Chapter 20 #2
‘OK, looks like the canapes are coming from somewhere over there,’ Jacob deduced quickly, doing his best flight attendant emergency exit hand gesture towards the back where waiters were appearing, carrying black slates piled high with impossibly tiny food.
‘If we linger by the bar, we’ll get first dibs when they bring them out. ’
‘You had me at bar,’ Alice said, following Jacob willingly through the throng of guests. I was two glasses of champagne and four mini burgers deep when Jacob erupted into a spluttering, red-faced mess beside me.
‘Oh. My. God!’ he wheezed, smacking Alice repeatedly with the back of his hand and prompting me to slosh champagne down my front.
‘What now?’ Alice asked lazily. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve spotted another of your ill-fated lovers? One is a coincidence. Two is a cry for an intervention.’ Jacob’s eyeballs bulged at something behind me and Alice turned to look, but I was too busy dabbing at my fizzing cleavage to notice.
‘ Shit! ’ Alice muttered, spinning back around with a frantic look in her eyes. ‘Did you know about this?’ she hissed at Jacob who just shook his head, hijacking another glass of champagne from a passing waiter and thrusting it into my hand.
‘You’re going to need this,’ he warned, wincing.
My own eyes narrowed. ‘OK, can someone tell me what’s going on?
You two are acting even weirder than normal.
’ I lifted myself onto my tiptoes, trying to see past them.
Alice lunged towards me, grabbing both my shoulders and spinning me around so I was facing the other way, my back to the dance floor.
‘OK, if I tell you something, will you promise not to freak out?’ she asked with that deliberate, slow calmness that instantly makes anyone the opposite of calm.
‘I’m already freaking out! What’s got into you two?’
‘Ladies and gentleman, it’s my immense honour to introduce you to Mr and Mrs Thompson.’
My heart slammed against my chest when I heard his voice, raw and husky as it echoed into the microphone.
People waved their napkins in the air around me, glasses held aloft in salute of Matt and Alyssa sparkling beneath the fairy lights as the couple began their first dance as husband and wife.
But once again, my focus was elsewhere. On the man in the black suit, his tie already missing or never having made it in the first place, guitar slung over one shoulder as he began a rendition of John Legend’s ‘All of Me’ .
I knew I missed Luca. I’d thought about him every minute of every day for the past three weeks.
But seeing him standing on that stage, all tousle-haired and clean-shaven, singing about a bond between two people that I’d made damn sure we’d never get the chance to explore, my entire body felt on the verge of coming apart.
Around me, couples started pairing off, women dragging unenthusiastic men away from their beers to join Matt and Alyssa on the dance floor.
Jacob touched my arm, said something I didn’t quite hear, but I just shook my head, forcing a smile and shooing them towards the mass of swaying bodies.
I watched as Luca’s gaze roamed the tent, scanning, searching for something.
‘He’s certainly not looking for you,’ I muttered into my champagne glass, downing the contents in one to try to calm my breathing.
I turned away, the sight of him in that crisp white shirt, the same one I’d peeled off him that night in the hallway, almost too much to bear.
‘He chose Rachel,’ I reminded myself firmly, my own words like a dagger to the gut.
Even though my gaze was fixed firmly on the ground, I felt the exact moment Luca’s eyes found me in the crowd.
Something inside of me melted, every fine hair on my arms standing to attention, as though I was being pulled towards him by some undeniable force.
I tried not to look up. I really tried. But it was like asking someone not to breathe.
And so, I lifted my head, lost myself in those walnut-brown eyes for what I promised myself would be the final time.
I knew instantly that I shouldn’t have looked.
The way he was staring at me, as if I was the only person in the room, his eyes boring deep into the fractured parts of myself that I’d tried so long to hide as he sang about all of him loving all of me.
I turned, muttering apologies as I pushed my way through the crowd, suddenly needing to be anywhere but here.
I didn’t stop when I exited the tent, kicking off my shoes and breaking into a run across the field, the hem of my dress trailing behind me as I tried to outrun the ache in my chest. It felt like a bowling ball had landed in my stomach.
That sudden drop, the familiar crushing weight of feeling like I’d just lost something good.
