7. Luc
7
LUC
SWEET… AND STILL TOO YOUNG
N o one expected me —slutty, goofy, rarely-serious Luca Lenaghan—to graduate high school among some of the top in his grade. Nor, enter a medical technology program through the college an hour from home, graduate long before he could even drink—that’s not to say we didn’t, just that, legally, we weren’t supposed to—and go on to complete a paramedic program… all of which, on my first attempt.
But here I am, working the bus and juggling two earlies, two lates, and an overnight shift until I end up with my four-day weekend. It’s a routine I’ve come to enjoy. A way to see every hour of the day and feel productive, and yet, still get to play in the band with the guys.
Scotch is a full-fledged friggin’ lawyer these days. I mean, he has the documentation to say so, though he spends most of his time in a big brother role for disadvantaged youth. Ang bought the garage and is now someone else’s boss. Alex is a cop— a fuckin’ cop ! After he beat Garth Beaterman so good, he was missing a few teeth, but had gained enough common sense to never come near me or my friends again.
Marcus makes furniture for a living. Like, the good stuff. The handcrafted, only rich folks can afford it, kind of furniture.
And the girls… well, they’re racing toward graduation. Though Kari, of course, remains a year ahead of them.
“What the hell do you mean you’re going away to college?” Marcus stomps across the Turners’ backyard, the same as he’s done a million times over the last decade, and watches his sister crash her board on the halfpipe.
Because he never wanted to teach her properly—god forbid she skin her knees—and no way was any other dude gonna step into this yard to help her. She’s a study in willpower. In stubbornness. Because she can’t do it. She doesn’t have the same natural ability the other girls have.
Or maybe they’re just better, because they’ve been on boards since they were able to walk.
Kari got a late start, and even then, a handicap named Marcus Macchio, holding her down.
“You can stay here, Kar! Get an online degree.”
Save me the heartache and mental anguish , is what he meant to finish with.
“I was accepted into the school I wanted, Marcus.” Thud ! The wheels of her board slam against the aging wood. “I got accepted into four schools, but this is the one I want.”
“Kari—”
“I could have gone to the University of Texas.”
I walk to the back door of the garage and peek out into the dark yard. The moon is already out. The stars, shining above. It’s not late—a little after seven, I suppose—but the sun has abandoned us, so now the brother-sister duo are lit up by the light screwed to the back of the Turners’ house. The spotlight we begged for years and years ago, so nighttime wouldn’t mean we had to go inside.
And call me crazy, but I get the feeling Mrs. Turner was happy everyone was outside as much as humanly possible.
Kari stands in the bowl of the halfpipe, close-fitting jeans wrapped around her thighs and squeezing her tight enough, they may as well be leggings.
Which is cool and all; I’m not gonna judge a girl for what she wears. But seriously… they’re leggings, right? Leggings, made to look like jeans, so women could go to the store and pretend they weren’t, in fact, wearing leggings.
“I could go to New York,” she presses, pleading with the brother who has not, in all the years since the pair walked up the Turners’ stairs, given up on protecting her.
“I could go all the way to Phoenix. I have options, Marcus. And I’m choosing to stay near home.”
“You’re choosing to go to college and live somewhere else!”
“It’s an hour away! Stop being so dramatic.”
“Exactly! It’s an hour away. So when you’re there all alone—because the twins and Britt are still a year behind—and you have no one nearby to watch your back, an hour is a fuck-of-a long time until I can get to you.”
“You’re catastrophizing.” She turns on her heels and bends to sweep up her board. Speeding from a walk to a light jog, she makes her way up the incline and sets the deck down on the coping.
She’s going to smash herself to the bottom, all because she’s feeling defiant.
“It’s college, Marcus. A lot of people go to college once they’re done with high school. And guess what? Most people are my age when they go. They sure as hell don’t bring their big brothers along to keep an eye on things.”
“Maybe I should come.” He’s a stubborn mule, too. Dropping his hands into his pockets and stepping up onto the pipe to block her way down. I mean, she could still go, and if she hits him with her board just right, she might break his ankles.
But she wouldn’t dare.
She idolizes him, even when he infantilizes her.
“I didn’t do the college thing. Could be time I educate myself.”
“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes and gives up on her stance at the top of the platform. Instead, she drops to her ass and dangles her legs over the side. “You’re doing your thing here, Marcus. You’re making really beautiful, special stuff. What would you do in college, anyway? An accounting degree?”
“I would be with you.” He gentles his voice and takes a step closer, staring up at the one and only person he’s tasked himself with protecting. He’s dated over the years. He’s watched his friends do the same. He would run someone down with his truck if they were giving Mrs. Turner, or, hell, any of us, trouble in the street. But Kari is where he starts and ends.
His life as he knows it began when he tossed a seven-year-old into a closet and listened while his parents were murdered, and his mother’s screams turned to a gurgle.
A gurgle to a pained gasp.
That gasp to complete silence.
And however long later, silence turned to sirens.
He doesn’t know how else to be . It’s hardly even his fault for loving her the way he does.
“An hour away, all on your own,” he groans, “is too far. It’s not safe. Especially in that city. ”
“I’ll be living on campus the first year. In the dorms with all the other people my age. I’ll make friends I can actually attend class with.”
“And guys,” he groans. “Lots and lots of guys.”
