Chapter 2 Luca
Luca
“SORRY, NOPE, I checked twice, and nobody’s left a note for anyone,” the hotel clerk says from behind her desk.
With a low sigh, I shuffle toward a beige couch in a far corner of the beige lobby, figuring I’ll sit down to camouflage my shame and disappointment.
Thanks to the long-stemmed red rose I’ve got in one hand and the plastic bag filled with two pints of ice cream in the other, I definitely look like a guy who’s being stood up for a date. It’s a first for me. I’m not a fan.
When I reach the couch, I flop down, place my stuff on a lacquered, off-white coffee table, and let out a long, dejected exhale. Did I misread Chelsea’s signs? Was all that smiling and laughter fake? Man, I could have sworn we were both feeling the same lightning bolt this morning. Apparently not.
As I’m having the thought, a distant elevator opens and I perk up with hope. But it’s only a big group of my teammates exiting the elevator in a large, concentrated pack.
“What are you doing over there, Maguire?” one of them shouts. “Come on, man! We’re going out till curfew!”
I glance at the stuff on the coffee table. Those two pints of ice cream are probably soup by now, and some random lady on the sidewalk is going to get that long-stemmed red rose tied with ribbons the colors of the University of Chicago.
With a sigh that pains my soul, I slowly get up, resigned to my rejection.
But before I’ve taken a step toward my oncoming teammates, they spread out from their packed configuration to reveal Chelsea walking behind them, dressed in jeans and a formfitting T-shirt that makes her look so hot, I have to consciously force my gaze upward to her face again.
“Chelsea!” I blurt, leaping up and waving my arms. “I’m over here!”
“You’re not coming with us?” one of my teammates asks, looking from Chelsea to me.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away, brother,” I mutter out the side of my mouth, making him snicker.
“Have fun, player. She’s hot.”
“Not so loud.”
I’ve had more than my fair share of fun since coming to school, so I’ve already acquired a bit of a reputation.
But I wouldn’t want Chelsea overhearing him calling me a player, or her hot, and incorrectly thinking our insane chemistry this morning was anything short of genuine for me.
Now granted, I’m outrageously attracted to this girl physically.
That’s why I was staring at her in the first place from across the large breakfast room.
Because I was like, “Gimme some of that.” But after talking with her, my attraction skyrocketed to a whole new level.
The kind where I’ve now got sweaty palms and a racing heart to go along with the tingles in my dick.
The kind where I’d settle for just getting to be around her again and chatting up a storm, with nothing more on the agenda than that, if only to be in her presence.
As my teammates file past me and out the glass double doors at the front of the lobby, I reach Chelsea in the middle of the space and bound to a stop like a kangaroo sticking a landing. “Hey there,” I say effusively. “Glad you made it. You look beautiful tonight.”
“So do you. I’m so sorry I’m late. We were taking team photos upstairs, and they wouldn’t let me leave.”
“I’m just glad you came at all. And you’re not that late, really. I was just ridiculously early.” What am I doing? Why did I admit that?
“I called down and asked them to tell you I was running late. Did you get the message?”
I scowl and shake my head. “No, but that’s okay. You’re here now and that’s all that matters. So, how’d it go today?”
Chelsea’s beautiful face lights up. “We advanced to the finals!”
I whoop and high-five her, and Chelsea does a cute little shimmy that turns me on while also making me laugh.
“Just like I said: You’re a killer, baby!”
“Well, it’s a team sport,” she says, blushing. “But I was most definitely an impact player today, thanks mostly to an expert mathlete like you being there in spirit with me.”
I snicker. “That’s the same term we use in football. Impact player.”
“No way. How funny.” She shifts her weight. Scratches her arm. “So how’d your game go? Tell me everything. Not that I’ll understand any of it.”
My wide smile broadens even more. “We won by two touchdowns. That’s fourteen points.”
Chelsea whoops and we high-five again. “Did you do well in the game?”
“I got two sacks and tons of tackles. So, yeah, I had a great game, personally, on top of the win.”
“You’re a killer, baby!”
“Yeah, baby!”
She motions toward the front doors of the lobby. “You don’t want to go out and celebrate with your team tonight? I’m sure you can still catch them.”
“Hell no. I’d much rather be here with you, another mathlete, celebrating you making the finals tomorrow.”
Her breathing hitches. Her cheeks turn pink. “Okay,” she squeaks out, batting her eyelashes in the cutest way imaginable. “Oh! I brought you something!”
