Chapter 2
O ut on the sidewalk, I head toward a silver Toyota sedan parked in front of the building, but Luca shakes his head and steers me toward a ’90s-era Lincoln Town Car.
I come to a stop. “Really?”
His lips curve into a smile, and he gives the black vinyl roof an affectionate pat. “It was my grandpa’s.” I can’t miss the fondness in his voice, and I find myself hoping his grandpa is still around. Maybe he just bought a newer vehicle.
Luca swings the back door open and takes Mrs. Goodwin’s hand to help her climb in. For some reason, she’s decided to join us on our adventure. Maybe it’s better that we have a chaperone. Mrs. Goodwin’s presence will keep me from reaching over and wringing Luca’s neck for throwing off my schedule in the first place. I calculate that the odds of making it on time if I murder my driver hover somewhere around zero.
I open my own door on the front passenger side, but I can’t sit down because there are papers all over the seat and a box on the floor.
“Oops.” Luca gathers up the papers, stacks them on top of the box, and carries them around to put them in the trunk while I sit down. “Sorry,” he says when he slides into the seat next to me. “I would’ve cleaned up if I knew I’d be driving a lady around.”
“Excuse me , young man,” Mrs. Goodwin objects from the back seat. “What am I? Chopped liver?”
Luca grins as he flips on the turn signal and pulls the car onto Liberty Avenue. “You’re not a lady, Mrs. Goodwin. You have entirely too much fun to be a lady.”
“Ha,” she barks. “You’re probably right about that.”
For some reason, this bothers me more than it should. “Are you implying that I don’t have any fun?”
Luca’s dark eyes dart to mine before he focuses back on the road in front of us. “I don’t know you well enough to know if you have any fun.”
“So what are you saying?”
The traffic light in front of us turns from green to yellow, and Luca eases the car to a stop. He shifts his torso so he can turn to face me. “I’m saying you seem awfully concerned with following the rules.”
This again. “Maybe you don’t seem concerned enough,” I counter. “Rules are there for a reason. To maintain order. To keep things running smoothly and safely.”
“Okay. Sure. You’re probably right.” He nods, and I blink, surprised that he agreed with me so readily.
The light turns green, and Luca shifts his body forward, raising both hands to ten and two on the steering wheel. After a pause, he slowly lifts his foot from the brake and slides it to the gas pedal. But instead of accelerating through the intersection and down the road behind the car in front of us, the Lincoln slowly pokes along like an old man who’s feeling every bit of his age. We coast down one block and then another, matching the pace of a mother urging her toddler along on the sidewalk. I glance at the flickering green clock on the dashboard and then to Luca’s impassive face.
I thought this ride had bought me back a little of the time I lost thanks to the coffee incident, but we’re squandering it at this geriatric pace. Is there something broken in this old car? I’m pretty sure that the mom and baby have lapped us by now.
We putter down another block, and then Luca comes to a full stop at a stop sign. He looks left, right, forward, and then left again before he eases his foot back onto the gas pedal. I shift uncomfortably in my seat as anxiety begins to hum in my chest like a hive of bees. My gaze darts from the clock to Luca and back. He doesn’t seem to notice, though, because he’s staring straight ahead, his face scrunched in concentration. His shoulders rock gently back and forth, hands sliding on the steering wheel, as if he’s an actor in a play pretending to drive a car.
“ Luca ,” I yell, and he jumps.
“Yes?” he asks mildly.
“What are you doing?”
He gives an exaggerated wave at the road in front of us, like he’s presenting it to me in a game show. “I’m taking you to work.”
“Why are you driving like it’s Sunday afternoon and Miss Daisy is in the back seat?”
He blinks innocently, and suddenly it comes to me.
“Are we back to that lady thing again? You’re trying to make a point?”
“Certainly not. I’m simply following the traffic rules.” He cocks his head. “Rules are there for a reason. To maintain order. To keep things running smoothly and safely .” He punctuates the sentence with a series of taps on the dashboard like a preschool teacher reciting the ABCs.
I can’t believe he’s throwing my words back at me. I can’t believe I got into a car with this man. “You know what? I’m good. I can still use a rideshare.” I grip the door handle, but Luca has finally accelerated to a normal speed, and I can’t very well fling myself out of a moving vehicle. “Stop the car, please.”
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll get you there.” He flashes me a grin. “Say the word, and I’ll even speed.”
He’s still making a joke of this.
I jiggle the door handle. “Stop. The. Car.”
He glances in my direction, his brow furrowed. “Wait. Are you really mad?”
“Of course I’m mad. You’re intentionally making me late.”
“You said your meeting was at nine o’clock. We left at eight twenty-five. It’s a seven-minute drive.” He waves a hand at the clock on the dashboard. “You’re still going to be at least twenty minutes early.”
