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“Julius is going to kiss a girl,” she teased.

He turned from the mirror and pointed a straight finger at her. “You’re asking for it, little girl.” She giggled. He loved to hear her laugh. He could be pissed off at the world and her laughter would make him smile, every time. He would probably never love a girl as much as he loved that little shit.

“Make sure you wrap it up,” Romano demanded.

“Wrap what up?” nosey little Aquilla wanted to know.

“Wrap you up,” Romano lied. He shouldn’t have said that in front of her. He wasn’t ready to explain that one just yet.

“Wrap what up, Julius?” she asked, turning to her brother. She wanted a straight answer. Did he buy her a present? What had he bought her?

“A necklace,” he too lied, giving his father a dirty look. He wasn’t going there yet either. He was never going there. His father could have that job.

“Come on, you have a piano lesson,” Romano coaxed her off the bed.

“I don’t like the piano,” she complained, walking in front of him.

“What do you like?” her father asked.

“I want to play the flute,” she decided.

Julius laughed. If Aquilla wanted to play the flute, she would be playing the flute. She hadn’t wanted to play the violin; she wanted to play the piano. Romano bought her a piano. The girl probably had every instrument known to man, aside from a drum set. YET.

Julius didn’t have to wrap anything up. He didn’t even want to kiss the girl. She was a snobby rich bitch. He didn’t get two words in during their romantic dinner. It was all me, me, me. He cut the date short and was back home by eight.

He stood in the door of the living room, watching Aquilla talk to herself and move from one side of the Monopoly game, when it was her turn, to the other side, when it was Julius’s turn. Her imaginary Julius landed on a Railroad.

“Oh, no, Julius, you just move on to the next one. I have to buy the Railroads,” she demanded, talking to herself as he watched with a smile.

“You always get the Railroads,” he accused.

“Julius!” she exclaimed, seeing him. “Do you want to play with me?”

“I would love to play with you,” he assured her, taking his place in his designer dress clothes. He did want to play with her. He would much rather be there, playing board games with Aquilla, than with that snobby bitch that he didn’t even care to remember her name.

“Did you kiss her?” Aquilla asked, rolling the dice.

“Yuck, that’s gross,” he teased. She laughed.

Romano started to wonder if he had a problem a couple of months later, on Aquilla’s birthday. Julius bought her a Barbie mansion. She was so excited sitting on her bed, waiting for him to set it up. He cussed under his breath a million times trying to put the damn thing together.

“Julius, I’m going to be 11 before I even get to play with it,” she whined, tolerantly waiting with four new Barbie’s, also patiently waiting to move in, “note the sarcasm,” she added.

He laughed. God, he loved that kid.

She was passed out cold across her bed by the time he was finished.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Romano asked, coming to her room around ten. He moved the new Barbie’s from the bed and pulled down Aquilla’s covers.

“Trying to put this stupid mother fucker together,” Julius replied, cleaning up the mess. He looked down at the one pink plastic piece that he still hadn’t figured out where the hell it needed to go.

“I heard that, Julius,” Aquilla, sleepily said, crawling into her bed. He smiled.

Romano covered her and kissed her on the head.

“Let’s talk, Son,” Romano coaxed, nodding toward the door.

Julius followed him into his office and plopped to the chair in front of his father’s massive desk. “What? I’m tired; I want to go to bed.”

“I don’t think it’s healthy for you to spend as much time with Quill as you do,” he began.

Julius snorted. “Okay, where would you rather I spend my time?”

“I don’t know, maybe with girls your own age. You should be dating.”

“Why would I want to date? I get more pussy than any 17 year old boy. I’m sure of that,” he added. “Why would I want to deal with some whiny ass bitch? I would much rather hang out with Quill,” he assured his father.

“She depends on you, too much. I don’t think it’s healthy for either one of you.”

“Father, she has no one to play with. She can’t go to a normal school and make friends. You can’t just throw an instrument and an instructor at her when you think she is bored. I feel bad for her being alone all the time.”

Romano smiled. “I get it, go to bed,” Romano said, dismissing him. He too felt bad about that, but it had to be that way. They didn’t live the kind of life that would allow her to be normal. Aquilla was always in danger. Romano would never take the chance of putting her in harm’s way because of the enemies he had collected throughout the years.

Julius decided that she couldn’t come into his bed anymore when she was around 12. She had come in sometime during the night while he was asleep. He stared at her sleeping form, sprawled out on his bed, with her hands over her head the next morning. She was wearing mint green pajama pants with a matching thin tank-top. She was growing breasts. He could see them poking out of the shirt. It didn’t look good for her to sleep in his bed anymore.

She didn’t understand why he had sent her back to her own bed a couple of nights later. She felt better in bed with him. She didn’t wake up scared in his bed. Julius had his father talk to her about it. He didn’t know how to explain it. He was only 19. He didn’t know how to tell a girl that it wasn’t proper to be in her brother’s bed at her age. She pouted for a couple of days, but forgave him when she needed help with her homework. That was the first night she had asked him about his “job.”

He was explaining predicate nouns to her in her room, siting at her desk. He looked down at her when she didn’t respond to his explanation. She was staring up at him with her beautiful sparkling blue eyes. She was turning into such a pretty girl.

“What, Quill?” he asked, quietly.

“What do you do in the north wing? Why can’t I go there?” she wanted to know.

He turned his eyes shamelessly back to the English book. “I work there, Quill. It’s not a place for little girls,” he assured her.

“I’m hardly a little girl anymore. I’m old enough to see. Do you work with girls?”

His eyes quickly reverted back to hers. “Why would you ask that?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I see girls come there sometimes late at night, and then they leave with other men after about a week. They always come for them late at night. Why, Julius?”

“I have to teach them and then they leave. Do your homework,” he tried, turning back to the book.

“What do you teach them?”

“How to be a lady, now do your homework.”

“Do you kiss them?”

“No, now stop asking questions and get your lessons done.” He didn’t like talking about this with Aquilla. She could never understand and he could never explain it so that she would.

“Will you kiss me, Julius?”

He choked on his own saliva. “No, I won’t kiss you. You’re my sister. That’s kind of gross.”

“But I’m not really your sister.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Aquilla tilted her head. “Really, Julius?” She moved her arm next to his. It was like black and white. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew he wasn’t her brother as much as she knew Romano wasn’t her father. She was unquestionably a white girl. Julius’s mother was Asian and his father was Hispanic. Julius had dark eyes and even had a little bit of a slant in the corners. Aquilla had bright blue eyes, unlike her father and Julius.