Chapter 3: “I need to stay here for a bit, you know?”-2
592 Words
Luca felt fine.
Well, no, he didn’t, he felt like someone had parked a lorry on his chest and slapped him in the face with a Mini Cooper. But he felt pretty good apart from that. No, you know, not-breathing stuff or lung infection crap or anything. He kind of just wanted some snacks and a video game or three. Some peace and quiet, you know?
Only that was totally hard to get in this house. Luca was the third of five boys, and he swore blind ever since the youngest, Angelo, had discovered girls, the door-slamming was making the house structurally unsound.
“f*****g shut up!” he bellowed at the boom of Angelo’s door as Antonio pushed him into his room.
“What’s up with him?”
Antonio had moved into his girlfriend’s flat last year, and Luca envied him. Maybe he ought to move into Tav’s house. Mamma Laura wouldn’t mind. Hell, his own mamma probably wouldn’t mind as long as he came back for meals. She wouldn’t even notice!
“Girl issues.”
“Ah,” Antonio said wisely, and stripped back the duvet. “Right, get your arse in bed and stay there. You nearly gave Mamma a coronary. You do know if you get an infection, she’s banning you from the swimming team?”
“Like hell,” Luca said, but dropped his jeans and obediently crawled into bed. He did feel kind of tired.
“So what’s Angelo’s girl issues?”
“I gave up. It was Ellie over the summer, Rochelle by the start of term, Lucy last month, Ellie again on his birthday, and I think it was Melissa on Thursday afternoon,” Luca recited tiredly. “Can you set up Rogue Spear or something for me? I feel like going old school.”
“Sure.” Antonio sat on the end of the bed to set up the TV and consoles, and Luca eyed his eldest brother speculatively. He and Antonio had fought a lot when they were younger, and Luca wasn’t sure who’d mellowed.
“How’re you and Katie?”
“Like you actually care,” Antonio sniggered. “What about you and your Tav?”
“See your own answer,” Luca sniped. “Are you staying?”
“Today? Yeah.”
“Tav’ll come over. Make Mamma let him come up? He was really freaked out yesterday.”
“Doesn’t surprise me. He’ll be even more freaked out today. Your face looks like a f*****g volcano gobbed up on it.”
“Oh, thanks. Dickbag.”
“That’d be you, gayboy. I am a cunt-master, thank you very much.”
Luca snorted. “You’re a womanising tosser. Katie’d do better to chase other birds.”
“You shut your filthy, arse-kissing mouth,” Antonio retorted, then clicked the console into life and handed over the controllers. “Be more careful at the pool next time, yeah, Luca? Wasn’t just Tav you freaked out.”
Luca half-smiled and let Antonio ruffle his hair. “Wasn’t my fault David jumped on my head.”
“You said it was an accident.”
“It was.”
“You being straight with me?”
Luca raised his eyebrows.
“Straight as gayboys get,” Antonio amended.
“I’m telling the truth,” Luca said finally. Antonio eyed him a little longer with those blue eyes. It was weird—Antonio was his half-brother, the reason Mamma, then eighteen and unmarried, had fled Tuscany in the first place—but he had the bluest eyes. The only full-blooded Italian amongst them, and he had eyes like a Cornish summer sky. And they could look right through you.
And see when you were lying, because Antonio nodded and got up off the bed. “Usual junk food?”
“Uh-huh. The marshmallows are under the sink in a plastic bag, Tomas keeps nicking them. Don’t let him see, or if he does, bring the whole bag.”
“The whole bag? Are you kidding? Mamma’s having you on healthy food for a week, and I’m not interfering with Mamma’s wrath.”
Fair enough. Luca nodded and slid further down into the bed, clicking into the game menu and trying to ignore the dull ache in his chest from where his lungs were still protesting, and the much sharper pain in his head from being smacked between David’s heels and a swimming pool floor.
And if Luca’s sense of Tav-time was any indication…
The kitchen door banged.
- Writer
