21. I was wrong before—this fucking blows
Chapter 21
I was wrong before—this fucking blows
Luca
A riana slinks into the kitchen as I’m drinking my second cup of coffee. The hood of the hoodie she’s wearing is pulled up over her hair, covering her face in shadows. She doesn’t look at me as she goes for her own cup of coffee.
She always looks at me. Those glances and shy grins are the things I look forward to the most. The best parts of my day.
Lil shows up a minute or so after Ariana. “Good morning, my good people. And Luca.” She sticks her tongue out at me, but the cheekiness doesn’t reflect in her eyes. I give her a look that says, ‘What the fuck is going on?’ And she responds with one of her own that says, ‘Not now.’
Everything feels wrong. Ariana is silent, and without her to bounce off of, Lil and I don’t talk much. I watch as she drinks coffee and some kind of liquid breakfast thing, my heart twisting at how lost in despair she seems to be. When Lil runs upstairs for something, I follow so I can grill her.
“It’s going to be like a hundred out today. Why is she wearing a hoodie? ”
Lil shrugs. “It’s a hoodie day. She’s hiding.”
“Why?”
“Because she feels like she needs to. All the stuff she carries, sometimes it’s too much.” She takes a deep breath and continues on. “We have hoodies stashed everywhere for days like this because when they hit, they hit fast. All over the house, in all the cars, even Dad’s Mas… McLaren… She’ll hardly talk, won’t eat solid food, and will sleep more than usual. A lot more. But in a couple of days, she’ll be back to her normal self. She always is.”
I’m not convinced, and it must show on my face.
“Look, she went to therapy for years for her shit. Still goes from time to time. But occasionally, things overflow, and this is how she resets. I promise you, Luca, she’ll be okay soon.” Lil pats my arm a couple of times, trying to reassure me. I don’t even care if I’ve given away too much about my feelings for Ariana at this point.
Commence the longest two days of my fucking life.
Usually, Ariana floats and bounces when she walks. On hoodie days, she sort of shuffles, her feet barely lifting off of the floor. Normally, her face is lit up with laughter, but now it’s hidden and staring at the floor. At lunch, she only eats a pudding cup, even though Lil and their friends fill the table with options. She doesn’t sing along to the music in the car, and when we get back to the house, she immediately curls up in a corner on the couch and falls asleep.
I hate this. I want to take this darkness away for her, but I don’t know how. I feel helpless as fuck.
At dinner, Becca hands her a yogurt and hugs her. She eats it silently, and the whole table is much more subdued than normal. Instead of the random conversations and laughter I’ve come to expect, quiet small talk takes place. Mia and Marco give both girls hugs, then Mia gives me a hug that I awkwardly return. Lil and I follow Ariana upstairs. I figure maybe she’ll rest on the couch again, maybe read or watch a show, but she walks past the living room and into Lil’s room. I hear the shower turn on. A few minutes later, I see her climb into the bed wearing a different hoodie and curl up on her side. I wait outside the room for half an hour, but she doesn’t move.
“You’re sure she’s going to be okay?” I ask Lil as I drop onto the couch, emotionally exhausted.
She pauses the show she’s watching. “Scout’s honor.” Before I can voice my displeasure at how cavalier everyone is about this whole thing, she says, “We all hate this, Luca. Don’t think we’re blowing it off or something. We’ve spent years narrowing down what we can do to help her. We make sure there’s pudding, yogurt, and smoothies around because she has a hard time with anything more solid. We talk to and around her because keeping silent makes things worse. When she takes the hoodie off, we don’t ask her about why she put it on in the first place but we’ll listen if she wants to talk about it. We let her sleep as much as she needs to because if we try and keep her awake, she eventually starts crying. And if she starts crying on a hoodie day, it’s… well, it’s bad. It’s the only time I really worry about her.”
A tear rolls down her cheek. Without processing it first, I reach out and pull her in for a hug. She hugs me back and cries all over my shirt for a minute before letting go.
“You might not realize it, but we’re good for you. And you’re good for us, too. All of us. Who knows, maybe some fresh eyes will see something we haven’t tried for hoodie days.” She sniffles and wipes her eyes with the backs of her hands, then looks at me. “You’re good for each other, I think.”
“Maybe.”
