Chapter 14
LUCA
I definitely did not plan on Killian finding out that I am going to Baltimore.
It happens when I’m shifting my appointments around to accommodate my trip.
I have Max, his partner, scheduled that Saturday to work on his sleeve, and I call him and ask if there’s another day that works instead.
Max asks why I need to change it, and instead of just telling him something came up, I let it slip where I’m going without thinking: “I’m taking a weekend trip to Baltimore. ”
And even then I still don’t absorb the implications of my mistake until Killian calls me after work that evening, and when I finally pick up he informs me he is also going to Baltimore that weekend.
He’s got family there he’s visiting, and since I’m going to be there, we should all totally hook up one evening.
After all, he knows the city like the back of his hand.
Oh, good. Noel is going to fucking kill me. “Um,” I say.
“Plus, I know an awesome leather bar we can visit,” he gushes. “It’s called Body More. I know everyone there, basically. I can get you in the VIP area easily. You gotta dress to code, though. Or they won’t let us back there.”
“Killian, I don’t know. Noel’s gonna be at this work conference all weekend—”
“Noel!” he gasps, scandalized. “You’re going with Noel? Does Demi know? Oh, my god. You didn’t tell me you and Noel were a thing again. I expect you to keep me updated on these sorts of developments, Lulu. How long has this been going on?”
“It’s not meant to be a secret. Demi knows and doesn’t care.
” Demi doesn’t care I’m going to be in a different state for the weekend, either.
She already had plans to stay at her sister’s house again, and she’s agreed to take Amelia along.
She’s been seeing an awful lot of her sister, way more than she’s ever bothered doing in the last seven years, but I don’t question it.
I suppose it makes sense that she wants her family around her while she’s pregnant.
“It’s been going on a few weeks, I guess. Since late June.”
“Well, my offer still stands. I can take both of you guys with me. And Max will be there too, of course.”
“I’ll ask him,” I say, and which I’m already dreading. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Sure, sure.” It is a guarantee in his mind, of course.
“And, Killian—if we do meet up, please don’t mention anything about what happened to him last month. The shit at Anathema. I really did not want you to know it was him.”
“Of course not.” He’s almost offended. “I’m not stupid, Luca. I can be discreet.”
When I visit Noel that evening, I bring takeout from his favorite Chinese restaurant just to soften the blow of what I’m about to tell him. He just thinks I’m being sweet, of course. He has no idea the horrible bombshell I’m waiting to on him.
“So, um.” I poke at my orange chicken with a chopstick. “Don’t be mad, but—”
He levels a suspicious gaze at me, dropping his own chopsticks with a clatter. Oh no, he thinks it’s going to be much worse than it is. “What?” he immediately frets.
I’m quick to alleviate his anxiety and replace it with a different kind. “Killian sort of found out we’re going to Baltimore,” I say. “And he’s going, too.”
Noel blinks at me. In the soft, warm lighting of his kitchen, his eyes are almost orange. “Uh, what? Did you invite him or something?”
“No. God, no. Of course not. I know you despise him.”
He scrunches his nose cutely. “I don’t despise him, Luca. I wouldn’t even say I dislike him, precisely. He’s just, you know, really fucking annoying. And handsy. With you.”
“With everyone,” I clarify, because it’s true—Killian is just one of those terribly touchy people.
Noel would’ve gotten the same treatment eventually.
“Not just me.” And I explain to him how it is, exactly, that Killian found out, through my foolish slip of the tongue.
“He wants to hang out one night. Take us to the city’s foremost leather bar, apparently. ”
Noel lifts one of his eyebrows. “With Killian and his mountain man boyfriend?”
“Max, yeah. I told him you probably wouldn’t be up for it. You’d be too tired from your conference. So you’ve got an easy out, if you want it.”
I’ve been waiting for Noel to freak all the way out about this.
Instead he appears thoughtful, even intrigued.
I watch him worry at his lower lip with his teeth and I nearly reach over the table to tug it free.
I don’t like when he shreds it and makes it bleed.
“You know, that could be interesting,” he remarks casually.
“Interesting? Really?” It is not the reaction I’m expecting at all. I lean across the table to feel his forehead. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Shut up.” He grins, batting me away before he picks up his chopsticks again. “I told you I wanted to try getting into the community or whatever.”
