Page 91 of Charmed By Destiny

“Because you want a better life for him? He can be mad if he wants. I get it. No matter what struggles he’s faced, he wants to gamble. He has an addiction. You refused to help him. He doesn’t understand it was for his benefit. Hopefully, he will someday. In the meantime, good for him. What does that have to do with being a selfish prick?” Richard asked. “I get mad at the people I love too. Sometimes I want to strangle them. But I never lose sight of what they’re feeling. Because they matter to me. I’m not going to yell or scream even though I want to. It’d upset you, and I strive to avoid that however I can. But you deserve better. That’s all.”

Lucas leaned over the meal they’d thus far ignored and kissed Richard softly. Those little caresses were becoming ingrained in Richard’s daily life, and he wondered what he’d ever done without them. How had he suffered through a day without Lucas?

“I appreciate that you want him to be nicer to me, but I believe he’s doing the best he can right now.”

“He’s lucky that you have such a generous spirit,” Richard said, though he wanted to rage, yell curse words, and go find Foxe so he could shake the idiot until he pulled his life together.

“Eat your dinner.”

Richard took a giant bite of his burger and nearly moaned. It was a little greasy and a lot delicious.

“Good, right?”

His mouth was full, so Richard nodded. Lucas winked at him, then focused on his own meal. They ate in companionable silence for several minutes, and Richard used his phone to play music through the speakers cleverly disguised as oversized books.

“How old were you when you fell in love with clothes?” Lucas asked.

Surprised at the question, Richard lifted an arched brow. “Uh, I don’t know. I can’t remember not caring about what I was wearing. Even as a kid, I was picky about how things looked and refused to let my mother select my outfits.”

“When did you start wowing people with perfectly applied makeup?”

“It wasn’t perfectly applied at first,” Richard said. The memory of himself as a preteen without a clue how to blend or select the right products rushed to his mind and made him smile ruefully. “You should’ve seen me. Mom will probably produce pictures of it at some point. I was a wreck. But Mari and I were devoted to being experts. We’d buy magazines and try to copy things. We eventually discovered social media and watched the same videos countless times. It should’ve been hard for us to be late for classes since we were homeschooled, but Mari and I managed it.”

“Did you have tutors?”

“I wish. We had my mother, and she was tough. Why the hell I needed to learn three languages and play the piano was an ongoing conversation with my parents.”

“You speak three languages?”

“English, Italian, and French. Some Spanish too that I’ve picked up since I was allowed to start my career. It’s close enough to Italian that I can figure some stuff out. I’d like to be able to engage with other staff and our guests whose native tongue is Spanish without them having to always switch to English. The world is an enormous place with many languages, and I can’t expect everyone to cater to me.”

“How come you haven’t played the piano since I moved in?” Lucas asked.

“Because I haven’t played in years. I’m terrible. Eric received every single one of my mother’s musical genes. I love listening to him play, but I have no desire to keep up the lessons of my childhood. Mari doesn’t play any longer either. Once a year, we sing carols, but otherwise we don’t bother trying to be musical divas.”

Lucas grinned. “Is that a family tradition? To sing carols as you open your mountains of presents?”

Since Richard had polished off his burger, he wadded up the wrapper and stuck it in the bag. “No, we have cocktails and sing on Christmas Eve. I put on something festive. Last year, I bought a red sweater and Santa socks. Mari and I got a little drunk. Later I found out that while I was dreaming of sugarplums and waiting for Santa, my brother was sneaking down the hall to jump Gabriel.”

“Can you blame him? If you and I were in a secret romance, I’d be sneaking into your room.”

Richard brushed a crumb from Lucas’s cheek, then kissed him. “No, you wouldn’t. That’d be impossible since I’d already have hauled ass to your bedroom.”

“This is a nice date.”

“I’m glad we finally did this. Our last date was two weeks ago.”

“What are we going to do next?”

With a shrug, Richard popped a few fries into his mouth.

“Not helpful, Dragonfly. How’s our romance going?”

“Tell me your opinion first.”

“Nope,” Lucas replied. “I’ve been doing all the heavy lifting on this date. I drove us to the restaurant. You tried to pay, but I beat you to it. I’ll give you half credit for that. Once we got up here, though, I’ve been asking the questions. Pull your weight.”

Richard gasped in mock outrage and nearly smiled at the grin Lucas flashed him. That dimple deepened on his cheek. Richard nearly broke and kissed Lucas. But he clung to his mock outrage with enough strength to avoid a bout of giggles. “I had no idea there was a scorecard. No one told me to come armed with a list of questions.”

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