Page 194 of Falling in Reverse

FORTY-NINE

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“Save some arancini for the rest of us, you animal,” my oldest sister, Carina, scolds, slapping the top of Reeve’s hand as he plucks another rice ball coated in breadcrumbs with his fingers. “You’re twenty, don’t you know your manners?”

Reeve pops the whole ball in his mouth and with his mouth full shrugs. “Nah, Luisa was supposed to teach me, but hers dropped out like she did in school.”

My second sister, Luisa, chuckles, used to Reeve fucking with her every chance he gets as he grabs another piece of arancini while still having a plate full of pasta in front of him.

“You’re unteachable,” Torin quips, across the table from us, eating all of Mamma’s homemade Italian cooking that she made tonight for us.

“And you’re so rude that not even God himself can’t right you, Torin Wildes,” Lusia jeers through a dainty bite of her risotto, her lips curled into a pink-stained smile.

“Luisa Black,” our mother chides at the end of the table. “Be nice to the boys. Why are you girls always starting arguments at the dinner table?”

“Because these boys don’t have anyone else to keep them in line, Avena,” my father professes at the other side, waving his fork between the three of us. “They run around, breakin’ hearts and causing ruckus.”

“They should spend more time here eating good food and going to school.”

“We do go to school, Mamma,” I claim—sometimes. I got no reason to hit the books and fucking study my ass off because I know what I’m going to be doing with my life and it’s not community service but illegal drug running.

“Lorenzo,” Mamma coos. “Is this what we’re teaching them?”

Pops shrugs. “What do you mean?”

“Marrying girls who?—”

“Aw, Ma, don’t start up that shit again,” I profess as Reeve chuckles next to me. “We’ve been through this.”

“And I don’t like it.”

“Ma, I’m not marrying Vivian Muncy.”

“Then why are you keeping her around?”

Because you won’t let me kill her like I want to.

“Don’t worry, Miss Black,” Reeve vows for me, gnawing on a breadstick. “We got everything worked out.”

Mamma looks over the sandy-haired, pain in the ass, and smiles at him.

She loves Reeve, always has. She’s taken him in when his mother wasn’t one and after his sister died, Ma has kept him under her wing. She loves to cook for him because everything she makes he eats like a human vacuum cleaner.

“Boys, meet me in the study,” Pops orders, dabbing at his chin with a cloth napkin. “We have a few items of business to discuss.”

Torin steals a glance at me, and I give a light shrug of my shoulders. He hasn’t said anything to me about anything new.

“Lorenzo, let them eat first. The boys look like all they’ve eaten is hamburgers and fries all week.”

Reeve nestles back into his chair, content with not breaking his meal for a meeting while Torin and I are brainstorming what the hell is coming down the pipe.

“You wanna hurry up?” I mutter to him. “I want to get this over with.”

“Chill, bro, your dad looks cool as a cucumber.”

“Torin, how’s football?” Ma asks. “You don’t talk about it much anymore.”

Torin shifts in his seat, fully aware that Ma loves listening to him speak about the game, and now that we’re older, he’s more focused on our plans than the sport.

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