Maybe even something great. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, my hands anchored against the wooden fence that bordered the field, my breath sharp and hot in my throat.
‘You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were avoiding me.’
My eyes fluttered closed, the smell of his aftershave on the early evening air all it took to make my heart tighten with longing.
I turned slowly, bracing myself to meet his gaze, but nothing prepared me for that hint of a smile.
The one that made me feel like I’d stepped straight into the sunlight as he stood leaning against a tree a few metres away, visibly panting as though he’d jumped straight off that stage and sprinted after me.
‘Of course not,’ I lied. ‘I didn’t even know you were going to be here tonight.’
Luca ran a hand down his face, pushing off from the tree and taking a step towards me. ‘Alyssa asked me to perform their first dance after hearing me sing at the bar on her hen do. I presumed you knew.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ I breathed shakily. ‘I’m surprised you came, after .?.?.’ My voice trailed off to nothing.
‘She asked me before everything that happened, so—’ There was a distinct, otherwise I wouldn’t be here subtext that made me wince. We stood in silence for a while, the night air crackling between us, charged with everything unsaid.
‘Are you here alone?’ I was going for casual, polite small talk, but my voice came out strangely high-pitched. The molten ring of gold around Luca’s irises sparked as he took another step across the grass.
‘Yes, Thompson. I’m here alone.’
Hmm, Rachel must have stayed at home. Can’t say I blamed her.
Luca hesitated. ‘You?’
‘No.’
Something strange happened to his face. His mouth became pinched, his jaw frozen at an unnaturally hard angle.
‘Oh, right.’ He halted, shoving his hands deep in his pockets as the toe of his shoe butted against the gnarled roots of the tree. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he was jealous.
‘I came with Alice and Jacob,’ I clarified, scrunching my bare feet into the soft grass, the blades tickling between my toes.
I couldn’t tell if that hopeful lift of his brow was wishful thinking on my part, or if he was genuinely relieved that I hadn’t brought a date.
Ergh, who was I kidding, of course it was the former.
He was with Rachel. Luca’s hand raked through his hair, brushing all but one strand out of his face as he took two more strides towards me.
‘I wanted to thank you.’
His words threw me off guard. ‘Thank me? For what?’
‘For the article you wrote about the concert. It was – beautiful.’
I shifted against the fencepost, the skirt of my dress catching against a stray splinter. ‘It was a beautiful event.’
Luca nodded, biting down on his bottom lip.
‘Yeah, you know, it’s the strangest thing.
We received an anonymous donation a week ago, enough money that we don’t need to worry about closing any time soon.
We might even look at expanding.’ His head tipped knowingly to one side.
Those eyes, those big, perfect eyes searching my face as his hand came to rest on the fencepost beside me.
The bank had assured me that the transfer would be anonymous.
No way for Luca to trace it back to me, which was important, as I wasn’t sure he’d accept it if he knew it had come from me.
‘That’s amazing.’ I feigned surprise, not trusting myself to look at him for fear he’d see straight through me.
‘Mhmm, amazing,’ he echoed, a knowing edge to his voice that made me look up. The closeness of him made my breath catch in my throat and I knew he’d heard it too. I needed to get out of there, but I also didn’t want it to end.
‘It’s a shame Rachel couldn’t make it,’ I said quickly, going to take a step backwards to try to put some more distance between us but forgetting about the fence.
This, us standing so close that his trousers brushed the front of my legs, was making my fingers itch to pull him flush against me and nestle my mouth in the crook where his neck met his shoulder.
Luca frowned. ‘Why would she?’
‘I get it might be a bit awkward, but I hope she didn’t not come because of me.’
Luca cocked his head to one side, a dazed look on his face as if he’d just woken up. Anger bubbled up inside of me. Was he really going to make me say it? Was he really going to be that guy?
‘Rachel? Your fiancée ?’
‘Rachel’s not my fiancée.’ Luca looked more confused than ever.
I huffed, losing patience. ‘You can drop the act, Luca, I know.’
‘Well, please enlighten me, because apparently you know more about my personal life than I do.’
‘I came by the flat the night after the concert. Rachel answered the door. Wearing your clothes. And an engagement ring ,’ I added pointedly when Luca just continued staring at me blankly before understanding finally dawned on his face.