Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy - Bethany-Kris Page 0,38

went wide in the moonlight as she glanced around like someone was going to come up on them at any moment to catch them. “But, that’s—”

“Illegal?” Renzo nodded. “A little, yeah. Are you coming?”

“Can you promise me that we won’t get arrested?”

“Highly unlikely.”

“That you’ll make the promise, or that we’ll get arrested?”

Renzo shrugged.

Honesty was the best policy, after all.

“Both,” he said.

Then, he cracked a smile and laughed. Without warning, Lucia struck out and hit him on the back of his shoulder with an opened palm. “That’s not funny!”

“It kind of is, and so is your face. Calm down. I know the guy who owns the place. Are you coming, or what?”

She glanced around once more, and then finally, nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He took her hand in his, and wove their fingers together tightly as they stepped beyond the gate of the restaurant’s outside veranda. He moved in between tables and chairs that wouldn’t be filled with patrons for another few hours, all the while keeping a tight hold on Lucia’s hand, and a firm grip on the takeaway bag they’d grabbed from a roadside truck down the block.

“So the guy you know,” Lucia said, “he doesn’t mind you breaking in?”

Renzo tossed her a look over his shoulder. “Well, no. I lost the key he gave me, and he’s never gotten around to replacing it, but since I can pick the lock, he isn’t in a hurry.”

“Did you work here, or something?”

“Or something,” he muttered.

“Ren.”

It was the gentle squeeze of her fingers and the tug of her hand against his that softened his stance, and lowered his walls. That was the thing he was coming to learn about this woman. She didn’t care about the shit he did, or where he came from. She just wanted to understand, but that required he open his mouth and talk about it all. Which was not something Renzo did very often, if at all.

It was easier to keep that shit locked up tight.

“He used to help me out when I was younger,” Renzo said. “Let me wash dishes on the weekends to keep me out of trouble, and he’d keep a plate warm for me to eat at night. I used to stay down the block, so he saw me around enough, and thought to give me a hand out, I guess.”

He didn’t miss the way Lucia’s brow furrowed as he directed her to a staircase at the far end of the veranda that led to a seating area on top of the restaurant.

“What?” he asked.

“I just … there’s no apartments down this block. There’s a park, or whatever. Where was it you were—” Maybe it was the expression on his face, or the way he stayed quiet, but Lucia’s question cut off abruptly, followed by a soft, “Oh.”

“It was a couple months in the summer. Shit was rough. The park was mostly safe, and there were public bathrooms to wash up, or get water. Carmen couldn’t stay clean long enough to blow a negative on a drug test, and the shelters wouldn’t let her stay with kids when she was using. They kept calling CPS, and she kept moving on. It’s not a big deal.”

Sadness echoed in Lucia’s features.

“Yes, it is,” she whispered. “That’s terrible, Ren.”

Renzo shook his head. “Don’t do that, huh?”

A simple tug of her hand brought Lucia closer to him on the staircase. Until she was tucked against his chest, and staring up at him with those glittering eyes of hers. Her palms laid flat to his chest, and he tipped his head down to catch her lips in a kiss.

Although he would much rather stay just like that, kissing her, the food was probably getting cold, and he really just wanted to get her mind off all of that other shit. So, he pulled away and dragged the pad of his thumb over her pink lips.

“That was then, yeah? This is now.”

Lucia smiled. “Yeah, now. You know, when you break into the outside seating section of a restaurant to give a girl a place to eat.”

“Better than the side of the street.”

“Anywhere with you would be great, Ren.”

Yeah.

Damn.

It was the way she looked at him, he knew. That, and how her voice alone could soften all the barbed wire he’d put up around his being just to keep himself safe.

The urge to kiss her again was unmistakable and undeniable. Problem was—he knew what was going to happen if he kept kissing this woman. He knew exactly where it was