Enzo fumbled with the tools again and dropped the tension on the tumbler. There was a fine film of sweat on his face, a mixture of the exhilaration and frustration at his fifth failed attempt. He gave the tools to Gina with a sigh.

“I just can’t do it.”

“Yeah, you can. It’s your first attempt, so give it time. I’ll do it so we can get inside before we’re seen, okay?”

He nodded and stepped back, watching her closely while she worked. After she had taken care of it, she let him walk ahead into the quiet building.

003 (1).png

He stopped inside the door, looking around at the quiet pool room. As opposed to the library, this place wasn’t entirely dark, but lit by lamps on the sides of the pool walls. The light was a soft blue and streaked by white lines that danced with the movement of the water.

Gina motioned for him to follow, though he stayed on his feet for a while, watching her while she took off her shoes and dipped her feet in the water.

“You can join,” she said.

He eyed the water and shook his head. “I’ll pass.”

Still, he sat down by the edge of the pool and turned towards her. Even though he looked around at the slightest sound, he seemed more comfortable today.

“I’ve never been to the community pool,” he said watching her feet that kicked in the water. “Not in the daytime, either.”

Gina smiled. “It’s a lot cooler with no people here. I was here with my siblings as well one time, but it was in the daytime and it was full of people.”

“You go here with your siblings at night?” he asked.

“No, they don’t want to do crime. It’s just me and dad doing all that. Marta, my sister, is a private detective and my brother…” she sighed deeply. “Well, he’s totally lost it. He wants to be an accountant.”

Enzo laughed. “I’m going to be a lawyer. Have I lost it, too?”

003 (2).png

She bit her lip.

“A little bit. It sounds pretty boring, though it’s not as boring as accounting. Why do you want to be a lawyer?”

Enzo lowered his hands and ran his fingers through the water, then shrugged.

“It’s what we do in my family. My dad studied law as well before he took over granddad’s estate and he thought I should, too. He’ll get me a job when I’m out of university and then I’ll work there until he passes and I get the estate. I’m the oldest boy, so that’s why I inherit it.”

“It sounds like you don’t want to be a lawyer.”

Gina kicked, causing the water to ripple and rings to spread around her feet. For a while, the splashes were the only sounds around them.

“I’m okay with it.”

“But you don’t want to, right? Like, my brother seriously thinks accounting is the coolest thing ever and he loves maths and stuff. Really weird shit. But you don’t think that being a lawyer is the coolest, do you?”

Enzo shrugged. “I suppose not.”

003 (4).png

Gina lay down, still splashing with her feet and stretching like a cat before settling with her hand on her stomach.

“You could do something else.”

Enzo snorted. “No, I couldn’t.”

“What if you tell your dad you want to do something else?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She propped herself up on her elbows. “No, it isn’t.”

“What if you told your dad you didn’t want to be a criminal? What would he do?”

“He’d tell me to do some other thing instead. I’m not forced to be in the gang at all – it’s because I like it and I want to. My brother and sister want to do other stuff, and that’s cool by him.”

A wrinkle between his brows told her that she might as well have told him that the pool was filled with molten lava, so foreign was the idea to him.

“My dad would disinherit me and give the estate to my younger brother if I did something like that,” he said then, as matter-of-factly as if he were talking about the weather. “And then I’d have nothing.”

“Not nothing,” she said. “You can always get a job. Or, hey, you can join our gang.”

003 (5).png

He looked away, though there was a small smile on his face.

“I can’t even pick a lock.”

“You’ll learn.”

He nodded slowly and said:

“Your family sounds cool. Tell me about them.”

Gina smiled and obliged him, telling everything she could about the best family in the world, for that was how she saw them. Her dad was her best friend and her siblings were amazing as well – even though she teased her brother about the accounting thing, she didn’t mean anything by it. He was happy, and that was all that mattered.

The only thing she left out was her mother who was alive and well, but pretending to be dead. She may sneak out without telling her dad, but her mum’s being alive was a well-kept secret and one thing that couldn’t ever come out. They always called her ‘aunt Lucia’ to everyone else.

“Your family sounds pretty perfect,” Enzo said when she stopped chatting.

“They are.”

003 (6).png

Silence fell again, and this time Gina broke it:

“I’m sure yours is perfect, too.”

He shrugged. “I guess they are.”

He didn’t say anything more, and Gina didn’t prod, because it didn’t seem like he had anything else to say. She changed the topic to keep the awkward silence from gaining too strong a presence.

“Want to go somewhere else tomorrow?”

“Sure. Where?”

“We could go somewhere with an alarm this time and we can try and disable it. I might fuck it up, though, so we have to be ready to run for it.”

