Page 23 of Privilege

Finally, he got tired of being quiet and asked, “Are you even old enough to drive?”

That shut her up.

Lucia’s gaze cut to him, and narrowed. “Would we be in this car otherwise?”

Well …

“I don’t know the kinds of strings your people can pull,” he said, shrugging one leather-covered shoulder. “Fake license, maybe. A guy I used to work for got me one when I was sixteen, so I could get into places that required me to be at least eighteen.”

Lucia rolled her eyes. “I’m almost eighteen. I do have my license, but I had to have some strings pulled to let me drive at night since I’m not eighteen yet. But that won’t matter soon, anyway.”

Renzo blinked.

All he heard in that was almost eighteen.

Which meant she was seventeen.

Jesus. H. Christ.

Before he could mull that over, though, Lucia was speaking again. “And how old are you, Renzo?”

“Old enough to know I have no business sitting in this fucking car.”

Lucia frowned. “Why?”

“Many reasons.” He waved that question off. “Turn right at the next stop light.”

She followed his direction as she hummed under her breath. “I’d say you’re about eighteen, right?”

Renzo made a noise in the back of his throat. “Close. Nineteen, almost twenty.”

“Huh.”

Yeah.

Like he said … old enough to know better.

Another block passed them by in silence before Lucia was the first one to break it. Color him surprised. The girl didn’t seem to know how to sit in peace and quiet.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable by offering you a ride,” she said.

Well, he hadn’t been expecting that.

Renzo glanced over at her, but he found all he could see was her profile since she was so focused on what was ahead of them on the road. It didn’t matter, really. The lights from the dash were enough to halo her soft features, so he could linger a little too long on the shape of her lips and the length of her eyelashes.

She really was something to look at.

A part of him wondered what else made up this young woman, but the rest of him figured … not very fucking much. Money could give a person a lot of things, but it couldn’t magically turn them into a human being or tune them into the reality of the world around them. That was the thing about those who lived in the rose-tinted bubble of wealth and privilege … they never had to face life. Comfort, stability, and protection was simply paid for, and expected.

The very second he thought those things, his mind was quick to point out that he didn’t know if those things were true about Lucia. he was only assuming because of the image she presented to the world. A lot like people just assumed whatever the fuck they wanted to about him because of where he came from.

Where was the difference?

It didn’t matter. That bitterness was bred as deep as it could be into Renzo’s very fabric of being. He couldn’t even cut that shit out.

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” he lied. “I just figured you probably had better things to do than haul my ass around.”

Lucia shrugged, and finally glanced over at him. There was honesty staring back from her when she murmured, “Not really.”