Chapter 24
LUCA
Noel’s drowsy by the time I drop his friends off at Danika’s parents’ condo in Brookline, barely managing a mumbled farewell to them, and he’s out like a light when I pull up in front of his apartment.
I take his keys and unlock the apartment door first, then return to carefully extract him from the front seat.
It’s not like that first awful time, which feels like a lifetime ago now, when he was drugged and dead to the world and I was dragging him into his apartment.
He’s just so, so tired, sighing and yawning and rubbing his eyes, pushing his face against my shirt.
Mumbling my name and how much he just wants to sleep.
I cradle him very gently in my arms as I carry him inside and to the bedroom. He wakes up enough to protest when I unlace his boots—“I can do it myself, I’m not a baby”—batting ineffectively at my hands before flopping back against the pillows and letting me take care of him.
“I’ve got you,” I say to him with a smile, tugging off his jeans. “Don’t worry.”
“I don’t,” he mumbles back. “Worry, I mean.”
Makes one of us, I guess.
But I love him like this, sleepy and adorable.
Love him when his claws are retracted. Love him when he’s all soft and pliant and sweet, long lashes fanning his fair cheeks and his full lips set in their natural sulk.
I love him any way at all, actually, but these moments are the most precious to me.
I think I’m the only one who ever gets to see him this way.
I replace his clothes with pajamas and pull the covers back for him. “You sure you don’t want to brush your teeth first?” I can’t resist teasing him a little. “Or wash your face?”
“Fuck it.” He rolls over and seizes his pillow. “One night’s not the end of the damn world.”
“Suit yourself, stunt girl.”
I tuck him in and get ready for bed myself.
I’d love a shower—I smell like a house party, smoke and beer and B.O.
—but I’m bone-tired, too. It’s been a hell of a day and all I want to do is curl up with my beautiful boy and fall asleep with my face buried in his shoulder.
Forget literally everything that’s happened in the last sixteen or so hours, because none of it’s been all that great, discounting the all-too-brief interlude I had with Noel.
But Jordan’s dealt with, at least. I think.
Nothing like social condemnation as punishment.
The modern-day equivalent of being forced to parade around the town square, naked and filthy, while someone rings a big bell and cries shame!
shame! at your heels. It’s not enough, I don’t think, not for me—but it’s something. It’s better than nothing.
It is probably what Noel wants, and that’s what matters.
I strip down to my boxers and return to the bedroom only a little dismayed to see Noel sitting up with his phone in his hands.
I’d been prepared to snuggle up and sleep, but the only thing better than him asleep is him awake, so I’m not all that put out.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when I see his scrunched up face.
“Nothing,” he says automatically, lower lip between his teeth. And then, sheepishly, “You’re maybe sorta going viral.”
“What?”
“Come see.”
I crawl into bed beside him and look over his shoulder. It’s a TikTok video and oh, yep, that’s me decking Jordan square in the fucking face in Mackenzie’s kitchen. “Oh, god. You weren’t kidding.”
“I mean, you can’t see anything,” Noel remarks. “It’s just the back of your head. And it’s too dark to really see your tattoos. Could be anyone.”
“Who the fuck posted this?”
“Kris.”
I bury my face in my hands. “Of course he did.”
“Yeah, god. He’s so annoying.” I hear Noel set his phone aside on the nightstand before he pries my fingers away from my face. “Aw c’mon, Luca. Are you really embarrassed?”
“Uh, yeah. Someone’s got me on video at a house party full of college students breaking your ex’s nose. I’m not trying to go to jail for assault and battery.”
“It was hot, though.” A half-smile’s playing on the edge of his mouth. “You’re wicked sexy when you get all protective and shit, you know.”
“Glad you think so.” I’d do it again in a heartbeat, of course. “Are you okay?” I ask him frankly.
The smile fades a little. He tucks his hair behind his ears, and his honey-brown gaze slides off to the side. “I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”
“However you want to feel. None of it’s wrong.”
“I think I might’ve fucked up.” He pulls his knees to his chest. “Not just tonight. I mean the whole thing, how I handled it. Should’ve done something sooner, told people, went to the cops…
except the thought of actually doing that makes me want to throw up.
I don’t even know if they’d take me seriously or treat me like shit because of how I look or my record.
