Chapter 3 #2
He flinches, as though everything inside him crashes, burns, and grinds to a wrenching halt. “No one’s ever asked me that. Or much of anything at all over these past years.” It’s not bitterness that coats his words; it’s loneliness.
“I’m sorry, that’s rude. It’s none of my business. I… my family kind of believes in curses. We had something once. Something great. And now we kind of lost that, and we’re bordering on desperate.”
He nods in understanding, probably thinking about the old-money-lost-all-the-money heiress business that he makes an assumption about.
“It’s not that uncommon. My mom isn’t fussy with who she picks out, but I think she has it in her head that someone might pity marry me for the cash and then come to love me in the end.
She gets heavily invested in her romance books. ”
“But the paperwork—”
“She might not know that I ambush people with that.”
“You should probably just tell your parents it’s not working out,” I venture. I take another bite of fish, and oh my lanta, holy goodness, it’s incredible. Not having Luca put his cooking into the world is a great loss.
One that you don’t have to rectify. It’s not up to you to fix this. He’s not looking to be put back together.
He shrugs. “It’s not worth it. They’d be here every day, all day, worrying about me.
I want them to have a life too. They’ve worked hard.
They’re good people, despite what this looks like.
They aren’t trying to buy me a companion or love.
They just want me to have something to live for past surgery dates, hoping against hope for a medical miracle. ”
“That’s really hard,” I say.
“It’s been years. I’m used to it.”
I try the rice and potatoes, then the carrots, but I go back to the fish. You couldn’t have paid me a million dollars to touch the stuff before… okay, that might be extreme. I’d take the million and poke the nasty thing and go on my merry way.
“This is incredible.” I try not to moan, but moan I do. “You’re really good. Really, really good. All the people who said your food was magic weren’t kidding.”
He snorts but relaxes enough to stab a potato onto his plate and dig out a bite. “Who said that?”
Shit. Did anyone ever use that very specific word? Unlikely. “I… you know… just… I heard that somewhere. Some interview somewhere along the way. And you have a cookbook. Don’t you only get something like that if you’re really incredible?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“But you were. I’d be so angry if I were you. That it was all taken away in some random accident, in a split instant.”
“I was,” he mutters.
“I hate when people say life isn’t fair. Duh, but shut the fuck up with that. It’s not helping.”
He half smiles and points his fork at me. “You have no idea how nice it is for someone to just tell me the truth instead of coddling the shit out of me. Coddling is born of pity, and that’s all well and good, except I detest it more than I hate what happened in the first place.”
“Yeah.” I trace a pattern on my plate with my fork.
“You know quite a bit about me, compliments of the internet, no doubt, but I know almost nothing about you. What do you do?”
I speak before my brain can catch up with my mouth.
“I paid someone to research you and found out about this whole scheme thing that isn’t really a scheme.
But anyway, I scared off that poor, unsuspecting girl and came in her place.
I have a fake ID. I’m actually from across the country, and you have no idea the request I’m about to make. ”
He drops his fork and throws his head back. Late summer sunlight spills over his soft mahogany hair. It’s longer than most people wear it, cut short on the sides and back, with shaggy locks that hang over his forehead. Very… punk? I’m no barber, but it looks good on him. That’s all I know.
Laughter rises out of him like I’ve conjured it. It’s not brief this time but hearty and lasting. And it goes on and on. He laughs so hard that he has to smack his knee. He’s actually enjoying himself.
“Now that’s some honesty you don’t get from most people. What do you really do?” he asked.
Right. Because who would believe that level of crazy?
I swallow hard past the way my mouth has gone so dry because he’s beautiful when he laughs and even more so when he smiles that imperfect, gorgeous grin, and his eyes sparkle, and he looks so freaking happy instead of doubtful, melancholic, and alone.
“Business stuff,” I mumble, giving him a half-truth. “It’s boring and soulless. My real passion is baking. It’s kind of how I knew who you were when my dad asked me if I would do this.”
“How soulless?” He devours half his potato like he just suddenly realized he’s starving. He stabs a carrot from the dish, not even bothering to set it on his plate before he pops it into his mouth. It’s uncouth, disarming, and completely captivating. I can’t stop watching his lips as he chews.
Don’t go getting obsessed now. Obsession sneaks up on you. It’s creepy.