She rolls her eyes and nods at the TV. “Want to watch something? I just put on a comfort show, but I can change it.”
“I was thinking of going down to the gym, blowing off some steam. ”
Lil snorts. “That sounds horrible to me, but you do you, boo.”
I smirk and change into some workout clothes, then try to exhaust myself so I can sleep.
I wake up the next day with a weight in my gut. I want my sunshine back.
Wednesday goes almost exactly the same way as Tuesday. The only difference is she has a smoothie instead of pudding for lunch.
I spend the whole day trying to think of ways to help her break out of this darkness, but I have no idea what might work. When she curls up in the corner of the couch to nap, I stop thinking and just go with what feels right. She doesn’t look up at me when my butt hits the cushion next to her or when I take one of her hands in mine, but she doesn’t try to pull away, either. She even squeezes it the tiniest bit before she falls asleep. I sit with her until dinner.
After eating another yogurt, Ari goes to bed like last night. I go downstairs to hit the heavy bag. It’s after midnight before I drag my exhausted body out of the gym. Hearing a noise in the kitchen, I head that way to bust Lil snacking.
Except it isn’t Lil. Ariana’s grabbing a glass down from the cabinet. She’s wearing pajama shorts and a t-shirt, her hair’s up in a messy bun, and she’s humming. That weight in my gut lifts, and my world is bright again. I rush over to her and pull her into my arms. “Oh, thank god.”
I want to stay like this and hold her forever, especially when her arms wrap around my waist and her head rests against my chest.
“Hi.”
“Hi. Sorry, I should have asked before hugging you.”
I feel her shrug. “I like hugs.” After a few seconds, she pulls back a little and smiles up at me. My heart thuds in my chest, full and happy .
“Want some milk? There’s cookies.” Her cheeks are adorably pink.
“No thanks. I’ll take a cookie, though.” I reluctantly drop my arms, and she gives me another squeeze before letting me go. She pours herself a glass of milk, and we sit on stools facing each other with a plate of cookies on the counter.
“Am I not supposed to ask about it? Lil said not to.”
She shrugs a shoulder. “Can we talk about something else?” She takes a sip of her milk and a bite of her cookie.
“Sure. Tell me about how you and Lil first met.”
“You haven’t heard that story?” Her eyes widen in shock.
“I want to hear your version of it.” I eat half of my cookie in one bite. Fuck, it’s a good cookie.
“It was the first day of Kindergarten. A boy pulled on her pigtails and made her cry. I stomped over, got up in his face wagging a finger at him, and told him to knock it off. He said I wasn’t the boss of him, so I punched him in the face.” She laughs at the memory.
I grin, trying to picture it in my head. “And that was that?”
“She hooked our pinkies together and said we were going to be best friends forever.” She holds a hand up and sticks her pinky out. It says DeVille along the inside of her tiny finger.
I lightly run my fingertip along the letters, delighting in the way she shivers at my touch.
“How did I not notice this before?”
“Fuck if I know. We both have it. On both our pinkies, Luca. I thought you were supposed to be observant.”
I scowl and grab her other hand and find the same thing on it. “Damn. Just how many tattoos do you have?” These make at least five.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She wags her eyebrows at me, and my dick jumps a little. Fuck yes, I would .
Clearing my throat, I ask, “So why did you both put your last name on your pinkies?”
“Pinky promises are sacred, right?”
“Are they?”
Rolling her eyes at me, she pulls her hand out of mine and shoves my shoulder. “Yes, they are. And a DeVille promise is even more sacred than a regular pinky promise. Now tell me about these.” Her thumb runs over the ink on my forearm.
All the blood in my body is heading straight for my dick, leaving very little for my brain, so it takes me a second to remember why the hell I have the tattoos. “My official fighting record. Stars are wins, birds are losses.”
“Why birds?” She looks up at me, those gorgeous gray eyes going purple again.
I shrug. “Wanted something to remind me that they got away.”
She’s silent for a minute, looking over the ink. “Haven’t lost in a while, huh?”
“I was undefeated for the last eight months.”
“Hmm. And now you’re stuck here babysitting me and Lil.” She meets my gaze again.
“Not stuck. And not sad about being here.”
“If you say so. What’s your fighter name?”