And it would’ve been so invasive. But then if he’d hurt someone else, I—”
“Hey.” I say it gently, touching his arm.
“It’s not your fault. What happened to you or anyone else, none of that is your responsibility.
You’re not an arbiter of justice and you certainly aren’t the reason why he did what he did.
Tonight, or any other night. However you feel and how you reacted isn’t wrong. ”
“Then why does it feel it is? Like I dragged this all out for nothing.”
“You didn’t drag anything out. It’s only been a month, Noel.” And so much had happened in the span of that month, he’d never gotten a chance to catch his breath. “Give yourself a break. You deserve the time to heal.”
He rubs his face against his knees, and the rest of his words come muffled.
“I don’t want to be a victim. I just want to stop caring about it at all.
But then I remember what it was like being helpless in the alley and…
” He trails off, like it hurts too much to continue that train of thought, and instead he lets it derail.
A few more pieces chip off my already busted up heart. “Oh, Noel.”
“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t lift his head. “We’ve talked about this to death already. I know it’s pointless.”
“Not pointless.” Wrapping my arms around him, I pull him into my chest. “You can talk about it as much as you want. If it helps you work it out or feel better. Whatever.”
He buries his face in my chest. “I just don’t know.”
“That’s okay.” I kiss the top of his head. “Whatever you need, baby. I’m here. And for what it’s worth, I’m so, so proud of you.”
“Are you?”
“I am. I really am. You’re so damn brave.”
There’s a long moment where he’s totally still and silent as I rub his back over his thin t-shirt.
Long enough that I almost wonder if he’s gone back to dozing, and that would be okay, too.
It’s going to take more than just one night to process what he’s been through, and closure is never so neat, anyway. I would know.
But then his shoulders shake and I realize he’s laughing, silently, where he’s tucked up beneath my chin, and before I can ask what he finds so funny he raises his face to mine.
“Why are we both so fucked up?” he asks, his eyes glittering with mirth.
“Like, neither of us can just get our shit together. It’s one thing after a-fucking-nother. Ridiculous.”
I smile wryly. “I choose to blame it on the parental trauma.”
“God, yeah. Probably.” He wipes his eyes with his fingertips. “Something about your family being fucked up just ruins you as a person. For life.”
“I hope not. I’ve got to believe that there’s a light at the end of my particular tunnel. I’m getting too old to be such a fuck up.”
“Ugh. Luca.” He flops back. I let him go so he can lie down, and then I join him, head propped up on one hand. “We’ve been over this. You’re not a fuck up. It’s like what you said before: you default to your old patterns.” He nudges me with his knee beneath the covers. “The solution is easy.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He smiles. “Just make some new ones.”
I reach out, brushing a few stray strands of dark hair from his face. “You’re right.”
“I know I am.”
He rolls over and snaps off the lamp on the nightstand, and I draw him close to me. In the quiet and cool darkness of the room, I whisper, “You really were so brave tonight, stunt girl. You’re the bravest person I know.”
He doesn’t say anything. I think he might already be drifting off.
In the morning Noel is the first to wake, as he almost always is, squirming and wriggling against my very interested body as his lips brush against mine.
“I brushed my teeth real quick,” he whispers to me as I blink groggily at him. “Don’t worry.”
I’m not worried. I don’t care about his morning breath or mine. My hand glides down his side as I kiss him until it reaches the curve of his ass, the underside of his thigh. I hitch it over my hip and push against him so he can feel just how little I care.
He tastes like spearmint and under that, himself.
His hips rolling against mine until his cock is so hard that it’s straining above the waistband of his shorts and I pull them down, laying him bare. Squeeze his waist as he rubs himself slowly against my erection and the tip of him is so wet I feel it through the fabric of my boxers.
“Luca,” he sighs.
And that’s not quite enough for me, because I do want to get him off.
So I roll him onto his back and get rid of his clothes, because they’re a nuisance.
Claiming every bit of flesh—throat, shoulder, chest, nipple—as I come across it.
Kissing and nipping my way down to his soft belly, which is jumping with every twitch and breath.
He feigns gentle protest as I kiss each hipbone in turn, but his body is telling me somewhat differently, arching into me, legs spreading so that I can settle snugly between them.