“I was a little disappoint, because you look so beautiful in the first,” he said, nudging me. I felt cold excitement start to bloom up my body from my stomach. I pushed the hair away from my face. I liked talking to Luca.

“I can show it to you,” I said, my voice purring contentedly. I felt warm. I pulled out my phone and flipped through my pictures, holding the screen away from him so he couldn't see it. I looked at the picture I’d taken by the pool, in my wet bra.  No way, I thought, reconsidering.

“I can’t show it to you,” I giggled.

“Oh, come on,” he urged. I yelped as he grabbed for my phone.

“Wait!”

I watched as his eyes widened in surprise. “This is you?”

I was dressed in jeans and a baggy "Stanford" sweatshirt--a far cry from the pictures I sent him.  Luca adopted a suspicious expression and lifted the hem of my sweatshirt, as if to see what was really underneath.

“Stop!” I squealed, batting his hands away.

“Luca!” Victoria admonished from the front seat. I could feel Robert’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Victoria turned and glared at Luca.

“It was this kind of shit that got him kicked out of his school.” She faced Luca and scolded him in rapid-fire Italian, occasionally motioning at me with one of her hands.

Luca looked chastened. I felt bad for him.

“I am sorry, sister,” he said.

“It’s okay,” I said, hiding a grin. I had never let my guard down like I had with Luca, and I realized that talking to him was fun.

****

The four of us settled into a corner booth at the restaurant, and our waiter, a smiling Mexican man, set menus in front of us.

“I thought we’d treat you to some Tex-Mex for your first meal in America,” Robert told Luca.

“This is Robert’s favorite place,” Victoria said, smiling gorgeously.

Luca nodded, then scrutinized the menu.

“Amelia, why don't you help Luca pick something,” Robert suggested.

“Of course.” I scooted his direction and leaned into him. After we figured out what we were going to eat, we placed our order, and then Robert and Victoria had their own discussion while Luca and I had ours.

“So, why did you get kicked out of school,” I asked him.

“Ah, I don’t like to talk about it.”

“C'mon, it's no big deal. I'm your sister now, remember?” I lightly teased.

“Well, I was getting--I don’t know how you call it--special lessons from my English teacher, you know, because I thought I might come to America. I was sort of in trouble in anyway, like I thought I was going to get kicked out because of some other thing, so I thought if I come to America, I would need better English.”

“Special lessons?”

“Ah yes...my mother paid for extra lessons. But then, um...”

Was Luca saying he fucked his English teacher? He couldn’t be. He grinned devilishly. There was definitely a language barrier between us.

“She was really young,” he said quietly, just loud enough for me to hear. “From England. With red hair.”

“Uh huh,” I breathed in anticipation. I didn’t know why I liked hearing about Luca’s conquests but I did.  Whenever I heard the boys at school bragging about how they’d fucked so-and-so, I usually just felt bad for the girl. I was so used to rolling my eyes at boys' macho bullshit.  But this was somehow different.

Victoria looked over at us suspiciously. She butted in, changing the subject.

“This was something I wanted to talk to you about, Amelia. Could you help Luca with some of his lessons? He still needs help with his English, after we paid for a whole year of those lessons.” She glared at Luca. He looked down at his plate bashfully.

She continued. “You said you study to be a teacher, no?”

“Yes,” I said, “an English teacher.”

“Perfect,” Victoria said. My dad and Victoria both beamed at me. "You will help your new brother then."  Luca and I looked at each other and smiled.

****

Luca went to sleep early that night in an attempt to get his jet lag under control. I sat on the couch, aimlessly flipping through channels. I could hear Robert and Victoria in the kitchen. They were talking in hushed voices, and I turned down the TV so I could make out their conversation.

“Yes, Robert, he is a smart boy. But he is almost too smart. He knows he can get away with things. He fucked the headmaster's daughter and everyone knew about it. It was a religious school, Robert. It took a lot of money to smooth it over. And then we pay his English teacher to make for him extra lessons, and he fucks her, too, and everyone knows about it again. We pay for a whole year of lessons, and the whole time they were fucking instead.  So now his English is still bad. She was a really sweet girl, Robert. I felt so bad for her when she lost her position at the school. She had to go back to her little town in Wales. And people are so conservative there. I think maybe Luca ruined her life. He just makes scandals everywhere, but he always acts so nice. It’s hard to be angry with him. He does whatever he wants.”

“Jesus,” Robert said pensively. I could picture him closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose, the way he did when he was really exasperated. “Are you worried at all about Amelia? What do you think he'll do to her?”

“No. He wouldn’t do something like that, not with Amelia.  And Amelia is such a good girl, she wouldn't allow it. That’s why I want her to help Luca with his English. Robert," her voice lowered an octave with concern, “I don’t know if they will let him back into Italy. He has just made so much scandal.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid,” he growled.

“Thank you, Robert,” Victoria said, and I heard them kiss.

We pay for a whole year of lessons, and the whole time they were fucking instead, so now his English is still bad. I tried not to laugh. Victoria made Luca out to be really naughty. And I guess in a way he was; he was probably devastated to find out I was such a goody-two-shoes.

 

I felt a thrill crawl up my spine. Was he really as bad as he sounded? Not being able to return to Italy made him seem like an outright criminal. He didn’t seem that bad when I talked to him. So what if his English teacher was dumb enough to fall for one of her students?

****

I closed the door of the library study room behind me. I was twenty minutes late, and Luca had been waiting for me patiently since school let out at 3pm.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I will just have terrible English now.”

“You’re English is actually pretty good.”

“I think it’s pretty bad. Everyone here talks with a funny accent, too. I’m not used to it.”

“We’re in Texas, honey,” I drawled. Luca put his English homework on the table, along with a copy of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I looked at it blankly.

“You’re reading that?!”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I actually read English pretty good. I don’t understand everything, but it’s okay. I like literature, it’s what I want to study.”

“Okay. That’s a really good book.”

“Why you sound so surprised?” he asked with an edge of anger in voice that took me by surprise. “Everybody thinks I am so shallow, that I just fuck girls and make scandals. Even my mother this way. Then I meet Elizabeth, my English teacher in Bergamo. Do you think we just fuck? We like each other--we like the same things--I had someone to talk with literature about. This is her book that she gave to me. I still think about her every day, and this is the only thing I have from her.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. Just teach me English, so I don’t talk so bad.”

“Okay,” I said, chagrined. I plopped the heavy grammar book I had ordered from Amazon on the table. "Let’s get started.”

A couple hours flew by. Luca wasn’t anything like I expected him to be from our flirtations over the internet. He was a great student and he didn’t seem to have any trouble concentrating.