Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“That sounds like a plan,” he says.
What Luca sounds like is dazed. Yes, you can sound that way as well as look it.
It’s my parents. Me. This whole trip, especially when he hasn’t left his house in years. It’s crashing headlong into the past. It’s not eating since this morning.
I can only fix one thing at a time. I loop my arm through his, changing up the plan so we can have a bit of a walk first. He just has that small bag with him, and it doesn’t seem like a problem for him to carry it. If he gets tired, I’d be happy to help shoulder the burden.
All the burdens. As a team effort.
If he’d let me.
“There’s a sub shop about ten minutes from here, and I know they’re open late. We could get sandwiches and get a cab from there if you want.”
Meaning, are you okay? Luca isn’t a recluse, but at the same time, he was so worried about the way he looked that he didn’t ever go out. That was in New York, and I can see why it would bother him there, but there’s no way I’m going to force him to do something he doesn’t want to do here. If even one person makes a single comment or looks at him funny, I know I’m going to turn into a shape-shifting werewolf. Fuck the subs, I’ll have their rude ass for dinner.
And the rest of them too.
He pulls the hood of his hoodie back up and draws the strings tight. “If you want subs, we’ll get subs.”
My heart practically explodes. Suddenly, the words come. What I’ve been trying to put together for days, losing sleep over, and what I couldn’t figure out how to say to my parents, it’s just there.
Luca’s bag hangs from his shoulder, leaving his hands free, so I take them both in mine and step so close that our chests almost touch.
“I don’t believe in love at first sight. My dad said this was just infatuation, but it’s not. I’m not even sure I believe in soulmates, at least not the way the world makes them out to be. I think they can exist if you find parts of yourself in someone else. Sometimes those parts are missing, but other times you didn’t even know they existed at all. It doesn’t have to be romantic. It’s part of that for me. Finding pieces of myself I didn’t know I even needed to search for until I met you.
“But it’s your flaws that are beautiful. And I’m not talking about scars. I mean everything that makes you who you are. I just… I have this deep surety that they’d match so well with mine. We’re not mirror images of each other. We’re two people from different backgrounds who have lived different lives, but we can still be perfect for each other. There are parts of me that need parts of you. Like puzzle pieces fitting together. Interlocking. Completing…”
I stumble through the last bit and trail off. If I’d waited to give my thoughts a chance to formulate themselves properly, I could have been more eloquent, but fuck that. I don’t need eloquence. I need honesty.
Isn’t that the rarest thing in the world?
Luca’s eyes never leave my face. He stares back steadily, but I can tell how his mind is whirring. I don’t want to ask for clarification, but the longer we stand here, the more unnerving this gets.
And then.
He gathers up a handful of my long hair and brushes it back over my shoulder so gently and tenderly that it sends my heart spilling out of my chest all over again. It’s becoming a hazard.
My parents have cameras in the bakery, and they might have heard what I just said if they were in the office. But it’s okay. I wish I could have expressed all that earlier to help them understand. I left a different person than the one I am right now. A minute can change you. I’ve had a lot of minutes, not all of them with Luca, but I needed those minutes by myself just as badly.
Luca grazes my forehead with a kiss that lights up my whole body. Warmth pools in my limbs and gathers in my stomach in a delicious, sloshy puddle.
“I hear you,” he breathes. That’s it. No philosophy or in-depth response. Nothing to affirm or challenge my theories. No sparring of wits.
Just that he’s listening.
He’s feeling.
He’s thinking and processing.
And that means more than anything in the world.
Chapter eleven
Luca
It’s natural for parents to think the sun revolves around their child, but Archie was right when he said Dulcie is the sun.
From her stifled laughter to the smile she’s tried to hide all night, she’s beautiful.
She was lovely in the bakery, composed and searching for the right words, and standing at my side like it was easy to summon an ocean’s worth of courage. She pulled down the wisdom of the stars and wrapped them in the palm of her hand.