipe I want to try.”
“I’ll check the liquor cabinet and get back to you.” Dad chuckles as he walks away, and when I look at Luca, I see the little lift of his mouth before he leaves the room.
Crack.
On Wednesday night, Mom finds me and Lil in the kitchen, debating dessert options. I’m leaning heavily toward coffee.
“How’s your head, sweetheart?”
“It’s good, Mom. Only hurts when Lil pokes at my stitches.”
Mom gapes at Lil. “Lilith, why?”
“Hey! Snitches get… more stitches, Ariana!” Lil points a finger at me before answering Mom. “And revenge, that’s why. For when she wouldn’t stop touching my giant zit last week.”
“Stop poking your sister’s head wound, Lil. And you,” Mom spins and catches me waving my middle fingers at Lil. I shove my hands behind my back like she didn’t see them and give her the most innocent smile I can muster. “Jesus, you two. Ari, leave your sister’s giant zits alone.”
“But they’re so squishy! I can’t help it.” Reaching out, I poke at a non-existent bump on Mom’s arm.
She swats my hand away. “You own dozens of squishies.”
Wrong. I own hundreds of squishies.
“Yes, but Lil’s more fun to poke.”
Mom rolls her eyes and moves on. Really, it’s her best option. “With everything that happened Saturday, I forgot to ask how the movie was.”
“Meh, you would like it, but it wasn’t really our thing. Too much romance.” Lil shrugs.
“Not enough violence. Or car chases,” I add. “And there was no blood at all. Very disappointing. 0.5/10, would not watch again.”
“Let’s have a movie night tonight!” Mom’s eyes light up. She loves movie nights as a family. “I’m sure we can find something with romance, violence, blood, and a car chase so everyone’s happy.”
“Ooooooo sounds like fun. I’ll go start the popcorn machine!” Lil heads for the stairs. Our popcorn is so much better than the actual theater’s. I don’t know why. It just is.
“I’ll ask Becca if she wants to watch with us and start looking for a movie. God knows I can’t trust you two to do it. Can you find your dad and tell him the plan? And invite Luca, too.”
“Uh, sure.” By the look on Mom’s face, she notices the awkward smile on mine, and instead of giving her a chance to mention it, I ditch out at a full run. Only until I get to the hallway, though. Fuck running.
They’re not in the gym or Dad’s office. I enter the code on the keypad to open the door to the nerd room and quietly come up behind the four men standing in front of the monitors. “Whatcha watching? Porn?”
“Ariana, you’re supposed to knock on that door.”
“But where’s the fun in that, Dad? Nowhere.”
“Can we help you with something, Airhead?” Ford takes a step back and puts his elbow on top of my head.
“Yeah, you could use better deodorant.” I wrinkle my nose and sniff harder. “Dude. What is that, Fiat?”
“It’s called ‘Niece Repellant.’ Has a picture of your faces with one of those big red slashes across it on the front.”
“Sully give it to you for your birthday?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Sounds a lot like the ‘Asshole Away Spray’ with your face on it that we gave him for Secret Santa.”
“I never did find out who my Secret Santa was,” Ford says wistfully, shaking his head. “Got me that sweet pistol, and I can’t even thank them properly.” Unlike with Mom a few minutes ago, this time I’m able to keep my face from giving me away like I have for the last five months. Finding that gun for him was a pain in my ass.
Luca scoffs, his eyes still on the screens, his arms crossed. God, those arms. I swallow the saliva that pools in my mouth at the sight of them. “You do Secret Santa?”
“Why wouldn’t we do Secret Santa?” I ask, genuinely confused. “I love Secret Santa. It’s my favorite part of Christmas. Well, besides baking cookies. And wrapping presents. And stocking stuffers. Oooooh, and when we convince Sully to put on the Santa suit.” Now Luca’s looking at me, that eyebrow halfway up his forehead. “I like Christmas.”
“Obviously.”
Annoyed and a little turned on, which is awkward as fuck since Dad, Uncle Ford, and Parker are in the room, I pick at my nail polish and clear my throat. “Anyway, Mom wants to do a movie night. You guys want to join? Lil’s making popcorn.” Ford might, but Parker won’t. He never does.
Parker’s cheeks turn pink at the mention of Lil. “Uh, no thanks.” He turns away and goes back to whatever he was doing before.
“Rain check. I’m taking a few of the boys down to the range. They need the fucking practice.” Ford ruffles my hair and darts out the door when I try to smack him.
Dad claps his hands together. “Alright, let’s go see what Mia picked to watch. Luca, you coming?”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.”
Following behind them, I check to make sure Parker’s still occupied before pulling a tiny tombstone out of my pocket and placing it in front of the latest casualty in his Tamagotchi collection. Poor guy can’t keep the damn things alive for shit, and he refuses to restart them.
In the theater room, I immediately raid the candy stash and grab sodas out of the mini fridge. Lil has popcorn ready, Mom has a movie cued up, and Becca’s already sitting in one of the huge recliners in the back row. Mom and Dad cuddle together in another one while Lil and I claim a couple in the front row.
