Chapter Seventeen
I never meant to let Luca Kinnaird crawl into my heart. I’m not in love with him, but, somehow, I feel connected to him, responsible for him. Maybe carrying a secret together does that to you. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s sticking by his end of the deal no matter what. Or maybe it’s because, deep down, he’d like to be a better person than he is.
Whatever the reason, I wake up the next morning with the same heavy feeling that weighed on me the whole way home last night. Andrew called his cousin from the car, and they told her enough to get her on board, without telling her it was all to protect Jasmine. “This way,” Andrew had said, “if this blows up and either of you lose influencer credit, she can claim she had no idea and it’s the truth.” Whoever came up with the tangled web analogy wasn’t kidding.
Andrew gave me a mini tutorial on running social media accounts, but I told him he could do it. The whole thing seems like a colossal waste of time and energy. Besides, this will be over soon. The sooner, the better. He says we have to be more regular about it if I’m going to be taken seriously as an influencer. I’ve never been a fan of social media, but strategizing to show a life that’s anything but authentic makes me feel like I’ve joined the club in the worst way possible. It seems ridiculous that anyone will listen to me just because I supposedly date someone famous. When I look at the accounts of sports stars and musicians, though, their partners do become famous just by being with them if they aren’t already celebrities. Although, people like Jasmine exist in their own sphere. The girl has well over three hundred million followers, and all she does is post pictures of herself that look the same. I don’t get the fascination.
Luca is supposed to come for dinner at four, but he shows up at two. He’s brought us a giant bouquet of flowers and a bunch of things my mom likes that he had Hodges go buy, like her favorite tea and biscotti al cioccolato. My mom gives Luca way more credit than he deserves, and he smiles smugly as if I’d challenged him that she wouldn’t like him. Anyone looking in would think getting her good opinion actually mattered tohim.
I show Luca around the flat. It’s not very big, and we use the third bedroom as a guest room and office, so the tour takes all of five minutes. When we get to my room, Luca walks to the balcony door and looks over the courtyard. “I’m not sure you could hear me from down there, Juliet, unless I had a megaphone.”
I laugh. “It’s a good thing you won’t need to make me any love speeches, then.”
My guitar, which is sitting in its stand in the corner, catches his eye. “You didn’t tell me you play.”
“I figured your background check on me was more thorough than a CIA investigation.”
“I did not run a background check on you. Although, clearly, I should have.” He crosses to a wall of photos. “Is this your dad? You look like him.”
I pad over and stand beside him. “Yes. And these are his parents. And this is my granddad from Maine.”
“The one who would think my car is impractical?”
“Can you move a cow with it?”
“No.”
“Then it is impractical. At least in Maine.”
“Oh, wow, is that his farm? That’s barry. It’s right on the water, just like my parents’ place.”
He’s pointing to my favorite picture of my granddad’s farm. It just catches the edge of the white clapboard house beside the flower garden overlooking the bay, with the tattered old red barn off to the right. “The ocean’s too cold to swim in, even in August, though people do.”
Luca laughs. “Same, but we say Baltic.” He catches my hand and fingers a silver band I wear with latitude and longitude marks engraved on it. “These coordinates are to your granddad’s farm, aren’t they?”
I nod. We just look at each other a moment, and then I turn, not even needing Andrew around to chastise me.
He runs his hand over my shelves, filled with books and a few old movies. “All classics.”
“Were you expecting Star Wars?”
“No. But I suspect you have at least seen Star Wars.”
“Some of them.”
Luca pulls his phone from his pocket. “Andy says to check your latest posts.”
“You mean his latest posts.” I pull out my phone and open the photo app. My number of followers has jumped by at least three thousand since Andrew posted pictures of our sailing day, apparently because the tabloids somehow missed capturing our excursion, so there’s a buzz of curiosity over it.
“What?” Luca asks when I just stare at it. “It’s a good thing.”
I shrug. “It was such a wonderful day, but somehow it doesn’t seem like it’s ours with all these people pawing at it.”
“That’s exactly how it feels. Welcome to celebrity-ville.”
As I look at the posts Andrew has made, Luca suddenly grabs my hand. “Don’t read the comments.”
“Are they bad?”
“Not usually, but sometimes, aye. Most of the time, it’s just a bunch of heart emojis or people saying stuff like what a cute couple we are or how much they love us.”
“And when it is mean?”
“Nothing to believe,” Luca says. “If you let strangers take up space in your head, Story, there won’t be any room left in there for you.”
“Isn’t that the point, though, that we’re doing this so that they’ll say good things? How are we supposed to know if we’re doing it right?”
“Andrew will keep an eye on it in case there’s anything we really need to know. Most of it’s out of our control. We put content out there, they get to choose whether they like it or not. Did you talk to Dani yet?”