I groan, my cheeks burning. “The Grim Goliath. Usually just Grim, though.”
Her laughter echoes throughout the room and fills all the little cracks in my soul.
“Accurate. I’m not calling you that, though.”
“No?” Are we flirting right now? I think we’re flirting. My dick sure thinks we’re flirting.
“No. Unless that’s what you want to go by. Is it? You can change it, you know. Parker can make you a whole new identity. First name Grim, Last name Goliath.” She’s laughing again and touching my arm.
“What if I want the full thing? First name: The?”
“Oh my god, no.”
“I bet Parker would make it for me.”
“I’ll threaten to punch him again if he does.”
“When the hell did you punch Parker?”
She tilts her head to the side. “In kindergarten.”
Shocked, I let out a loud laugh. “Oh, shit! I didn’t realize it was Parker who pulled Lil’s hair!”
“Yep. It was a rare moment of assholery.”
“He doesn’t really seem the type. I can’t see him in the shed.”
She purses her lips and makes a noncommittal humming noise.
“Okay, so tell me about your trip to the shed.”
She cocks an eyebrow and stares at me for a moment. “Which one?”
I cock my eyebrow right back, and her eyes flash darker for a second. “Just how many times have you gone to the shed?” I finish off the first cookie and grab a second.
She smirks at me. “Nope, I’m not telling you that. Even Lil doesn’t know that. But I’ll tell you about the first trip. About four years ago, one of the new guards cornered Lil out of view of the others and squeezed her boob. He didn’t realize I could see. Lil was in shock. Totally frozen. I walked up, grabbed his gun from under his jacket, and believe it or not, the night we met was not the first time I shot a guy in the dick.”
I spend a minute coughing after choking on the cookie I had just taken a bite of. When I can finally breathe again, I look at her with a different kind of respect. And a little bit of fear. “Damn.”
“Yeah. Dad took him to the shed, and I asked if I could help take care of things.”
“And it didn’t freak you out? ”
She shrugs again. “It didn’t bother me. I know I can handle doing it if it needs done, but I’m fine with someone else taking care of it. I’m more of a quick, clean-kill kind of girl. Mostly.”
Not really knowing what to do with that, I eat another cookie.
She yawns, glancing at the clock on the microwave. “Fuck, I need to go to bed. You’d think I wouldn’t be this damn tired after sleeping so much for two days, but that’s never how it works out.”
Standing, she puts her glass and the plate in the dishwasher while I finish off my cookie. “These are damn good.”
She smirks. “I know. I made them.”
“You made these?” Shit, I think I just fell in love with her a little bit more.
“Yeah. Becca taught me how to bake when I was a kid, and I’ve loved it ever since.”
We turn off the lights and go upstairs. She gently touches my arm in the hallway. “Thanks, Luca.”
“For what?”
“For talking to me tonight. And the hug. And for holding my hand earlier.” She takes a step closer, looking up at me shyly, a slight blush on her cheeks again. “It helped.”
After holding back for days, my control snaps. “Fuck it.” I lean down and crush my lips to hers, and she kisses me back instantly. Like she’s been wanting to do this just as much as I have. Her arms go up around my neck as I pull her close, my hands on her hips. She’s so much shorter than I am, so I wrap my arms around her waist, lifting and holding her up against me. When my tongue meets hers, I let loose a deep moan when I realize Ariana’s is pierced. Fuuuuccckkkk.
Our tongues clash as we devour each other. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever felt as right or as good as having this girl in my arms.
When we finally break away, hearts racing in our chests, lungs aching as they take in the air we denied them, she whimpers, “ Luca.” My already hard cock throbs at the sound of my name on her lips. Her eyes are hazy with arousal, and there’s no way she doesn’t feel my hard dick pressing against her.
I groan, forcing myself to set her back on her feet and pull away. Her lips are swollen and fuck, she looks so gorgeous.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” I mutter as I take a step back.
“Yes, you should have.” She scrunches up her face. “I wanted you to kiss me, Luca.”
Reaching out, I lightly run my thumb over her still-healing lip. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I don’t know how to tell her that I want her more than anything in the world but that I don’t deserve her. So instead, I say, “We should both go get some sleep. Goodnight, Ariana.” It takes everything in me to turn and walk away without begging her to come with me.