“So is this about safety? Or sex? Because I’m gonna tell you, Marcus. One makes you overprotective. The other, overbearing.”
Why the fuck does thinking of Kari Macchio heading off to college and staying in the dorms where other guys will be make me sick to my stomach?
Why? It’s not like Jess and Laine aren’t right behind her.
Jess wants to be a lawyer someday. Laine, an elementary school teacher. The irony isn’t lost on me that the girls who are possibly the least mature females I know, will someday hold positions of respect and power. One of them will work with, and sometimes, against, the legal system. The other will teach young minds. The opportunities both will be given boggle my mind.
But they both require a degree.
And not once have I sat down and thought, well, gee, I hope they’re not going over there to fuck.
“Well?” Kari demands when Marcus remains silent. The word sex on her lips, I bet, was what did it. “Speak, Marcus! Is this about my safety or my personal life?”
“It’s about the fact your personal life is bound to lead you into unsafe situations. College isn’t like high school, Kar! Here, the oldest dude who is gonna scam on you is, what, eighteen? There? They can be damn near thirty and still bumming around on campus. And that doesn’t even include the TAs. Fuck,” he groans. “That doesn’t include the professors! Next thing we know, you’re bringing a middle-aged guy home, and he has his claws so deep into your skin, you won’t know which way is out.”
“Good lord.” She drops backward and lies on the platform of the halfpipe. Her legs continue to dangle, which means her spine arches at an awkward angle.
And still, I eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation.
“You’re hypothesizing these wildly ridiculous scenarios, Marcus. I’m not going there to hook up with some middle-aged creepo. I’m not even going there to hook up with someone my own age. I want to learn. I want to help people. And in a few years I’ll come home with a shiny new degree, and I’ll work out of our local hospital, if I’m extra, extra lucky.”
“And if you’re not? If they ship you to Phoenix?”
“I’ll be a grown woman, making grown decisions when the time comes. Luca works for our hospital,” she thrusts her hand straight toward me, sitting up and meeting my eyes like she knew I was listening all along.
Of course, Marcus turns as well.
“He got the placement he wanted,” she insists. “He can probably talk to someone once I have my accreditation that’ll give me a step up when the time comes. I could work from the same hospital! Then you’d have a guard dog on duty all day long.”
Marcus rolls his eyes, turning back to his sister and firming his lips. “He’s not my guard dog.”
“No?” she challenges. “Could’ve fooled me. When you’re not around to watch every step I take, he is. Don’t walk on the road, Kari, you might die. Don’t go to the lake, Kari, you might die. Don’t spend time with any boys, Kari, you might be taken advantage of. And then you might die .” She drops her hand and scoffs. “It would be your dream come true, right? For me to work somewhere that not only has doctors on staff, security cameras in every hall, and medicine nearby in case I nearly die . But your best friend will be able to report back about every person I spoke to on shift.”
“I would be working too,” I grumble, just loud enough to prick her ears. “No time to watch your steps when I’m out on the bus.”
“So I suppose those moments of peace will be the ones I cling to the most.” She drags her focus back to her brother and glares. “I’m going to school, Marcus. And I’m going to learn how to help people.”
“Kar—”
“So next time a man and his wife are shot in their own homes for no reason except some asshole wanted something that didn’t belong to him, maybe I could be part of the team that saves them.”
Finally, Marc’s tone softens. “Kar…”
“I won’t be able to help everyone. Just like you can’t protect me from every single person, every single minute of my life. But I can try. I can do my very best to ensure a little boy, only twelve years old, doesn’t have to become his sister’s keeper. I can do my part to keep a family intact, and a child’s trauma as minimal as possible.”
“You’re hitting me with logic, Kar. And emotions.” Marc climbs the timber with ease, dropping down to sit on her left, blocking my view of the girl whose eyes search for mine every time we’re in the same room.
It’s not proper. And I’m not sure she’d admit it even if she was asked.
But love it or hate it, she searches for me every time.
Maybe it’s to know where her guard dog is, and thus, where not to be. But maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s for the same reasons I look for her, too.
“You’re growing up on me,” Marcus moans. He wraps his arm over her shoulder and pulls her in till her mousy brown hair cascades over his shoulder and her cheek rests on his chest. “You were six the last time I checked. Now you’re not. And you said that thing about sex.”
She chokes out a watery, shaky laugh that cuts straight down the middle of my stomach.
“I was lashing out.”
“Ya think? You took my kryptonite, and shoved it up my ass. No mercy.”
“It’s because you’re so annoying.” She squeezes in extra tight and happily sighs. “This isn’t how things are supposed to be, Marcus. I should be arguing with the Turners about growing up. I should be discussing college with them. Not my brother.”
“It’s my business.”
“It shouldn’t have to be. You’re supposed to just be my brother. The way Luca is just a brother to the twins.”
“Fat load of good that does. His sisters have been voted three years in a row as most likely to go to prison for egging the police station.” He pulls back and looks down into her eyes. “They’re not pillars of society, Kar. They’re the future of America’s Most Wanted billboards.”
“I’m still here, you know?” Pushing away from the garage door, I wander across the yard and approach the base of the halfpipe. “Pretty sure you guys are bitching about my family.”
“It’s okay,” Kari sniffles, pulling back from her brother and wiping her sleeve across her top lip. “They’re my family too. So I’m allowed.”