Chapter 12 #3
His brows shoot up comically. “Good lord, how are you not buzzing all over the place?”
“General lack of sleep for days now. Although that sometimes has the opposite effect. When I don’t sleep much, I tend to get a little giddy. It almost feels like I’m living in a video game.”
“Tonight…” He gulps loudly. “If you’re spending the night with me, you’re getting sleep. That’s an order.”
I cup his cheek, smoothing my fingers over his freshly shaved skin. “If you’re still up for it, I’m spending the night.”
He doesn’t make an up-for-it joke, which he clearly is. Already. Painfully. He just nods reverently, studying me like I’m this rare treasure he found, and he’s still trying to decide if I’m real or not.
“I’d like to spend the night with you tonight, and every night. After the pie competition, I was thinking I might like to move to New York.”
He’s not as surprised as I thought he’d be. He just blinks to clear the shock away, his mind already whirring through logistics.
“I can—”
“No, Luca. That’s nice, but I don’t want you to have to look after me. If I’m doing this, I want to do it independently.”
“Of what?” he wheezes, hurt briefly flashing across his face.
“I mean, I want to rent my own place and have a job. Moving in together would be a lot of pressure on us. I want to be there for you, but I want to give you space to breathe.”
“I hope you’ll let me help you find something,” he says.
“Find, yes. Maybe even find a job, but not hook me up with your connections or get me something I haven’t earned.”
His thumb strokes the back of my hand almost absently, but I know it’s not. “Your parents are going to be wildly worried.”
There are reasons why sleep didn’t come last night.
As soon as I thought about Luca leaving here, my heart went into a state of mourning so deep that I just knew I couldn’t stay here.
The long-distance thing would kill me. Not being able to be close to Luca, not being able to touch him or breathe him in…
it was an awakening in all the parts of me that already knew.
I was trying to be willfully blind in the name of it’s too freaking soon, but the truth is, I already know he’s my path.
What Mom and Dad said about the bakery last night made it easier to think of leaving here.
Will they worry? Yes. Will I have to prepare them in advance and give them time to process?
Also yes. Will they eventually come around and be happy for me in my autonomy, knowing that, all along, I was meant to find my own way in the world? I hope so.
“I thought I’d give them some notice now and maybe move at the end of summer.
” Talking it out is hard. It makes this all so real.
But I want to be real with this man. I want to be so many things, but this is a massive step.
This is me talking about leaving my home, my family, my job, and my whole life, uprooting for him.
It’s fast. And it’s a lot. It’s a huge level of commitment.
We might be different from most people in that we’ve talked this out repeatedly.
We’ve been so honest with each other. We’ve hurt and laughed, grown and changed, all in an exceptionally short time.
We’ve done it out loud. We’ve done it as a team.
Who does that?
It brings to mind those photos online that begin with nobody, and then they leave it blank and fill it in with me, and it’s always something wild.
“I was hoping you’d stay until the pie competition in a few weeks, so the time we are apart wouldn’t be that huge.
” I basically said as much, but I shouldn’t leave things up to guessing.
That’s where real messes start. “My parents have always prepared me, in their own way, to be independent. I know it’s a big step, and they’re going to worry, but they’ll understand if I give them some time.
I can still help them out. They can send me the bakery’s financials and accounts, and I can do them online.
If my dad gets overwhelmed, he could always hire someone.
He needs to make his peace with that. Maybe they’ll choose to retire soon, and they’ll be the ones to move closer to me. ”
“I’d still feel better if you let me help you,” Luca says.
“I will. Just not financially. I don’t want money or things from you. I just want you.”
Luca can’t hide his amusement. He’s not pushy and accepts my wishes easily. I don’t know a single other man like him. “If we could take your sweetness and goodness and channel it into a new flavor of pie, we’d win for sure.”
I smack him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m not all that good. I’d say average at best. I have a dark side you know nothing about.”
Luca chuckles. “The goth side?”
“That was for playacting, but I do like dark art and gothic literature. I’m going to say that even though I had to spend a frustrating hour every single day doing my makeup, it grew on me.”
He braces his hand on my back, his tone changing. “Dark or light, you found the life I’d buried so much further than six feet down. You tugged it out of me.”
He’s so serious now. I should try to match the atmosphere, but I just can’t. I giggle like I’m fucking fourteen because he said tugged it out of me. “I did kind of do that last night, didn’t I?”
He rears back in the chair, bumping into two cats who turn around and yawn-hiss in his face but do nothing other than reposition themselves.
I’ve never heard Luca give one of those hee-haw laughs before, but it happens.
It’s a full-on eyes-squeezed-shut, head thrown back, and throat and chest and whole body laugh.
