Epilogue
This part of Brazil is nothing like the rest I’ve seen.
I’ve toured Rio de Janeiro, seen Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain.
I’ve sunbathed on the beach while Lucca spent a ridiculous amount of time rubbing lotion on my back.
I’ve eaten in S?n Paulo until I thought I might burst and then danced like I’ve never danced before.
Oh, the S?n Paulo nightlife.
And now, we’re here. Quiet road, dirt paths, and farm animals wandering wherever they’d like. I’m not sure where Lucca has taken me today. He planned this trip. I came along for the experience. And for Lucca.
Lucca pulls our rental car up to a park that looks almost abandoned. “This is where I first played as a child.”
I gasp in a breath. “Here?”
He nods.
“This is your neighborhood?” I peer around at the dirt, trees, and chickens with new eyes. Vovó has died. Her home was sold off after that. I never imagined we’d make it to where Lucca grew up.
“It is.” He smiles, but it’s not the grin I’ve learned to yearn for and love. It’s a little sad, a little longing.
“Can we walk?” I ask. “You could show me around.”
Lucca turns off the ignition in answer. “I’d like that,” he says.
Hand in hand, we stroll past the park where little Lucca Cruz played his first game of soccer. We pass one small stucco house and then another. He stops near a little white home. The paint is chipping, and there’s one paned window next to a solid wooden door at the front.
“And this was my home.”
My heart beats for Lucca. For Vovó. I grin at him. “I love it.”
His chest rumbles with a soft laugh. “Me, too. It might not have been much, but it was a very safe and happy place for me. Vovó probably could have afforded something more eventually, if she weren’t paying for my clubs and travel. But she never complained, and I never wanted more.”
I pull his hand, knotted in my own, and kiss the back of his knuckles. “Can we go inside?”
Lucca snickers. “I don’t know the new owners. I used to know everyone here, but… that was a long time ago.”
“Can we knock?” I squint. “Would that be disrespectful since we’re strangers?” I have no desire to be culturally insensitive.
“I mean—you can.”
I tug Lucca behind me, walk past a menacing-looking chicken and through the small front gate. I tap on the door, gentle at first, and then I give one loud knock.
“What’s your plan here, ref?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll let you look around. How long has it been since you were here last?”
He swallows. “I came back a couple times, but it was very expensive. It’s been seven years.”
His face. That number. It’s the reason I knock again. There’s a noise behind the door, and something moves in the window. We wait, but no one opens up.
“Oi!” Lucca calls, his voice booming.
And then, a man maybe twice our age opens the front door. He looks at me, then Lucca. “Americanos?”
And my smoking-hot boyfriend goes off in Portuguese. And while I don’t understand a word of what he’s saying, I am extremely smitten.
With Lucca’s pause, the man looks from him to me. He shrugs, then replies to whatever Lucca’s told him.
“Let’s go.” Lucca grins.
“He’s letting us inside?” I nibble on my lip, reining back my excitement.
“He is.”
The stucco peels inside the home, too. The walls are a mixture of brown, green, and white, where different layers show through.
There’s a small boxish-looking couch against one wall and a television opposite it.
It’s simple and humble, and I’m not sure it looks anything like it did when Lucca lived here.
But his face tells me he’s conjuring a time and place when Vovó was alive and well.
We walk through the cooking space and down a short hallway.
“This was my bedroom.” He breathes out a short laugh. “I never imagined I would see it again.”
We step inside the small room and Lucca smiles.
“I had my Pelé poster there. And my Little League trophies here. Vovó bought me a Bible that I should have read—but never did. Still, she insisted it sit on the end table next to my bed—here.” He points to one corner of the room, where the current occupant’s bed is placed.
I laugh. “She tried.”
“Oh, she did.”
I slip my arm around his back, and he wraps his around me. We look around the little room, taking it in. “She succeeded,” I say. I rest my head on his chest and tilt my gaze to peer up at him.
“I never imagined I’d be back here,” he says again. “And I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined I’d be here with you.”
“I believe that. I can honestly say I never imagined that reality either.”
“I love you, Maggie Pie.” Lucca leans down, his nose brushing next to mine before he gently presses a kiss to my lips.
I breathe him in, musk and man, and oh-so-Lucca deliciousness. Exhaling, with my lips on his, I say, “You have to stop calling me that.”
The corners of his mouth turn up. “Not a chance.”