“Incredibly. Officey. Just air and dust in the space where the heart should be,” I tell him.
He stabs another carrot and puts it into his mouth pretty much whole. They’re not very big, but my good god. New kink unlocked.
“I’m having a good time,” he says.
“You sound surprised,” I point out.
“I fucking am.”
And I’m obsessed (damn it) with how he says fucking.
It’s more like fookin’ and fackin’ had a baby.
It’s from the scar tissue at the side of his mouth, but I wonder if he realizes that it makes his words sound almost pretty in their uniqueness.
He has a way of speaking that’s entirely unlike anyone else.
The longer I spend here, the more certain I am that he truly is entirely unlike anyone in other ways. And not ways I should be considering either, but my brain and ovaries keep going there.
“You’re not like I thought you’d be.” There goes my mouth again, running ahead of my brain, but to my mouth’s credit, it’s not like my brain is in a highly functional mode. It’s sluggish, sending all the wrong signals to all the wrong parts.
“Same.” He leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head.
His jacket gaps open, and his shirt tightens across his chest in a way that’s incredibly sinful.
“My opinion about this whole thing is more of a blanket statement that gets applied to each and every person, I’m ashamed to say. You must think I’m vile.”
“Only because you try really hard to give off that vibe. I get it. Cloaking yourself in stench makes sure no one wants a second sniff. Although…” I lean in, though getting closer to Luca should be on my top five list of things to not freaking do, right along with this whole charade and being here in the first place.
“You smell really good. Like the outside. Pines and moss. Cedars? What kind of trees are out there? Maybe crows? What do crows even smell like? Probably metal because they love shiny things, although maybe carcasses too, because they eat dead things, so maybe not birds. Just trees. Clouds. Water. Earth.”
“Where did my mother find you?” he asks.
“In a rather morally bankrupt moment, I’m ashamed to say. I was plotting out how we should work around being each other’s arch-nemesis. I thought you’d be a douchwad, arsehole of a conscienceless turdbag, but you’re actually kind of funny.”
His eyes crinkle up at the corners, and this time, he smiles so big. “I think we might share the same sense of humor. But I’m not sure what I did to deserve that impression.”
“Arranged dates aren’t my forte.” I finish the rest of the salmon, and unable to help myself, I gush, “Oh. Oh my god! This is… this is beyond the pale. This is beyond the food. This is beyond heaven. This is straight into foodgasm territory.”
“Thank you.” I swear his cheeks actually get a little bit pink. “It’s been a while since anyone’s complimented my food.”
“Do they not have taste buds?” He finally helps himself to some salmon and makes the same face I’m sure I’m making, but holy shit, if I’m making that face, I need to tone it down because the last thing I need is to be giving bedroom vibes.
I need to steer this around to pie-making vibes. “How many surgeries have you had?”
“Eighteen now.”
I choke on my saliva and hit myself on my chest to dislodge the trapped air. “They’ve done an incredible job, but I’m sorry you had to go through that. People say pain is supposed to teach you something, but I can’t get behind that. There’s a lot of unnecessary suffering in the world.”
“They’re getting smaller and smaller, and they don’t hurt so much anymore.
Some are just to remove the scar tissue, if they can.
The recovery time is also shorter. Maybe I’m getting used to it.
I’m never going to look the way I did, but I can respect the artistry that’s gone into facial reconstruction.
I also know how privileged I’ve been to be able to afford to not work, to have this place, and to be able to get procedures like that. ”
“You’re really humble. I didn’t expect that either.” That’s perhaps the biggest kicker. That underneath everything—and I didn’t have to dig deep—Luca is kind.
“You naturally lose some of your arrogance, I think, when a soup ladle takes out your jaw.”
And he’s hilarious too. Truly, truly funny. It takes a lot of balls to be able to laugh at the worst thing that ever happened to you.
“Do you have bone grafts and skin grafts?” I ask, then quickly add, “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
He answers anyway. “I do. Both. Steel rods, too, and such. Prosthetics.”
“Like a true superhero,” I tell him.
“I wouldn’t go nearly that far,” he says sheepishly.
“But you are a superhero of cooking.”
“I like it. I always have. For me, cooking is like breathing.”
I was trying to get to that point, but I let go of the rudder and let him steer. I have to press hard on it, or I might not get another chance. “What about baking?”
“I love it too.”