Chapter 11 Luca
THEN
Wes is tracing a line along my spine with his thumb.
Slow, absent, the way he touches me when he's half-asleep and not thinking about it.
The hotel room is warm and the sheets are kicked off.
My left hand is flat against his ribs and I can feel his breathing slowing.
His body settling into the mattress, and I close my eyes and let his heartbeat be the only sound in the room.
The road trips with separate rooms have a pattern now. I go to my room, drop my bag, wait twenty minutes, find his room with the deadbolt keeping the door open. Then I am in his arms, my mouth on his, his chest against mine. The drawn curtains make the world outside the door nonexistent.
Tonight was the same mechanics. Game, hotel, drop off my suitcase, then find his room.
His thumb pauses on my spine. "You're thinking," he says.
"I'm not thinking."
"Your shoulders tighten when you're thinking and I can feel it from here." His voice is low and loose and his hand resumes the line it was drawing. "What?"
"I'm thinking about the ceviche from last night."
"You are not thinking about the ceviche from last night."
"Seven-one. Final answer."
"You're giving it a seven-one in bed. After we just had sex." He nudges me with his hand.
"The rating is not influenced by the setting."
"The rating is entirely influenced by the setting. You are compromised."
"You are the most stubborn person I have ever shared a bed with."
"Good. That means the competition was weak." He opens one eye and looks at me and the look has warmth in it that is not about the ceviche. I put my head back on his chest and close my eyes.
Three sharp beats on the door. Wes's hand stops moving on my back. My whole body goes still. I feel his ribs expand under my cheek, one slow breath, and then his arm slides out from behind me and he sits up.
"Yeah," he calls toward the door. "Hang on."
I am already moving. Off the bed, feet on the carpet, underwear from the floor, the bathroom door ten steps away.
I pull it shut behind me and stand on the tile in the dark.
My feet are bare and the tile is cold and the light is off because I didn't think to turn it on and now the gap under the door would show it if I did.
Through the wall I hear Wes open the door.
"Hey, Mercy. Sorry, man. You have a phone charger? I can't find mine."
Paulson. It's Paulson. His voice is easy and unbothered and he is standing six feet from the bed where I was lying thirty seconds ago.
"Yeah, hold on." Wes's voice is normal. Completely normal. I hear him cross back into the room, the drawer opening, something sliding across the nightstand surface.
"Thanks, brother. I'll get it back to you in the morning."
"No rush."
"You watching anything? Doyle's got the game on in his room if you want to come by."
"I'm good. Early night."
"Smart. See you at breakfast."
"Yeah. 'Night."
The door closes. The lock clicks. Silence.
I stand in the bathroom. My hand is on the edge of the counter and my knuckles are pressing into the marble. I feel the cold slab against my hand. The room is dark and I can't see my own face in the mirror.
The bathroom door opens. Wes stands opposite, lit from behind by the lamp beside the bed.
"Hey," he says. "He's gone."
I walk out.
"Well," I say. "That was close."
I try to make it land like a joke. The way we have laughed about close calls before.
The elevator at the facility when the GM came around the corner.
The parking garage when Wes's hand was on my back and a car pulled in.
We laughed about those because we got away with it, this secret that lived between us in the team and hummed when no one else could hear it.
He almost smiles. "Charger. That's all he wanted."
"A charger." I sit on the edge of the bed. The sheets are still warm from both of us.
He sits next to me. Not touching.
"I get why you think we need to hide this," I say. My voice is quiet. My feet still feel the cold from the tile, even though I’m on the carpet. “You think one or both of us will lose our spot on the team, that it will become a PR thing and then neither of us can play again.”
He doesn't answer right away. His hand finds the back of my neck, his thumb against the top of my spine.
"Come back to bed," he says.
"I am in bed."
"Come back to sleep." When I don’t move, he asks, "Do you want to go back to your room?"
"No."
"Okay." He reaches over and his fingers brush the back of my hand. We get back into bed. I stare at the ceiling until his breathing evens out.
When he wakes up an hour later, I am sitting in the desk chair by the window with my knees pulled up and the laptop screen glowing in the dim room. I have entered the ceviche into the spreadsheet. I have entered the appetizers. I am adjusting the service column when he rolls over and looks at me.
"What time is it?"
"After one."
He sits up. Rubs his face. "What are you doing?"
"Updating the spreadsheet."
He gets out of bed and comes to stand behind me. His hand rests on the back of the chair. He leans over my shoulder and I can feel his chest close to my back and his chin near my head and his breath warm on my ear.
"You gave the service a six-four?"
"The server forgot the water refill."
"The server was dealing with a full section. That's a six-eight at minimum."
"A six-eight for forgetting the water?"
"A six-eight for managing the rest of it. The water refill is a minor infraction."
"Hydration is part of the dining experience."
"You're penalizing a person for a water glass." His tone is easy, the way it always is when we argue about the spreadsheet. Except his hand moves from the back of the chair to the laptop and he reaches over me and changes the cell. Six-four becomes six-eight.
"You just changed my number," I say.
"I corrected it."
"You didn't correct it. You overrode it. That's my column."
"The column is shared."
"The column is shared for discussion. You don't get to reach in and change my rating because you disagree with it."
"A six-four for one missed water refill is punitive and you know it."
I close the laptop. The screen goes dark and the room goes darker and I sit in the chair and I don't know what is happening. But it is not about the water refill.
"Luca." His voice is different now. Careful. "It's a number."
"It's my number. You reached over me and changed it."
He is quiet for a long time. I can hear him breathing behind me. I don't turn around. My fingers are still on the closed laptop.
"You're right," he says. "I should have asked."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
"Luca, look at me. Please."
I don't look at him. I sit in the chair with my knees pulled up and the silence between us filling up with the things I want to say.
He sits on the edge of the bed. I hear the mattress. He doesn't come closer. He doesn't push, patient and steady, and I can feel him waiting.
"Come to bed," he says softly after a while. "Please."
"I don't want to fight about this anymore."
"We're not fighting. Come to bed."
I go to bed. He pulls the covers over both of us and his arm goes around my waist and his forehead presses against the back of my neck and his breath is warm on my skin.
I pick up my phone and open the spreadsheet. His six-eight is still in the cell. I stare at it. I close the app and set the phone on the nightstand, screen down, and his arm tightens around me and neither of us speaks.
?