Devotion

sixteen ﾒ MIA

ANGELICA

A shrill scream overtakes my wonderful dream and wakes me the fuck up. I swear, Leilani and her damn screams. My eyes open slowly as I come to Earth to realize I fell asleep, fucking studying once again.

Shit. "SOS! SOS! SOS! SOS!" Leilani yells. I'm sure everyone in this house has gotten used to her yells and screams. But good thing my parents are out; mom's with her socialite group, dad's doing dangerous work, and Rowan's out there either being an alcoholic, whore, or mobster.

And I'm here, being the baby of the family, worrying about my education. Because it's what makes me such an angel. Although I do have a couple of tricks up my sleeve when it comes to the mob business.

I smoke a mean cigar pretty well, if you ask me.

I turn to face Leilani with a tired expression, attempting to stretch my body using my furry pink chair. Leilani has a shocked face, and my alert goes off immediately. "Shit, Lei, something's actually wrong. What happened?

"This is the worst day ever," she says. She sighs dramatically as she falls into my lap, lying her head comfortably on my shoulder. I hold her head and spin to face my desk again to retrieve my lost cause of a phone. "Why? You ask? Oh, because my fucking cousin is BACK."

As I scroll through Instagram, going through my feed, I still hold her head. "What cousin, Lei, you have a lot of those."

She doesn't even answer my question. "So, mom's working from home today, so that means she pays attention to me. And so, we're eating breakfast, right?" Lei stops and tries to recount her steps. "Oh yeah, I was grabbing my plate she made when she told me that Mia was moving back to New York."

"Pause," I say. "Who is moving back? Spin back a couple of steps?"

"Mia. My cousin. The Bitch. The Homewrecker. Soul Crusher. The Cunt. Mia, Mia. Mia B—" I raise my hand over her mouth. "I think I get it." She licks my hand. "And—"

Damn it. Mia Bardot is Lei's aunt's daughter. In other words, her mother's niece. And she's such a bitch in a bad way. I've met plenty of bitches, but she surpasses all of them by ten times. Oh God, I couldn't hate anyone as much as I hated her.

Not even Luca I could hate that much, and he is known to get on my damn nerves.

Okay, backtracking to who the fuck Mia is. Mia Bardot is Leilani's cousin. We all went to school with one another when we were teenagers before she had to move away. Mia did some serious damage to Leilani, me, and Luca too. We used to be super close too. So, truth be told—this is going to hurt to admit, but I liked Luca; I had a crush on him and everything.

I wasn't obsessed, but it was obvious. It was a schoolgirl crush before we had the ultimate academic rivalry. I was friends with him despite the fact that our families hate one another, and he knew I liked him. Mia also had a crush, one that was turned obsessive, and she didn't like the fact that not only I liked him first, but I liked him at all. Like, hello?

This is where Mia is a cold bitch. Since she, Leilani, and I were close, we told each other deep secrets. I didn't tell her about the crush; she found that out herself from her loud-mouthed cousin. But she made it her mission to expose all my secrets to Luca so he could choose her instead of me.

When Marco, Luca's father, found out, he made Leilani's mom send her away because, who knows why? He did me a favor, so I don't care.

"When is she coming back?" I asked calmly.

Leilani sighs, covering her face with her hands. "She's at my house, unpacking. And the bad thing is that she looks great. The body is amazing, and the face card is never declined. It's a truly sickening sight."

"But," she continues, "I refused to stay out of my house, so I'm crashing here until further notice because there's no way, Jose. I'm not staying there with that rat."

So that's why she's here. Leilani's suitcase and bags sit in my closet, and I just glance at her. "What? Your closet is big."

"Lei..." I hold her head. "You can't stay here for too long, you know that, right? Luca will come over and want to not hear you scream while we're working on a project."

"Please," she says, "you act as if you guys are going to fuck. Which you're not, I hope. But then again, I don't blame you."

I roll my eyes and rest my head on the chair. "Ew," I say.

Leilani hugs me with her face near my neck while she giggles. From the corner of my eyes, I see twin #1 across the hall eyeing me with Leilani, and by the looks of it, he looks like he cares.

ﾒ

I had left Leilani to salvage for herself with Rowan while I planned with Luca at the damn library. Because of him, he loves to come to the library when there's no one here.

Pacing across the end of the couch to the beginning, I hold a planner up to my vision and write down notes. "Hockey game on Friday," Luca says. He's laid back against the cushion in a manspread position, his arms tucked behind his head.

"Uh, huh, whatever," I say, writing it down. "I have a um," I look up at him, and his blue eyes stare back at me. "Uh, um, fuck. What the hell was I going to say?"

"Take your time; it'll come to you." It sounds oddly nice coming from him until he adds a snarky comment afterward. "Give it a year."

I roll my eyes. "So, I have to work on graduate school applications, which means you need to shut the hell up and leave me alone on the dates written in this journal."

"And if I don't?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I will grab a hold of a gun and knock you upside the head with it." I close my planner and slide it across the table that separates us.

Luca sits up and opens it. "Kinky."

I walk around the table so that I can sit beside him. He's dressed down in gray sweatpants and a plain black sweatshirt. Average whore attire. I lean over so I can see what he's writing in the margins of the planner, but he leans away from me and smirks as he continues.

Luca finally puts down the planner before staring straight into my eyes. "Can you not stare at me?" I ask.

"Why not?" He asks. "Because—" I didn't get to finish because we were interrupted by a smart Charlotte Jackson. She's in our health economics class.

Her braids sway as she marches up to the both of us with only eyes on Luca. She wastes no time. "Are you single?" The question was directed at him. Ever since I've worked with him, no girl wastes their time asking for his number.

He takes out his phone and hands it to her, with the Contact app already open for the insertion of numbers, like he knew it was gonna happen. But he never made eye contact with her; he only continued to speak to me.

Charlotte clears her throat, our heads directed in her direction. "Can you move for a second?" She asks me, so to avoid an argument, I stand up.

As I walk, not even five steps away from my original spot, Luca pulls me back. By my finger. Like wrapped his veiny ass hand around my finger, gently pulling me back so that I'm next to him again.

Luca speaks to Charlotte until she leaves. "She likes you, you know," I say.

"I know that," he says, closing my planner and giving it back to me. "But I have eyes for someone else."

"Oh," is all I can manage to say. "So, you're not out being a whore, but loyal to someone you're talking to? But who is it?" I can't help but be nosy. This is gold.

Luca smirks as he notices the nosiness. "No one I should like."

"Ah." I look at him. "You're starting to grow on me. I'm still not fond of you because of those two points you scored on the last economics exam. It's just unforgivable."

"Maybe try harder," he says.

I shoved his shoulder. "Don't be a freak now."