Enzo chuckled and said: “Let’s do it.”

The next evening they broke into the town gym and it was a big night for both of them. She disabled the alarm system without triggering it, and once they had made it in, Enzo picked a lock on one of the gym lockers. It was all she could do not to laugh when the last pin clicked into place, and he gaped at her in amazement.

“I did it!” He handed the tools back with hands that still couldn’t keep steady. His forehead was beaded in sweat and he had the face of a guy who had never really lived before now.

“I can’t believe I did it!”

She hugged him, and it was only after his muscles tensed that she realised she hadn’t done that before. Maybe this was one of those times she should have asked first instead of just acting. However, then he loosened up and hugged her back.

“Thank you,” he said.

003 (8).png

His gaze was still dreamy as they walked upstairs to where the exercise equipment was and sat down on the hard, black surfaces of the treadmills. The smile was etched on his face.

“This is the most insane summer ever,” he said, sighing, and then he looked over at her with a look that made her blush and said: “You’re cool.”

“Thanks. So are you.”

His turn to blush. “Not like you. I mean, I couldn’t even steal a car.”

“You could if you learnt how. It’s not so hard.”

“You want to teach me?”

“Sure.”

Their eyes met in the dim gym, and the silence wasn’t bad this time. Gina had thought he looked good all along, and she had considered the possibility of a kiss, but now she really wanted to kiss him. She wondered if his lips would be as soft as they looked, and she had to look away so her face wouldn’t betray her.

003 (9).png

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said smoothly. “It’s just… why does your friend call you Enzo when your name’s Vincente?”

“It’s a joke.” He leaned on his elbows. “He’s called Lorenzo, and he thought I should be called Vincenzo instead; then we could be Enzo and Enzo. So he calls me Enzo.”

“And you call him Enzo, too?”

“Nope. Just Lorenzo.”

Gina laughed and shook her head. “What, he doesn’t have a fancy long name you can use?”

“Oh, he does. All my friends do. Well, except you.”

She turned away again. Then she asked him to list them all. He did: Name after name, one more ridiculous than the next. By the time he said it was time for him to head home, her sides ached from laughing so much and his face was flushed with joy. Outside the gym, he pulled her in for a hug and when he let go a hand lingered on her arm.

If your comment gets swallowed by the spam filtre, please tell me through my contact page or my Tumblr.

Author’s notes: Will you believe I don’t have much to say to you guys today? It probably helps that this is a fairly quiet, uneventful chapter. It’s mostly here to develop the relationship slowly and steadily. Next week will have a lot more ‘action’ so to speak. Not really action, but more stuff will happen. I thank you for reading if you made it this far, and I hope everyone has a great weekend. I’ll see you for the next post.

~Louise


19 Comments

socallucyfan · June 23, 2018 at 5:14 am

I LOVE these two. I hope next chapter will see more “action” between these two (wink, wick).
But Enzo almost lost me when he said he was going to be a lawyer (which way way way worse than being an accountant).

    NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 3:16 pm

    Next chapter will definitely be more eventful, I can promise that 😉
    Ha, ha, Gina judges based on how boring she thinks it is, so to her there’s at least a chance of getting in some good arguments as a lawyer! 😛
    Thank you for your comment. I’m so glad you like them <3

amyqueen · June 23, 2018 at 5:21 am

A hand lingered on her arm and then… AND THEN??!!! How can you leave us hanging there? The next chapter isn’t going to continue on the following day, is it? Because while I quite like these late night rendezvous of Enzo and Gina, I kinda wanna know if there is something more to this moment here 😇 This was a sweet chapter. I mentioned in the last one that the fact that Enzo has had so many predecessors with his full name is hilarious and the fact that his friends have equally lengthy names is cute, haha. I forgot to mention that I was also curious as to where the derivation of Enzo came exactly, so thanks for answering that. I feel you Gina, I’m already rooting for you to get that kiss, too 😏 The fact that the kids call Victoria aunt Lucia is weird to me because that woman was a nightmare, and considering their horrendous relationship, I feel like Victoria wouldn’t take too well to that, they couldn’t have gone with something else? lol. I love reading a blossoming relationship~ Hope you enjoy your weekend as well 💓

    amyqueen · June 23, 2018 at 5:23 am

    Okay my phone autocorrected Vittoria to Victoria and I didn’t catch that, lol. 🤷‍♀️ Not a mistake on my part~ Just putting that out there, haha

      NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 3:20 pm

      I get what you were saying, no worries 😛

    NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 3:20 pm

    Hey, you’re not the only one who likes to leave people hanging. Bwahaha… The next chapter will be more eventful, and no, it won’t continue directly on from this.
    It’s just kind of what those weird, rich people do, ha ha 😀
    They don’t call her Lucia to her face, that’s for sure. But she took on her mother’s identity so to people outside the family, they call her Lucia. The aunt part is because Carlo doesn’t like people thinking he has a relationship with his mother-in-law 😛 For obvious reasons.
    I’m glad you enjoy their relationship <3 And thank you so much for reading and commenting <3

      amyqueen · June 24, 2018 at 1:38 am

      Dang it, I was hoping he’d do something with that lingering arm, lol. I thought wrong it would appear *sigh* I shall patiently wait for that eventual moment of passion then… but I expect it shall only come after lots of tension and more teasing 😏

loladiamond01 · June 23, 2018 at 11:51 am

They are so damn cute together. I love reading about their nighttime adventures. I feel sorry for Enzo that he is forced to become a lawyer. Myself, I come from a family of doctors, but I’d never let anyone dictate me who to become. That sounds horrible. That is why my brother failed his medicine studies after my parents convinced him to take them up. Okay, it got too personal…
I met a guy at the bus yesterday. He looked so much like Frank with a beard. But he was trying too hard in that suit, with a Puma bag, an iPhone and an expensive watch. He looked so fancy!
Well, I am already rooting for these two and hope to see more of them soon enough!

    NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 3:26 pm

    Doing stuff for other people’s sake is generally a bad idea. His mindset is really bizarre to Gina as well – her dad would never force her 🙂
    Oh wow, how strange XD what was Frank doing looking so fancy anyway?!
    I’m really glad you like the two of them together. Thank you for reading and commenting, Jowita <3

sempreviva · June 23, 2018 at 12:29 pm

Oh my, these two are such an adorable couple!! <3 I, too, love their little secret rendezvous, so I hope they'll continue to happen – with a little more romantic action next time please, lol!
I can tell that Enzo (loved his name story by the way) is not too happy about the prospect of being a lawyer – I wonder if he'll seriously consider Gina's proposal though?
I look forward to seeing what's next, I loved this chapter! 😀

    NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 4:57 pm

    I can definitely promise that stuff is going to happen next chapter 😉 I really like these two as well ❤
    He’s if not unhappy then at least pretty luke-warm on being a lawyer, yeah.
    Thank you so much for reading and commenting ❤ I look so much forward to sharing more about them ❤

Kymber · June 23, 2018 at 4:40 pm

They are such an adorable pair! <3 I'm thinking maybe Gina isn't the best influence on him, though. lol I want them to stay together, though, because they just seem suited to one another.

    NotJustaBook · June 23, 2018 at 4:59 pm

    I’m glad you think so, Kym <3
    Gina definitely isn't a good influence, though. She always tries not to be 😛
    I think they're pretty well suited for each other, as well.
    Thank you for commenting <3

twinsimskeletons · June 24, 2018 at 12:23 pm

[inserts gif of the titanic] i am going down with the ship
I always find it sad when kids are told what they’re going to be just because that’s what the family business is. Nothing more depressing than having a job you hate imo. I hope Gina will be able to convince him otherwise. Either that or uses his lawyer connections for the benefit of the gang, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here 😛

    NotJustaBook · June 24, 2018 at 7:19 pm

    I ship my own characters pretty hard as well haha 😀
    I agree that it’s sad. It’s really important to have a job that you can at least live with and feel comfortable in 🙂 Enzo’s under a lot of pressure on that front. Thank you for commenting 🙂

Lila Remonn · June 25, 2018 at 8:24 am

I love the pool setting — the pictures have a lovely, dreamy aura, with that blue lighting, and I can totally imagine what the atmosphere feels like!
In fact, the whole chapter has a nice peaceful feeling. I really enjoy the effortless conversation between the two. It feels very natural. Is there a ship name yet???
Oh dear, Enzo, being pressured into following his family business like that. I still laughed when Gina said he could just get a job, though, he’s really got those rich kid glasses on. On Gina’s proposal, I can’t imagine him seriously joining the gang, he just seems too mild mannered. I wonder if anything will happen with that!
Great chapter <3

    NotJustaBook · June 25, 2018 at 9:03 am

    Thank you so much <3 I fiddled a lot with invisible lights and coloured lights for those pics, so I'm glad it paid off 😀
    I don't think there's a ship name, no – nobody's suggested one. I'm open for ideas!
    Ha, ha, yes! Gina is a lot more pragmatic – he doesn't really have much experience with the world outside of rich spheres, so to him he loses everything he exits that sphere 😛
    You might have the right of it there – he certainly wouldn't be anything like Carlo or something 😛
    Thank you for reading and commenting and for the kind words <3

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