Page 560 of Not Over You

I shrug, but before I can answer, ma snorts. “Brio Angelo Tigran Valentino. That’s his full name. Since it’s a mouthful, we all started calling him Lilo. But I named him Brio for a reason. It means vivacity, zest, in Italian. Everyone should put lots of brio into their performances. You’re excellent at brio, my girl.”

“Thank you,” Lucila says, and it’s sincere.

I’m not sure if there’s anything about this Lucila that’s not. Her voice might have a fragile quality to it, but there’s nothing in her eyes that tells me she is. She’s still looking at me. I’m still looking at her. Neither one of us is backing down.

Ma squeezes her shoulders. “You need a ride home, Lucila? I kept you too late and it’s already dark.”

Dark? Staring at her, I had no fucking clue.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I can walk.”

“No.” Ma shakes her head. “Sebastiano can take you.”

She opens her mouth to respond at the same time Sebastiano is going to agree, but I cut them both off.

“I’ll walk her,” I say.

Ma looks between us. I see a little shock, a little concern, and something else I can’t identify in her eyes. After a second, she nods. Then she looks at Ghetti. Even though she hopes Ghetti will turn out differently than his old man, she doesn’t expect it. And without a word, I know what’s she’s telling me. She doesn’t want Lucila around him. Trouble follows him wherever he goes, and instead of sidestepping it, he goes straight for it.

I can see ma has taken an interest in her. I wonder what she knows about her that I don’t. I don’t pull her aside and ask, though. It seems unnecessary. The fragileness in her voice is coming from someplace personal.

Ghetti stands with his mouth open and Sebastiano with his arms crossed as we walk away from them. We’re quiet as we walk back through the house, descend the steps outside, and hit the pavement.

Pops looks up from what he’s doing at the window. His eyes narrow.

Lucila tells me where she lives. No shyness. No hesitation. But she purposely puts distance between us by staying closer to the houses while I hug the sidewalk. Reaching out, I grab the back of her backpack, pulling her closer to me. She’s caught off guard. Instead of fighting me or asking me what the fuck I’m doing, she stops walking. I do, too, taking the weight from her, slinging it over my shoulder.

“Why are you troubled?”

“What?” She makes that face at me. The one she made when she noticed ma had been crying. She scrunches it up and it makes her eyes narrow. It’s at odds with how beautiful she is.

“What’s your trouble?”

“I wasn’t aware that I was—troubled.”

“That’s why students come to the house. To take music lessons.”

She studies my face. “Oh. Yeah.” She shuffles her shoe for a second, looking down at the ground. “My mom left.”

When I say nothing, she looks up and meets my eyes. Expecting me to, what…understand everything from those three words?

She blows out a heavy breath. “It…hit me all of a sudden. My mom left.” She shrugs. “I started acting out. My next-door neighbor, Molly, who works at your bakery, she set the lessons up. She thought your mom could help me. To be honest, she forced me. I’m in trouble at school.”

“How?”

“How?” she repeats.

“Yeah, how. Drinking. Smoking. Sex.”

If she agrees to the last one, I’ll find out who—and I’ll kill him. The thought almost shocks me out of my skin.

She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “None of those things.”

“Care to elaborate.”

“Not really, but I will. I’ve been skipping classes.” At the look on my face, she continues with a sigh. “I hide out and eat…stuff. I lose track of time. I really don’t care to be around many people. Whenever I can, I ditch. I ditch for hours. I just sit there.”

“Eat…stuff.”

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