Luca hands me a blanket from a basket in the corner. I use one when I curl up on the couch every night, regardless of the temperature, but I didn’t realize he noticed. He sits in the seat on the other side of me and opens a bag of licorice.
The lights go down, and the movie starts. A few minutes in, I hold my hand out. “Twizzler me.” Our fingers touch briefly, and a zing of energy goes through me. Just like every other time he’s touched me. I sneak peeks at Luca throughout the movie, and more than once, our eyes meet for a second. Do not get wet. Do not get wet.
I’m glad it’s mostly dark in the room. Maybe he can’t tell I’m blushing.
When the movie is finished, Luca adjusts the front of his jeans before standing up. I try not to stare. And I try not to wonder if it means what I think it means.
“We should do this again soon,” Mom says, smiling at all of us. “This was fun.”
“Yeah, it was,” Luca agrees.
Crack.
Thursday night, Lil and I are ready for our weekly dance class but we can’t find Luca anywhere. Well, we didn’t look everywhere. It’s a big house. He’s not in our living room, the gym, or the kitchen, so he’s officially missing.
“I texted him in the group chat, but we have to leave in three minutes. If he’s not here, he’s square.” Lil throws a bottle of water from the fridge into her bag. Three minutes later, Lil’s timer goes off, and we leave. Without Luca.
We’ve taken a dance class once a week for most of our lives. Currently, it’s Broadway Jazz. Neither of us is exactly good at it, but it’s fun. The class is filled with a few girls our age, a bunch of moms with kids who go to the studio, and even some grandmas. We’re all a little snarky, sarcastic, and silly. Kind of the opposite of all those ‘g’ words that represent Luca.
As we’re getting out of the car, Luca finally responds.
Babysitter Luca
You can’t just leave without me!
We tried to find you
Babysitter Luca
Not very hard
Bossy Bitch
I told you we had a class tonight at 6
Babysitter Luca
You. Did. Not.
Chuckling, wiggle my eyebrows at Lil. “I bet he’s pinching the bridge of his nose or running his hand down his face right about now.” She snorts as she starts typing on her phone again.
Bossy Bitch
Left a sticky note on your door
Babysitter Luca
Fucking a, Lil!
Class is starting, BYYYYEEEEEE!
We put our phones on silent, and off to class we go. Luca slips into the room about ten minutes later. I see him in the mirrors as he leans against the back wall. Between him watching, and Lil and I almost crashing into each other every couple of minutes, I’m pretty distracted. But we’re laughing our asses off like normal when we mess up, and more than once, I see Luca’s mask slip. He even kind of smiles a couple of times and actually looks like he’s enjoying himself a little.
Crack.
Every week, while we go to dance class, Mom and Dad have a date night, and Becca takes the night off.
“How did you get here?” Lil asks Luca as we leave the studio.
“Your parents dropped me off on their way to… well, wherever they went tonight. A sticky note on my door, Lil?”
“What? Didn’t you see it?” She’s good at the innocent act, opening her big blue eyes wide, but Luca isn’t buying it.
“Marco’s not happy with any of us about this.”
Lil shrugs. “He’ll forgive us. Can’t promise he’ll forgive you, though.”
“Not cool.”
When we get home, there’s homemade pizza crust and toppings waiting for us. Becca’s awesome like that.
“Luca, come pick your toppings!” Lil yells at him like he’s not ten feet away.
“Has she always been this bossy?” He starts tossing pepperoni, sausage, and green peppers haphazardly onto his pizza. Gross. I load mine up with pineapple and jalape?os, making sure it’s all pretty even, eating black olives as I go.
“Pretty much. She’s in my phone as Bossy Bitch right now.”
Luca smirks. “What’s my name in your phone?”
“Babysitter Luca,” I say, a huge grin on my face. “Let me guess, I’m in yours as Ariana. You haven’t changed anything since Parker set it up.” I wink at him.
His eyes darken, and he holds his breath for a moment before responding. Huh… maybe I’ll wink at him more often. “I should change you two to Pain in the Ass 1 and Pain in the Ass 2.”
“That would be better than plain old Lil and Ariana.” I shrug.
He picks up his phone and fiddles with it for a few minutes, a smirk on his lips.
Two cracks in one day.
Every time I see a tiny crack in Luca’s armor, it gives me a sliver of hope that he’ll rid himself of that armor. That he can be happy one day.
And sometimes, I let myself believe that I could be a part of that happiness. There’s a connection between us. I don’t understand it yet, but I feel it. It’s undeniable. And I see him feel it when he doesn’t think I’m paying attention.
He usually ends up hanging out in our living room with us after dinner, watching whatever show we throw on, and sometimes messing around on his phone. It makes me wonder if he’s messaging a girlfriend back home, but he never talks about one. Not that he talks a lot in general. He doesn’t have anything set as his background picture on his phone, his social media accounts are basically empty, and he never seems to talk to anyone. I know he spends a lot of his free time in the gym at the house, but we haven’t harassed him there. Yet. Maybe we will soon, but we hate the gym. Like really hate the gym.