I let him change the subject. “We FaceTimed. She has my measurements and address. She said she’d overnight some things.”
“Well, that’s one problem solved.”
“Not exactly,” I whisper. “I have no idea how I’m going to explain to my mom that her daughter is an overnight social media influencer with a new wardrobe. She’s going to know I wouldn’t agree to that normally.”
Luca scratches his head. “Well, you can play up the angle that you’re just helping Andrew’s cousin out. That’s not a lie. And maybe she won’t think much about it. Maybe she won’t question how many followers either of us has.”
“I did tell her you’re a little famous in celebrity circles, but she has no idea my picture is being splashed everywhere. She wouldn’t be happy. She’s more of a force protection, keep-it-under-wraps kind of person.”
“Well, she does work for a state department. I’m not really famous outside of Europe, so that should help. There’s famous, and then there’s Jasmine famous.”
I push my hands into my pockets. “You aren’t chasing her because of how famous she is, right?”
“Wow. I knew you didn’t think much of me, Story, but that’s a bit lower than I realized.”
“I’m sorry. I do think you like her. I just…I’m struggling to wrap my head around this celebrity stuff. And even you said it helps to be famous.”
Luca gazes at me. “I’m not saying I’ve never dated anyone for the optics”—he pauses and tilts his head at me with a smile—“but that’s not how this started out.”
“It just seems like—” I stop because it really doesn’t matter what I think.
“Like what?”
“You know, it’s really not my business. I’m just going to shut up now.”
Luca looks at me with a half smile playing about his lips. “While I do appreciate this momentous occasion, I’d still like to know what you were going to say.”
I raise my eyebrows at his joke.
“Come on,” he says with a bigger smile.
“I just wonder if it’s her persona more than her. Because it seems like it’s your Luca persona that likes her, and not the realyou.”
Luca’s face slackens, and he just looks at me. I’m not sure if he’s mad or surprised or what. My mom calls to us from the kitchen. We’re out of gelato for the chocolate cake I made for dessert, so she sends us to get some. On the way down in the elevator, it feels as if there’s an unspoken contract between us to let the conversation go, so we debate what flavors of ice cream to get instead. Out on the street, a paparazzo is hanging around Luca’s car, and we wave to him as we walk by.
“We’re just popping out for some gelato, mannie, but you’re welcome to follow us if you think it’s exciting,” Luca says.
He answers something in German, and Luca laughs.
“What did he say?”
“Well, I don’t know a lot of German, but I caught that. He said he hates his job.”
We both laugh, and I feel kind of sorry for the guy as he drags along behind us to the gelato shop. When we get back, we run into Guin, Kelsey, and Alicia in the lobby.
I introduce them to Luca. They giggle like preteens. “I love your posts, you’re soooo funny. We totally have to hang sometime,” Guin says.
Luca smiles as he puts his arm around my neck. “I’m sure Story and I would love to if we get the chance. We always seem to be booked up, though I can never remember making the plans.”
“Everybody at school just loves Story,” Kelsey says.
“Yeah, she’s the sweetest,” Alicia adds.
“She is?” Luca asks. “I tend to think of her more as a fierce warrior type. You know, a ballbuster.”
I crinkle my eyebrows together. “Thanks?”
“But in the absolute best kind of way,” he adds with an inside smile.
“Barry,” I say, and Luca laughs and pulls me in and kisses me. Not on the cheek, but a real kiss. Enough of a kiss that the softness of his lips and the scratch of his stubble sizzle on my skin. When he pulls back, neither of us is smiling. “Well, right,” he says as he turns to the girls. “We’d better get this gelato upstairs before it melts. Nice to meet you.”
They stand there awkwardly saying goodbye. As soon as our backs are turned, Guin half whispers, “Oh my God, he is waaay hot, but what the hell does he see in her?” Luca and I don’t turn around, but he drapes his arm over me and kisses my temple, leaving his face pressed against me. His breath is sweet, like wintergreen. The elevator comes and we get in. As soon as the door closes, Luca lets go of me.
“I am so sorry, Story! I didnae mean to do that, I mean the way I did, I just wanted to teach those twits a lesson. I cannae stand how fake they are to you. I didnae mean to take advantage. I swear!”
My face has to be a violent shade of crimson from the way it’s burning, and I can barely look at him. It’s not that this was my first kiss, but it’s up there on the list, and having it be a charity kiss is even worse than how the tabloids have made mefeel.
“It’s totally fine,” I say, though the words come out stilted and sloppy as if they’re a bunch of drunk guys careening down a street. “I was just surprised, that’s all. It’s not a big deal. Honestly. Like, just completely forget it.” I’m waving my arm around like I’m in a Saturday Night Live skit. I need to go to some kind of composure school for the socially impaired.
“Story, I wouldnae ever want to do anything to disrespect you. You know that, right? I think you’re incredible.” He pulls me close. “You deserve someone incredible.”