He swipes away moisture from the corners of his eyes. “You make me feel seen. You help me see myself in a different way. Is that better?”
How is it possible to laugh and have your heart nearly fall out of your chest at the same time? “You wear your heart on your sleeve, Luca. As dumb as that old saying is. I didn’t have to dig deep down at all.”
“I’d fallen out of love with life,” he protests, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. The weight of it is like being wrapped up in a blanket on a cold winter’s day. The cozy warmth just makes me feel safe. “I became complacent. And then, it was just about survival.”
I cuddle close, resting my cheek on his shoulder.
He managed to bring the forest with him when he came.
It’s in his cologne and the scents of his aftershave, shampoo, and skin.
It’s not just pine but the open sky and unique lake scent that belong solely to cabins, cottages, picnics, and fishing trips.
“The first time we kissed, it was two strangers who didn’t want to be lonely.
It was about a lot of emptiness wanting to be filled.
Then, the last time? It was trust. It was being present.
It was friendship, tears, and laughter. It was the times we talked and listened to each other.
It was tender and emotional on a level I’ve never felt before.
It has been a relatively short time, but I’ve learned so much about you and myself.
You’re not the only one who got a bit lost in life.
We need to come home to find those missing pieces and realign the world again, but sometimes, home can be a person too.
Home can be here. It can be my parents. It can be these cats.
It could be New York, a lake, punk music, huge pizzas, and you. ”
The way he’s looking at me when I can’t turn my face up to read what’s going on in his head? It goes beyond adoration. Beyond connection. Beyond being present, even though he’s all those things.
His unblinking intensity gives off far deeper vibes.
I’m here no matter what.
We’re going to be okay.
I’m safe with you.
I’m falling for you too.
The last thing I expect him to whisper is, “Earl Grey.” It’s not exactly the name I wanted to hear.
But he suddenly brightens, his entire face suffusing with light.
I didn’t know seeing Luca inspired and motivated and as an utter genius was on today’s BINGO card, but I’m darned glad it is. He’s spectacular. Breathtaking.
Alright, okay, so I’m obsessed.
“Earl Grey cream with a graham cracker gingersnap crust. Like a cup of tea in a pie,” he chimes enthusiastically.
“Oh my god!” I’m so excited that I nearly fall out of Luca’s lap, but he’s quick as he catches me and lowers me off the chair until my feet hit the floor.
There’s no controlling the little happy dance I do.
Basically, I just throw my arms up and squiggle them around while matching the same energy with my hips. “With lavender flakes?”
He purses his lips and strokes his chin like a mad genius. It’s hot, and my brain pulls its regular where he’s concerned and shorts out. “I like the idea, but not lavender. Maybe vanilla? Chocolate?”
I leap up and down in the air. How that doesn’t send the cats scrambling, I don’t know. I have to get it together and contain myself before I go bouncing around this room and fling myself straight into the stratosphere. “Raspberry!”
“Yes! My god, yes!” he exclaims.
I take his hands and tug him out of the chair. He springs up, flings his hands around my waist, and spins me around in an impromptu dance. My head is spinning, my feet are barely touching the floor, and I can’t remember the last time I was ever this happy.
As soon as Luca stops spinning me, I grab my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans.
Since I’m not going to be able to write our ideas down fast enough, I just open the voice note app.
“Walk me through it,” I instruct Luca. His eagerness and incandescent joy right now are so sexy that I’m going to be incinerated into a pile of ash before we get through this.
The pie will be worth it, though. So worth it.
It’s going to be a one-of-a-kind pie. Something the four of us bring to life.
Even if it’s somehow been done before, or if we don’t win anything in the end, we’ll have these moments, this creation, this time, and this newfound happiness.
After we talk it out, and I shut the voice note down, I text it to both my parents.
Mom always has her phone with her, and while Dad never checks his, I know she’ll hear us just bubbling away and bursting over.
She’ll know how special it is. We can leave for the bakery now, and by the time we get there, I know they’ll be bursting the same way we are.
I tug Luca back to the kitchen and snag my car keys off the metal fishbone hook by the door. I dangle them right in his face, though I shouldn’t do that. It’s tempting fate by tempting his toe-curling, panty-melting grin.
“It’s been quite a while since I was part of a real team like this,” Luca murmurs. “If I remember correctly, we have about ten minutes for me to compose myself in the car.”
“Ten minutes.” Composure? Great idea. Are you listening, hormones? Heart? Nipples? Vagina? Are we down to behave?
I already know the answer to that. Not a chance.
The best I’m going to get is a fraction of focus, but I’ll take it, run with it, create with it, and bake with it.