Page 43 of Naz & Roz

“She also hasn’t asked, Luca.”

“So, then you fucking tell her anyway.” Luca shrugged. “What you don’t do is spend day after day with her, and then drop off her radar like it’s nothing. That fucks with her head, even if you don’t mean for it to. And you know what, if you fuck with my sister’s head again, I’ll fucking beat your ass. Got it?”

Naz blinked, his hackles clanging. That cocky part of him that didn’t know how to let a threat go unanswered thought to rise right to the fucking occasion, even if it was his friend who threatened him … and even if Luca was kind of justified at the moment.

“Excuse me?” Naz asked, moving closer to his friend again.

Luca moved forward, too. “You heard what I said, Naz.”

The two men were so close that if Naz or Luca leaned in, their fucking foreheads would touch. He had a crystal clear view of the anger and challenge in Luca’s gaze. There was no doubt his friend wasn’t fucking around today.

The fucking arrogant idiot Naz was meant he didn’t see those things as warnings he should heed, but rather, something he wanted to face head on. See just how far he could push Luca because why the hell not?

“My business,” Naz drawled out slowly, “isn’t any of your fucking business. Do you got that?”

“My sister—”

“Stay the fuck out of my business, Luca.”

Luca’s gaze flashed, and Naz didn’t even see that fucking fist coming from his friend until it was too late. He wouldn’t call it a cheap shot, necessarily. He’d pushed his friend’s line, and Luca decided to answer that call with his own actions.

Fair was fucking fair, after all.

Naz always said so.

Nonetheless, that punch landed hard against Naz’s jaw, and sent his head spinning to the side. He might have felt a tooth or two come loose, too, but it was hard to say. He was a little distracted by the pain stinging through the side of his face, and the blood blooming across his tongue.

Fuck.

Naz laughed, and shook his head as he spat the blood to the ground and righted himself. Luca had moved back a step, and had his hands resting down by his side. Other than the clenching of the fist that he’d hit Naz with, and the reddening of his knuckles, one wouldn’t be able to tell that the man had hit him at all. All Luca’s anger was gone, and he seemed done with the entire show.

Nodding, Naz murmured, “You put some fucking weight behind that one.”

Luca shrugged. “It’ll only hurt for a while, asshole.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

Naz ran his tongue along his inner cheek to rid the rest of the blood, and eyed his friend all the while. “I know it’s your fucking sister, but you know I’m not here to mess around with her in that kind of way, either. It’s not like that, so back off.”

“Then, don’t make her feel like that and this won’t have to happen again. Are we clear, or what?”

Yeah, he got it.

“My bad,” Naz murmured.

Luca cleared his throat, and stuffed his hands in his pockets as he inched forward to come closer to Naz once more. “And I guess, I’m sorry about the whole hitting you thing even if you did deserve it for acting like a prick. Because you are.”

“Someone’s gotta keep me in line.”

His friend laughed, still coming closer. “Right?”

Pulling one hand out of his pocket, Luca moved to offer it to Naz to shake. Their way of saying let bygones be bygones about the whole thing. It was their thing. It happened, and now it was fucking over.

Naz shook his friend’s hand.

“If you’re all quite done measuring dicks out here,” came the sweetest voice Naz had ever heard in his life, “then I would like a second.”

Naz grinned over Luca’s shoulder, even as his friend sighed and rolled his eyes. “Hey, you.”