“Twenty minutes early is late in my book.”
His face registers genuine surprise. “How was I supposed to know that?” A light turns red ahead, and Luca slows the car to a stop.
“I thought I told you this is an important meeting.” My heart picks up speed, and I tuck my hands under me to keep from pulling the printed schedule from my bag and checking it against the clock. Luca would definitely have something to say about that.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean that you need to arrive—” He abruptly stops talking as his gaze slowly drifts over me. I do my best to let the tension seep from my shoulders and to bend my stick-straight arms into a more natural position. “You know what?” Luca shakes his head. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you were so…”
I wait for whatever he’s about to say. Picky? Controlling? Fastidious? I’ve heard it all before, and it doesn’t bother me. I’ll take picky, controlling, and fastidious over unreliable any day.
“Interested in being early,” Luca finally says, looking me over again. “I’m sorry I continue to contribute to your lateness.” He lifts his hands, palms up in a gesture that I’ll admit does seem apologetic.
I let my shoulders drop another inch. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“I promise I’ll drive you safely, yet quickly, to campus so you can be as early as possible to your meeting. How does that sound?”
It sounds like… my best option, to be honest. But I’m not sure how I feel about it. If Luca Morelli is my best option, things might be going downhill quickly. But the clock ticks forward another number. “Yes, great.”
The light turns green, and Luca presses the gas. “I’ll have you there in five.”
I finally give in to the urge and pull out my schedule. The next two lights we hit are green, so we’ll probably make it in four minutes. I should be fine to get there with time to spare.
While I look over my printout, Luca tips his chin up to glance in the rearview mirror at the passenger in the back seat. “Mrs. Goodwin, you need to run any errands on our way home?”
I thought he said he was just taking a quick break. Shouldn’t he be getting back to his post and figuring out what to do about the broken elevator?
Mrs. Goodwin leans forward in her seat. “I’d love to stop at the pharmacy if it’s not too much trouble. And maybe the bank and the grocery store.”
“No trouble at all.” Luca gives her a grin.
Good thing I’m not expecting any deliveries, because Luca is going to be gone from the front desk all day at this rate. But I can’t worry about it now. I turn away from him and watch in relief as the university buildings come into view.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say to Luca as I climb out of the Town Car and onto the sidewalk in front of the café. “And for the trousers,” I add with considerably more enthusiasm, leaning in to give Mrs. Goodwin in the back seat a wave.
“Good luck with your meeting, honey.” She blows me a kiss. “I’ll be rooting for you.”
That statement cheers me, softening the hard edges of my disaster of a morning. I’ve been getting by on my own for so long, I had no idea how nice it would feel to have someone root for me until right at this moment. “Thanks, that means a lot,” I say, surprised when my voice comes out a little hoarse. I definitely don’t have time to be getting emotional, so I quickly close the door.
I’m just turning to walk into the café when I hear a low hum and a muffled “Hey” come from the direction of the car. When I spin back around, the Town Car’s vintage passenger-side window is slowly lowering into the doorframe with approximately zero urgency. It reminds me a little bit of the car’s driver. Eventually, it comes to a stop with a high-pitched squeak, and Luca leans across the seat to look up at me.
“How long is your meeting?”
“Um.” Why does he care? “About an hour, probably.”
“Will you be going to your office afterward?”
“No, my office isn’t ready yet. The semester doesn’t start for a few weeks. I’ll probably do some work at home.”
He nods. “Okay, we’ll pick you up over there in an hour.” Luca waves at a row of benches in front of a wide stretch of lawn where students are lounging on blankets in the morning sun or tossing frisbees around.
It was nice of him to drive me here, but I don’t want him to feel obligated to come back. “That’s really not necessary.”
Luca shrugs. “After ruining your morning, it’s the least we can do, right, Mrs. Goodwin?”
Mrs. Goodwin nods. “Absolutely.”
“No, really,” I argue, but the window is already making its slow ascent back to the closed position. I slowly rise with it, keeping my eyes on Luca through the shrinking crack. “I can take the bus.”
“See you at ten,” Luca calls, and the window zips shut completely. Before I can react to what’s happened, he puts on the turn signal and pulls the car into a break in the traffic.
I sigh. This will probably further delay him from getting back to the front desk. But then I shrug. Given my experience with Luca, he’ll be an hour late or will forget to pick me up entirely. So there’s no point in even getting worked up about him driving me home. Glancing at my watch, I realize that despite his antics on the way over here, Luca did manage to get me to the café with twenty minutes to spare. Everything worked out in the end, and I can put this whole morning behind me. I square my shoulders, brush a tiny speck of lint from my borrowed trousers, and head into the café to start my new job and my new life.