Page 68 of Harbor

“Nice to meet you,” Lucia replied kindly.

“I’m Diego,” Renzo’s little brother said suddenly, shoving himself between the three to stare up at Todd with a smile. “Hi.”

The man laughed. “Hey, there.”

Renzo tugged Lucia a little closer to his side, adding, “We’re good for everything, right?”

Todd’s gaze came back to him.

Thankfully.

“Yeah, Ren. We’re great. Start tomorrow morning, huh? Don’t worry about the noise—no one will hear you over the restaurant anyway. And hey, say hello to your uncle for me.”

“You got it.”

“Hey, Todd, you’re needed back—”

“Gotta go,” Todd said out of the corner of his mouth before dropping Lucia a smile, too. “And it was nice to meet you. I hope to see your face around here more often.”

“Probably not,” Renzo muttered at the man’s back as he headed toward the kitchen.

Lucia smacked Renzo gently on his back. “Stop it, he was being nice.”

“Looked at you too long.”

“Oh, my God.” She smacked him again, a little harder the same time, making Renzo chuckle. “He’s old enough to be my dad, quit it.”

“Whatever, we have better things to see.”

He grabbed Diego’s hand, and kept his hold around Lucia as he directed them out of the restaurant. Lucia moved to head down the block again where they had come from, but he was quick to redirect her toward the alley at the side of the restaurant. She gave him a look, but he only winked. In the alleyway, toward the back, a spiral, metal staircase led them up to a painted-tan door.

Renzo finally let her go then to pull a single key out of his pocket. He held it out to her, and Lucia took it, eyeing him at the same time.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Killing two birds with one stone,” he replied.

Understanding lit up her eyes. God, yeah. That’s what he wanted to see from her.

“An apartment?”

“Maybe. Unlock the door.”

Lucia laughed. “That was quick.”

It paid to have people who knew people, he supposed. Shit, maybe they should have just come to San Francisco from the jump. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty, as the saying went.

Diego was jumping up and down, excitement radiating from him all the while. He tried to grab the key out of Lucia’s hand, but she was too quick for him. She stuck the key in the lock even as he shouted, “Open it up, Lucia!”

Their laughter colored up the alleyway. Lucia finally got the door to the apartment opened, and pushed it wide to give them all the chance to go inside. It wasn’t much, a small two-bedroom with one bathroom. All the walls were a dull white. Being it was a small loft overtop of the restaurant that Todd had apparently converted into an apartment over the last year, the windows weren’t all that big, either. It was furnished to a point of being comfortable. A couch and chair in the living room. A table set in the kitchen. A double bed in one bedroom, and a twin in another.

There wasn’t any artwork on the walls. They would need to go out and grab anything extra they might need like dishes, sheets, and curtains. But that didn’t take much work.

It wasn’t much to look at, sure.

But it was something.

And it was theirs.