Her brow quirks. “I’m reading the books I’m told to. Surely, they’re not the wrong books, Miss?” she teases.
“For school, they are the right books. But for you to enjoy, not so much. You need to find something that captures your imagination and wraps you up in its world and refuses to let you go.
“Do you have a favourite TV show?” I ask.
“Umm…Stranger Things, I guess. I also…” She lowers her voice so no one can overhear her. “I love all those old US teen dramas. But don’t tell anyone.”
Ideas flicker through my mind.
“Leave it with me. Before the end of my time here,” which arguably could be incredibly short, “I’ll have you in love with English and reading.”
“I’d like to see you try,” she taunts.
“Challenge accepted, Cirillo. Now show me all the places I need to avoid to stop me from running into your cousin.”
“Are you avoiding just that particular male or all of those connected with him?” she asks as we exit the building.
“Mostly just him. The others probably won’t care that I’m here.”
“But you think Nico will have a cow?”
“Something like that.”
“You know, it’s highly unlikely that he’ll even show his face. He’s not exactly been… present since Uncle Evan died.”
Pain rips through my heart as the image of Nico’s dark and haunted eyes from last night come back to me. The things he said, the way he broke right before me, ripped me in two.
It doesn’t matter how crazy he makes me. When he drops his walls and shows me that kind of vulnerability, I’m like fucking putty for him.
I just have to pray that he’s too lost in his own head to notice just how weak it makes me. Because the second he realises it, I’m fucked. Beyond fucked.
“I know,” I mutter. “But he has exams, he’ll be here eventually.”
Rhea lets out a sad sigh, showing a little of how she’s really feeling right now.
“It’s okay to be sad, you know. It’s okay to miss him.”
“I know,” she confesses. “I’m okay, I just hate that everyone I love is suffering. I’ve never seen Dad like he is right now. And Nico. The men in my family have always been larger than life, so to see them hurting…”
“Things will get better. The pain will lessen.”
“But things are never going to be the same again. It blows my mind to think that my big brother will be the one in charge of all this one day.”
“Theo will make a great boss, Rhea. I’ve no doubt.”
“Oh totally, it’s just a head fuck. He’ll always be the annoying boy who used to hide my Barbies. Sometimes it’s hard to separate that boy from the man, you know?”
“I don’t have any siblings,” I confess. “Hell, I hardly have any family, so I’m not the person to be talking to about them.”
“You get it though. No one else does.”
“There must be other kids here who are a part of the Family.”
“Yeah, but they’re not the boss’s daughter. Everyone is either threatened by me or jealous of me,” she says sadly.
“Oh, but you come across so sweet and approachable,” I deadpan.
“I’m the nicest person in the world. If you deserve it.”