Chapter 15
Luca
This is not something he planned.
That’s what he tells himself, standing in Matej’s bathroom at an hour he is never awake for by choice, the shower still running and his pulse doing something undignified. He planned nothing. He simply walked in here and found Matej under the water and thought: I want to.
So he did.
Matej had looked at him — that look, flat and assessing and then something else — and moved aside to make room. Which was not a no.
Now Matej has his forearms against the tiles and Luca is behind him and this is — this is something Luca is doing, and Matej’s breathing has changed in a way that makes Luca feel startlingly powerful.
He takes his time, until taking his time stops being possible for either of them. Matej makes a sound low in his throat that he probably didn’t mean to make, and Luca —
“Matej!”
They both freeze.
Fanika’s voice, from outside. Not close — she’s at the yard gate, calling up towards the house, the way she always does. But she’s there, and her timing is, objectively, extraordinary.
Neither of them moves.
Then Matej starts laughing. Not the short controlled sound Luca has heard before — something fuller, unexpected, at the ceiling. Luca presses his face between Matej’s shoulder blades and feels it.
“She brings the milk,” Matej says, when he can.
“I know she brings the milk.”
“Tuesday and Friday.”
“Matej.”
“It’s Friday. I have to go out.”
Luca straightens up. He’s gone too, now, against his will entirely. The shower is still running. Outside, Fanika calls again, patient, indifferent to what she has interrupted.
“Go,” Luca says.
Matej turns and looks at him — wet, still catching his breath, that almost-smile. He reaches out and tucks a piece of Luca’s wet hair back. A small thing. He holds Luca’s face for a moment.
Then he goes.
Luca stands under the water for another minute. He’s smiling at the wall. The water’s still hot.
He doesn’t file this one away.