31. Christmas sucks, though
Chapter 31
Christmas sucks, though
Luca
I ’m almost to my room when I hear Lil yell, “Holy shit, why are you naked?”
“Well, you see, Lilith, in order to put new clothes on, you must first remove the clothing you are currently wearing.”
I grin to myself. My girl is such a smart ass.
“Fuck, I knew I should have paid more attention in school.”
“Too late now!”
I chuckle on my way to the shower. When I come out, they’re watching TV in comfy clothes.
“I’m going to get revenge on both of you for those water balloons.” I sit on the other side of the sectional.
“Bring it on.” Lil grins. “Anytime, anywhere, buddy.”
“Except for tonight.” Ariana is sprawled on the couch and looks half asleep. She yawns and closes her eyes.
“Poor baby’s tired,” Lil teases.
“Callie made me race her like forty-seven times. That kid has way too much fucking energy.”
Lil chuckles. “Don’t I know it? I’m glad we only do this shit once a year. I couldn’t handle doing it for birthdays. Hey, Luca, when’s your birthday?”
“December.”
Ariana looks over at me, a curious expression on her face. “When in December?”
Crap. “Uh, the twenty-fifth.”
Her pretty gray eyes sparkle. “You’re a Christmas baby? You’re a Christmas baby, and you don’t like Secret Santa?” She pins me with a glare. “Luca.”
I shift uncomfortably, trying to make words come out of my mouth, but they don’t, and I finally shrug.
She crosses her arms over her chest and huffs. “I love everything about Valentine’s Day.”
“You were born on Valentine’s Day?”
“No, I wasn’t born on Valentine’s Day, I picked it for my birthday.”
“What?” Sometimes, I feel like my brain shorts out when Ariana speaks. Which sounds worse than I mean it to. I just don’t always follow her line of thinking.
“I didn’t know my birthday when I came to live here. And sure, Dad was able to find it pretty easily like he did my middle name, but what was the point in keeping either of those things when Mom and Dad adopted me? We were changing my last name anyway, so we changed those, too.”
“You can’t just change birthdays,” I say. A new identity, yeah, that would have a new birthday. And fake IDs. But not adoptions.
“DeVilles can do anything, Luca,” she says with a laugh, sharing a grin with Lil.
“But you kept your first name?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them because the grin falls away and her eyes dim. Nice job, bonehead. “Shit, I’m sorry. It’s pretty, like you. I just mean… fuck. It fits you, you know?” As I yammer on, the light starts to come back in her eyes .
“You’re an idiot,” Lil says, laughing loudly.
I grab one of the stupid pillows they have on the couch and throw it at her. It has Nicholas Cage’s face on it. Who the fuck buys a pillow with Nicholas Cage’s face on it? She catches it and puts it behind her head.
“No one ever called me Ariana back at that house, and I liked when Lil did. But nothing else was worth keeping.” There’s a hint of pain in Ari’s voice that hurts my heart.
Lil hums. “Just think, you had a one in six chance of sharing a birthday.”
Tilting my head to one side, I ask, “How so?”
Ariana’s lips turn up again, and I realize how much her smile means to me. I will do anything to see that smile.
“I put all my favorite days in a bowl and picked one out. Well, Mom wrote them down for me. Even though I never got to celebrate Christmas before coming here, I’ve always loved the lights.”
My hatred for her birth parents grows. “What else? What were your other four favorite days? Halloween? International Pizza Day?”
“Shut up, you’re gonna make me want candy corn and pizza,” she laughs, that bright smile even bigger. “Everything except Christmas was someone’s birthday. Lil’s, Dad’s, Mom’s, Becca’s, and Uncle Ford’s.”
This girl. She’s always surprising me. “You didn’t want your own day? Or like a random day that isn’t something big?” I don’t say I hate my birthday being basically the biggest holiday of the year, but I think she hears it anyway.
She shakes her head. “Nope. I wanted to share with one of my people. Or all of them.”
“It’s kinda weird, though,” Lil muses. “Luca’s birthday being one of the days you put in the bowl.”
“Yeah.”
“So, whose birthday do you share?” I ask .
“Ford’s. He’s a good birthday buddy to have. We find each other the most ridiculous shit. I got him one of those ten-foot-tall t-rex skeletons last year, and then we stole it and made it look like it was eating his car.”
“How do you steal a ten-foot-tall t-rex skeleton?”
“Very carefully.” She gives me a bratty smirk and wink. I wonder if she knows what that does to me. The wink, the smirk, the attitude… fuck, I’m a sucker for it all.
We relax and watch a movie. I move to sit on the same side as the girls so I can see better, which means Ariana is close enough to touch. I fight the urge to do so constantly. Lil falls asleep halfway through, and at some point, Ariana takes my hand in hers. When I scoot closer, she leans her head on my bicep. After she yawns for the third time in five minutes, I kiss the top of her head. “You should go get some sleep, baby.”
“Yeah. But I don’t want to. We haven’t had any time alone for days.”
She looks up at me, and I lean down to kiss her lightly, but once our lips meet, it’s like a match to tinder. We deepen the kiss and only break when we both need air. I rest my forehead on hers, then go to kiss her again, but Lil stirs and kicks her feet out.
“Ouch, fuck, Lil! Connard! ” Ariana rubs her lower back. She pushes my cousin’s legs off the couch, and Lil falls to the floor.
“You dick!” Lil lies on the carpet for a second before lunging at Ariana.
“Fuck!” Ariana squeaks, yanking her hand from mine and jumping to her feet on the cushion, then over the back of the couch before racing down the hall, Lil hot on her heels. I hear a door slam and lock as I stand to follow them.
“Did you just lock me out of my own room? Rude!” Lil laughs. Then she stops abruptly and turns to me to poke a finger against my chest. “Hey, you two were holding hands and sitting super close together. ”
“Maybe,” I shrug. She cocks an eyebrow at me and pokes me in the chest again.
“Don’t break her heart, Luca. I’ll be first in line to murder you.”
“I’m pretty sure your dad already has dibs on that spot.”
“Well, just know there’ll be a line.”
I nod. “I wouldn’t expect any less from this family.”
A ripped piece of paper appears from under the door that says, ‘I’m prepared to discuss your terms of surrender.’
“My terms of surrender? My terms are: open this damn door, so I don’t have to go find an axe and break it down, and maybe I won’t smother you in your sleep.”
“I don’t accept those terms because I know that means you’ll try to tickle me until I pee my pants. I’m not opening this door until you swear to not fucking do that again.” Ariana’s voice is muffled slightly by the door.
“One time, Ari. That happened one time, like, ten years ago.”
I laugh. “You two are ridiculous.”
“Hey, mister, move along. Nothing to see here.” Ariana says through the door.
I laugh again and smile as I walk away. “Okay, you sort this out yourselves. I’m going to bed.”