Chapter 16 #2
He sighs. Fierce. Frustrated. Fucking delicious. His inability to remove his eyes from me coupled with the intensity radiating off him is enough to make me weak in the knees.
“What do you think of the place?”
“What do I think of the place?” I laugh the words.
“I think you’re fucking insane. Who does this, Luca?
” My hands pan around the room. “Who lies to someone and tells them they have an apartment to rent in a building full of condos? Who has that apartment methodically furnished for their prospective tenant within days?”
“How do you know it wasn’t already like this?”
“Not only did I see the movers leave, you picked purple and black pillows, knowing they’re my favorite colors.
There are pictures of cellos and pianos and fucking London on the walls.
” I pick up one of the purple throw pillows and hurl it at him.
He catches it, tossing it back at me, hitting me square in the chest, and I let it fall to the floor. “Why did you do this?”
He swallows the distance between us by half. “Because I wasn’t going to let you rent some eight-story walkup studio with cockroaches and brown water. Because I wasn’t going to let you move to some shitty neighborhood where you’d have to take two buses and the fucking T to get to work.”
“You have no idea where I was looking.”
Another step and now he’s right in front of me, hovering over me, tall and wickedly handsome.
Angry as a god. “I know your budget and what apartments in the greater Boston area go for. I know you want to move out and when you get an idea in your head, very little holds you back from accomplishing it no matter the cost. I also spoke to your father about it, and he told me where you had been looking.”
“You spoke to my father about this?”
He ignores that. “Take this place, Raven. It’s in a nice building in a safe neighborhood that’s not too far from work and you can afford it.”
“I can’t afford it. I can’t even afford the pillow I threw at you.”
“You can because it’s already yours. All of it. Every stitch of furniture is yours. Every glass and plate and pot and pan in the cabinets too. Everything in here is yours, so whether you live here or somewhere else, this stuff is coming with you.”
I stagger back a step, falling against the console table behind the couch and causing a piece of decorative glass to sway. “Why? Why are you doing this?”
His hand dives into my hair, finding the back of my head and tilting my face up to meet his eyes.
“Do you want my real answer? The reason why I’ve sent you flowers for four years and traveled all over the world to watch you perform and stalked your social media and stole your panties and got on my knees to touch and taste you?
Do you want it? I’ll tell you everything.
It’s killing me not to. I’m just not sure you’re ready to hear it yet without thinking it’s bullshit. ”
I shake my head, pushing him off me and heading for the window, staring out at the dark Boston sky, at the street below. No view of the park and thank God for that.
He’s right. I’m not ready to hear whatever he has to say.
And yes, I’d likely think whatever he was telling me was bullshit.
A way to get laid or for me to forgive him so he’s the good guy once again instead of the villain.
The man who said one thing and did another.
I don’t trust him. Not with my head and not with my heart and not with my common sense.
“For four years I’ve fought to feel like myself again,” I tell him.
“I went to London instead of Minnesota. I studied and played music all over the world. Just as I said I’d always wanted.
But that didn’t stop me from searching out into those dark audiences, wondering if you were there somewhere.
If that would be the night you’d deliver those fucking flowers to me in person.
If somehow, you’d get on your knees to tell me you didn’t mean it.
That it was all a mistake. That you really did love me.
That you really did want me. I hated myself and I hated you for those thoughts.
For making me feel that I wasn’t good enough to make you stay.
To make you love me the way I loved you.
And you sending those flowers and flying all over the world only made that so much worse. ”
I spin around, my fists balling up as I stare into his turbulent green eyes.
“I got my dream and I lost you. Fine. I knew it would happen with you. I was heartbroken, but I would have survived. I would have moved on. It wasn’t the first time someone didn’t choose me or love me enough to stay.
But you didn’t let go. You kept holding on just enough to drive me insane.
To mess with my head and my heart that was desperate to forget you and move on.
And so my dream didn’t quite feel complete for far too long.
I resented it. Resented my talent and with that, resented you even more.
You didn’t just break my heart, Luca. You found its most vulnerable, soft parts and beat them to death, and then you did it over and over again. ”
He swallows hard, his voice hoarse. “Raven—”
I shake my head, cutting him off. “I’m happy I’m home.
I missed my dad, and I missed your parents.
Your siblings too. But I made myself stop missing you a long time ago.
I forced myself to stop looking into the audience for you and I returned every damn flower you ever sent me.
This past week has been a case of old habits die hard, but I wasn’t lying when I thanked you the other night for giving me closure and I meant it when I said we’re over.
That’s why I can’t accept this place. It’s tied to you. ”
Luca blows out a heavy breath as if he’d been holding it in this entire time.
He runs a tremulous hand over his face and through his hair, stumbling back a step and spinning around in a circle as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself now.
I don’t either. I just said words I never imagined I’d say.
Words that terrify me with their finality, shaking me to my very core.
He stands immobile, his fractured gaze trained on me as he works through whatever it is he’s working through in his head, and finally his hands meet his hips, resigned.
“I fucked up so many things with you. Things I never even fathomed I was fucking up, I was. I’m sorry, Raven.
I’m so terribly sorry. For all of it. I thought…
” His voice catches before he clears his throat.
“If you take this place, you are not tied to me in any way. It’s yours.
One hundred percent, it’s yours with no strings.
If you live here for six months to save up and then move somewhere else, that’s your choice.
But please, don’t live somewhere awful when you can live here.
You’ll go through the management company, and I’ll never step foot in this apartment again unless you ask me to. ”
“I never will.”
He gives me the saddest smile. One that cracks and chips at my frozen heart.
“A boy dreams so a man will always have hope.” With one last look, he turns for the door, pausing only when his hand hits the knob, his back to me.
“Everything I did was because I love you. Was because I had to. For both of us.”
With that, he opens the door and the second he shuts it behind him, I fall to the floor, holding my breath as the tears I had been fighting are no longer able to be held back.
I crawl across the floor, grabbing the pillow we had thrown at each other, and drag it to my chest, burying my face in it as I wail and sob out my grief.
Wishing for the millionth time in the last four years that love and pain came with an expiration date.
Because then I wouldn’t have to try so hard to live without him.