Page 42 of Privilege

“Your kind of fun?” she asked.

Renzo let out a laugh, and took a step closer to her. “I don’t really have time to go out and find fun, if we’re being honest. It’s usually me working, or doing work for someone else to get paid. But yeah, if I were going to go out and do something, I’d probably find myself a party where no one is going to bitch about your music, or how much your weed stinks. Seems like the better choice than an over-filled club with over-priced drinks.”

Lucia lifted a single eyebrow. “You’re not even old enough to get into a club.”

“Neither are you. How many have you been inside?”

That sweet, coy grin of hers was back in an instant. “I plead the fifth.”

Yeah, he bet her family was familiar with that line for more reasons than he wanted to get in to at that moment. Not that right then was the right time to get in to all of that. It most certainly was not, and he had other things to get started on.

Like figuring out what in the hell it was about this woman that had his head in such a mess. He needed to get a handle on that first, and then he would go from there.

“Where is this party, then?” Lucia asked.

“Here in my stomping grounds. A few blocks away.”

“The Bronx.”

She said it simply—just as though it were fact, and not that she had an opinion either way. Not like she was judging the area, or concerned about the trouble that might find her if she went down that way with him.

“It’ll be like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” Renzo said, “I can promise you that.”

Lucia nodded, and dug in the pocket of her white dress to produce a pair of keys with a familiar L emblem on the fob. Not saying a word, she tossed the keys to him, and Renzo caught them easily enough. He shot her an inquisitive look to which she only shrugged.

“You wanna drive?” she asked sweetly.

Renzo stared down at the keys in his hand. The most expensive car he had ever driven was a friend’s secondhand Jeep to help the guy move some shit from one apartment building to another. He never really needed to drive a lot in his work. The city was always congested as fuck with traffic, and another accident was usually right around the corner to make it worse than it already was. There wasn’t anywhere he couldn’t get to by using the city bus, or subway and it was typically a faster way to travel.

He did have his license, though.

He could drive.

Lucia laughed the longer Renzo hesitated to answer. “It’s insured. You wreck it, and it’ll be fixed. Try not to wreck it, though … because it won’t be the car that someone will be pissed about, you know. More like the woman in the passenger seat. They’ll be really pissed about that.”

Renzo met her gaze, and expected to find that same joking amusement he found earlier. Instead, she was stone-cold serious, and not even a hint of mirth reflected back in her eyes.

Well, then.

“All right,” he said.

Lucia nodded, and the smile of hers that he was enjoying so much came back like it had never left in the first place. “A date, then?”

Yeah, shit.

Renzo hit the unlock button on the fob, and the Lexus lit up on all corners. “A date, Lucia.”

• • •

“Oh, my God.”

Renzo nodded to the guy who’d just taken two twenty-dollar bills from his hand without as much as a word about who he was, his age, or where he came from. Then again, the guy was a regular at these things. He usually watched the door, and on more than one occasion, probably saw Renzo walk through wherever they popped up once or twice to make a sale or two.

“Not what you expected from the outside?” he asked Lucia.

She turned slightly to look at him, but her gaze was quickly drawn back to the light show happening just down the main hallway of the warehouse. “No, I can’t say it is.”

Renzo figured that.