Trusting My Brothers

Chapter 38

Staying in my room for most of the day, at 7:00pm sharp, I hear the doorbell ring. I go downstairs in time to see Nic open the door and let in Val.

"You must be Val. I'm Nico, Lili's third oldest brother."

She gives his hand a shake. "Ahh, the nice one. It is nice to meet you."

Cutting in, I say, "Well technically, most of them are nice now." 

Startled, they turn to look at me. I walk towards them and give Val a small hug once she sets her bag down. 

Turning back to Nic, I ask, "Are you already leaving? I thought you were leaving at 8."

"Yeah, I need to run an errand before heading to the 'bar.' Anyways, everybody left so you two are on your own. There is leftover chicken from last night, so you can just warm that up whenever you guys are hungry. All of us are probably going to come home late so don't wait up. Please don't do anything that will get you in trouble, okay? Now have fun." Nic says, causing me to laugh a little.

"Okay, and by the way, nice lecture. Now go enjoy yourself. I'll see you tomorrow." I say and gesture for him to leave.

Once he does, I take Val up to my room and allow her to  set her bag down. We settle down on the couch in my room and she immediately asks me what I needed to talk to her about.

"So, basically, the short version is I like Cole and we kissed, but I told him we can only be friends." I say quickly.

She grabs a pillow, hitting me with it as she says, "Why would you tell him you can only be friends!? You both have so much sexual tension and you should be dating!"

I yank the pillow out of her hand and hit her with it. "Because, you know how my brothers are, and the mafia. It would be us signing each others death sentence." Dropping the pillow, I continue. "I just got them to agree to let us be friends, so I am making slow progress as it is. Maybe one day they will allow me to date him, though I won't hold my breath."

"Yikes. Well, you are not the only one with drama in your life." She says, exhaling dramatically.

"What's going on?"

Taking a deep breath, she jumps into the story. "I actually forgot about this until you mentioned the whole mafia thing. So, basically, my parents are trying to get me 'betrothed' to Cole, though his father was very hesitant. But, Mr. Rivera invited us to dinner tomorrow to talk about it and I'm like eighty percent sure that he is going to agree. The worst part is that they weren't going to even tell me or Cole about this betrothal until it was official. The only reason I know was because I overheard them speaking. Lili, what am I going to do?" She looked like she was about to cry.

Giving her a half hug, I say, "I honestly have no idea. Look, I basically learned everything I know about the mafia from books."

"But what if I like someone else and wanted to date them? Cole likes you, so what if you actually agreed to a relationship with him? How would you feel?"

"Okay, I already feel upset even though I'm not dating him, and I have no right to feel like that, especially when I know that you might not have a choice. Besides, I was the one who friend-zoned and he is allowed to date anybody he wants." I say, before adding, "Wait, do you like someone?"

She blushes. "I do actually, though I don't know how you will react."

Laughing softy, I say, "It's Liam, isn't it?"

"How did you know?"

"Well, you haven't exactly been subtle. Remember that day at Cole's? You both were whispering and blushing at each other. It wasn't exactly hard to put two and two together."