I look down so he can’t see how hard it is for me to breathe. “It was just a silly kiss. I appreciate you trying to make me popular, but I never will be with those girls. I’m okay with that.”
“Good, because they aren’t even remotely worth you noticing them.”
“I don’t. It’s cool. Everything’s cool.” I wish my cheeks and verbal stupidity and my out-of-control arm would stop making me an obvious liar. I am not cool. I’ve just been charity kissed by someone whose opinion I wouldn’t have given two lattes for a month ago. And I can still feel his lips on mine.
He pulls away. “I cannae believe those fandans actually think they’re better’n you!”
I appreciate he’s mad enough to slip into his home accent, but it doesn’t make me any less mortified. The elevator doors open. I make an awkward gesture that we should go. I don’t have any choice but to act naturally around my mom, which helps calm me down. Luca goes into full Luca-on-parade mode. He couldn’t be more charming, or sweeter to me, and he has my mom under his spell a lot faster than even I expected. I learn things about him, like that he knows how to fence and ride horses, which prompts me to some more “Yes, my lord,” comments. He and my mom laugh, although she tells me not to be rude. He’s on the crew team at university, and he played soccer in high school. His favorite color is green, and he hates coconut. Occasionally, I catch him slipping into just being Luca, and, to me at least, that’s when he’s at his most charming.
My mom suggests a walk after dinner, but I don’t even need to give Luca a warning glance. Instead, he asks about a pile of board games on a shelf in the living room, and we end up playing a game set in Colonial Williamsburg, which my mom wins. Luca is just competitive enough to make it funny, and it’s the first time in a while that my mom and I have done something like this. It’s going to be really strange to be so far away from her in the fall. Having Luca in my life has dramatically increased the joy factor, surprisingly. But there are too many expiration dates looming over me, and they’re getting all blurred together.
After we play, I suggest we watch a movie and Luca gets to choose since he’s the guest. He picks out Roman Holiday.
“Story loves this movie,” my mom says.
He smiles at me. When the scene at the Bocca della Verità comes on, Luca tells her I took him there.
“Mmmm, of course she did,” she says. Not long after, my mom goes off to bed, but Luca stays and watches the whole film. He seems particularly drawn to the Audrey Hepburn character, and not just because she was the most beautiful woman who probably ever lived. He asks me multiple times if they get to be together in the end, but I tell him he has to keep watching.
“Imagine if she had the paparazzi we have now?” he says, scrunched against me on the sofa as if he’s forgotten we don’t have an audience. Or maybe we’re both so used to acting that he hasn’t even noticed. It took me a while. “She’d never be able to get away with hiding out like this.”
“I suppose not. Is that what you wish you could do, hide out? Are you tired of being famous?” I sound pretty snarky, but Luca doesn’t seem to hear it.
“Sometimes,” he says. “Sometimes I wish my life were more like yours.”
I practically snort because the thought of Luca being like me is so preposterous, but he’s serious. “Well, I can’t even go to the bookstore with a classmate now, so, I guess I can understand.”
He turns to catch my gaze. “I’m sorry about that. You know he has a thing for you?”
“Jack? No. He’s just being nice because we’re going to the same college.”
“Story, dai, as you say.”
I ignore him and keep my gaze on the television.
We’re silent then. The romantic part comes where Princess Ann and Joe Bradley have to say goodbye because they come from two completely different worlds. I guess things haven’t changed that much since 1953. Different worlds are still different worlds, even if they aren’t different in quite the same way.
“Well, that’s sad,” Luca says as Gregory Peck walks out after seeing Ann for the last time. “You didn’t tell me I was going to need tissues.” He’s not really crying, but he also isn’t exactly joking. “I pictured you as the happy ending type.”
“Life isn’t always happy. Sometimes, it has to be enough just to get what you need. She needed to satisfy her curiosity about what she was missing in the world, and he needed to learn how to love.”
Luca purses his lips a moment. “Sounds a little too much like us, doesn’t it?”
I hesitate because suddenly I’m not so sure. “I don’t know about you, but I was fine missing out on the world, at least your version of it. Maybe you’re thinking of Guin.”
Luca chuckles and checks the time on his smartwatch. “I should go.” He pulls me up from the sofa after him. I walk him to the door. He takes my hand and shakes it.
“Why are you being so formal?” I ask with a laugh.
“I’m trying to make up for earlier. I just want you to know that I think exceptionally highly of you, Astoria Herriot. And your mom.”
I nod stupidly, right back in the zone of mortification.
“Good night, sweet Story.”
“Good night, Luca.”
I close the door behind him and listen as his footsteps head toward the elevator. I had never even wondered about missing out on the world Luca lived in before I met him, but now he’s making me think there are parts of it that may haunt me long after the two of us have gone our separate ways.