“Really? I brought you something, too.”
“You did not.”
“No, really.” I motion toward the coffee table on the other side of the lobby. “It’s over there. Come on.”
Blushing, Chelsea follows me across the lobby toward the couch. And when we get there, even before we sit down, I grab the long-stemmed red rose, the one I meticulously picked out at a florist down the street, and present it to her.
“For me?” She clutches her heart with one hand as she takes the flower with the other.
I nod shyly. “I asked for the ribbons to be your school’s colors.”
“Oh my gosh. Wow, Luca.”
“I figured if you advanced to the finals today, this rose would be in celebration of that, and if you didn’t, then it’d be to console you.”
Chelsea smells the rose daintily, and as her chest expands with her deep inhale, my eyes involuntarily drift to the tiniest hint of cleavage peeking out of her formfitting shirt. Damn.
“I feel embarrassed about my gift now,” she says. “It’s not nearly as good as yours.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll love it.”
“It’s a gag gift, basically.”
“Great, because I love gag gifts.”
Biting her lip, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a plastic “gold medal” on a ribbon—the sort of thing placed around the necks of elementary school kids on field day.
“Best gift ever,” I say.
“No, it’s silly.”
“It’s awesome.”
“You said you’d be there in spirit today, so I wanted you to share in our victory. Especially because this morning you unwittingly supplied the answer that clinched the finals for us.”
I feel electrified. “No way. Seriously? The winning answer was ‘the limit does not exist’?”
“No, no. It was, ‘The proof of alcohol needed to make a sorority girl barf.’”
I burst out laughing at her deadpan delivery. Man, this girl is hilarious. The kind of funny that only happens when someone is wickedly smart.
I look at the medal in my hand. “Why do I feel like I’m the Scarecrow and this medal is the Wizard’s way of giving me a brain?”
She laughs. “Not at all. I saw it and instantly thought of you. Didn’t you say your position on the field has the word ‘rush’ in it?”
I look at the medal again and realize what she’s referring to. Rushmore Engineering. That’s what’s stamped across the front of the medal.
“They were the event sponsor today,” Chelsea explains. “But let’s pretend it says ‘MVP.’”
I slip the medal’s ribbon over my head and the smile Chelsea beams at me when it’s in place is nothing short of breathtaking.
I know she got this thing for me as a joke—because I said I’d be there with her in spirit today and the word “rush” is stamped on it—but I feel like that word applies to this situation for another reason: because being in the presence of this amazing girl makes me feel a rush like nothing I’ve felt before.
“Is that bag yours?” she asks, pointing to the white plastic bag sitting on the coffee table.
“Yeah. Oh, fuck! The ice cream!” I reach inside the bag and squeeze one of the room-temperature pints, and it’s immediately clear its contents have liquified. “The patient’s flatlined, doctor,” I report. I look at my watch. “Time of death: eight twenty-two.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chelsea says. “This is all my fault for being late.”
“No, it was stupid of me to get ice cream when I knew my plan was to come down here early. I was just excited to show you a really good time, even if we only stayed in the lobby.”
“Forget I ever said that. Let’s go out and get some ice cream, Luca.”
I perk up. “Seriously? The ice cream place is only a few blocks from here, so it won’t take long.”
“We don’t have to hurry. Let’s just relax and have a good time.”
Holy shit. I didn’t see this coming. What changed? Could it be she’s feeling what I’m feeling? I rise excitedly as Chelsea does the same, and then I quickly start taking off my jacket to give to her.
“No, no,” Chelsea says when she realizes my intention. “I’ll just run upstairs real quick and—”
“I never get cold,” I assure her. “Plus, our time is limited, and I don’t want to miss out on a single minute with you.” Seriously now. What the hell am I doing? I’m never a dork like this with girls.
Chelsea blushes a deep shade of crimson as she takes the jacket I’m holding out. “Only if you’re sure you won’t need it.”
“I’m positive. I’m hot-blooded, baby.”
Luckily, she giggles at my comment rather than looking put off. And as I help her get the coat on, I suddenly feel like a prince in a fairy tale.
“Ready?” I ask, when she’s all bundled up.
“Ready.”
“Awesome.”
I open the lobby door for her, and off I go into the cold Indiana night with a gold medal around my neck and my heart pounding in my ears for the most exciting date of my entire life.
Northwestern is only like an hour from Chelsea’s school, right?