“I don’t think it’s like that. I mean, he mentioned a VIP area or something, but I got the impression it’s just a more risqué Anathema.”
And I don’t know if I want him to try again, in those sorts of clubs.
Last time had been such a disaster and I still feel guilty.
That I didn’t hear what the people watching were saying about him, that I missed how he was feeling until it was almost too late.
Didn’t like that it pushed to the point of him using his safe word.
It felt bad. Like I failed him, crucially.
No, not like—did. I was supposed to protect him, and I didn’t.
“Wait.” Noel breaks into my thoughts. “Am I going to have to see Killian naked?”
“In one state of undress or another, yeah.”
I can’t tell if Noel is crazy intuitive, or just served well by his inherently suspicious nature. He narrows his amber eyes at me. “He’s one of the friends you went to the clubs with, isn’t he?”
“A couple of times, sure.” I don’t even try to lie. Killian will probably spill the beans at some point, anyway. Concepts like jealousy and possessiveness are entirely foreign to him; he’s thoroughly entrenched in the swinging lifestyle.
“And he was walking around naked?”
“He was dressed about how you’d expect someone to be at those places. I don’t know, Noel. I really wasn’t looking that hard at him. We’d go, him and Max would disappear somewhere, and I spent the night keeping an eye out for you.”
I can tell he doesn’t love this, but to his credit, he’s not freaking out. He stabs at his food with his chopsticks in a mutinous sort of silence. I’m wondering if he’s about to chew me out before he says, “I’m just thinking of what to pack. I wanna look better than him.”
Which, of course he does.
The weeks fly by, and we’re trundling through Boston-Logan at the asscrack of dawn before either of us knows it.
Noel’s more awake than I am as the early riser in our relationship, and I’m having to pinch myself to not fall asleep while standing in the already too-long security lines.
I’ve already helped him sort everything in his carry-on so TSA won’t pull him aside and make his life hell, and we make it to our gate with little fanfare about an hour later.
I slump into one of the free seats and watch him as he goes to stand at one of the large windows, watching an airplane taxi backwards from a nearby gate.
He looks so petite, framed against the giant pane of glass, and after a moment I get up to join him.
I slide my arms around his shoulders and he leans back against me.
“Excited?” I ask him, kissing the top of his head.
“I guess.” Noel grips my forearms. “There’s always the chance we die in a high-speed, fiery explosion. You could say that’s pretty exciting.”
“We’re not going to crash, baby. Think of how many uneventful flights happen a day.”
“I don’t think about that at all, actually. Seeing as I don’t fly.”
“It’s thousands and thousands,” I reassure him, “and you only hear about a plane crash once in a blue moon. You’re much more likely to die in a car accident.”
“Wow, Luca. That makes me feel so much better.”
And he is still jittery when we’re called to board, and even more jittery when I’m helping him with his seatbelt, the metal bits clattering together as his hands tremble.
He’s a little green when the flight attendant goes over the safety briefing, and as our plane taxis towards the runway he seizes my hand in a death grip and tells me if we die, he’s always loved me.
He makes me pull down the window shade too.
I guess he doesn’t want to know if we are, in fact, nosediving to the ground.
Once we’re finally in the air he settles down, and after a few minutes he’s managed to even doze off on my shoulder.
It’s actually very cute, seeing Noel rattled over something that’s kind of silly.
Everything lately has been so heavy and dire. There’s always something on the line. Him. Me. Us. Demi. The baby. My father. His mother. Whatever fucked up dynamic we’ve all got going here, red lines crisscrossing photos pinned to a cork board in a tangled mass.
I just want to enjoy him. I want to get back into this fully and I’m tired of the distractions, of the reality that keeps intruding in.
So many mistakes were made, and I want a chance to make it all right with him before things go to shit again.
Which they always seem to do. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
This summer is probably the most I’ll get with him before the baby comes and upends everything all over again.
I’m looking forward to meeting my daughter, and I’m looking forward to Noel meeting her, too, but I know it’s going to push everyone involved to the limit.
Babies are a happy occasion, but they’re a stressful one, too.
It will be exceptionally hard on Demi, and we all need to be in a good of a place as possible before October.
Most of all I want Noel and I to get settled in this, each other, and this weekend will be the perfect time for it. Just me and him.
And Killian, too. I guess. For better or worse.