Page 135 of The Other Side of Green

“Nope.”

“Can she play violin?” I already knew the answer to this. Then only thing she could play was the crack pipe.

“Nope.”

“And my dad—sorry old dad, whatever—he can’t play either.”

We stared at one another and then shrugged in tandem. I smiled despite myself.

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“Bout what?”

“Your mom?”

“I don’t know. She seems to think the house is hers and that everything Grams left behind is hers too.”

“She’d have a point.”

Luca bit on his lower lip. “Maybe.” Picking up his mug he slurped down some of Letitia’s perfect coffee.

“So what are you going to do? You’ve lost your job. What about you and Raven?”

“Raven?”

“Aren’t you a thing?”

Luca shook his head. “Sometimes.”

“You should probably tell Lyra that. Jeez, she was hopping mad that day you called and told her.”

“You were with her?”

“We were in practice. I thought she was going to combust.”

“What happened?” Luca grinned, he really was still a child.

I pondered this for a moment. What had happened. It was only a few weeks ago, but it seemed a lifetime. “That was the first time she actually managed to play.”

“She didn’t touch that damn violin after you left. Not for months, until Grams begged her to. It was Grams who begged her to do that damn audition for the scholarship application too. She’d be spinning in her grave if she knew Lyra had been made a fool of.”

My cell buzzed, pulling me from the conversation. “Oh, it’s Lyra.” I pressed the screen. “Hey, I’m just having breakfast with Luca.”

I listened for a minute, meeting Luca’s gaze. “I’ll be there now.”

Luca was already backing out of his seat. “What’s happened?”

“The other girl who was going to lie about a relationship with me has spoken to Lyra.”

Luca caught my arm and held me back. “What? What other girl?”

“You haven’t heard any of that bit, have you? I’ll fill you in on the way to college.”

Luca followed me to pay Letitia at the counter. “Jack, what exactly have you got yourself into here?”

Hell. That’s what I’d got myself into, and now I had to find a way to crawl back out.

* * *