Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
Lying on her side with her head propped in her hand, Lindy stares at me. “But how do you feel about him?”
I peer up at my bedroom ceiling, lying next to my sister on my queen-sized bed.
It’s possible I should have told her nothing, but I had to tell someone.
I’m not even sure it really happened. I needed to gauge someone else’s reaction to decide if Lucca following me into a bathroom and kissing me silly was even a real, live possibility.
I swallow and purposely don’t look at her. “I told you, I’m stressed. I’m ready to pull my hair out. The man is going to get me fired. They won’t dismiss him—maybe fine him, but they’ll fire me.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” Lindy says. She clears her throat, loudly, unnecessarily, and waits for me.
I glance her way—it’s the wrong thing to do. She looks just like Mom when she’s lecturing. She isn’t allowed to lecture. I’m the big sister. That’s my job. “What?” I say, a whine in my tone.
“How do you feel about Lucca?” she repeats. “Not the situation, not your job, not the dozens of what ifs you’ve already thought up. Lucca.”
I scoff and turn my attention back to the grooves on my ceiling. There’s plaster up there that looks a little like Abraham Lincoln. I study Abe. Honest Abe. What would he tell Lindy?
Seeing how he’s so darn honest, he might tell her that was the best kiss of Maggie’s entire twenty-eight years.
He might tell her that a single kiss unlocked a whole lot of feelings.
That it somehow brought me back to thinking of my cluster of freckles.
Lucca noticed the freckle heart below my eye.
He saw me up close and personal. And for some reason, he liked what he saw.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. It’s true. It’s a statement from me and Abe.
I don’t know how I feel about Lucca. Sure, the man is attractive.
You’d have to be living under a rock to not know that Lucca Cruz is one offensively handsome Brazilian.
It’s easy to be attracted to tall, dark, and muscular.
But physical attraction has never ruled me.
The thing is, I’ve learned that there are more layers to Lucca than his Greek-god face. I’ve peeled back a few, and he’s sweet. He’s sentimental. He makes me unsure of everything I thought I knew about him. He’s so very different from what I believed.
“Maybe you need to ponder that,” Lindy says.
“Ponder something that can never be? What’s the point in that?”
“Never is a very permanent word, Mags. We both know nothing is permanent. You won’t referee forever.
Hopefully, I won’t work at the market forever.
Wyatt’s growing up, whether we like it or not.
He changes every single day.” She shrugs, her shoulders pressed into my mattress, her brown eyes on me.
“Things change. Sometimes the change comes with life. And sometimes we create the change because something better comes along.” She gives me a small, closed-lipped grin before sitting up.
“When did you get so wise?” I say. “I’m the big sister. I’m supposed to be the one full of advice.”
But Lindy doesn’t act like she’s even heard my banter. “Think about it, Maggie. You deserve to be happy.”
Lindy slips through my bedroom door, shutting it behind her. I stare at Abe, hoping he’ll give me some kind of answer. “Who says I’m not happy?”
By the time I’m ready for bed, I’ve convinced myself that Lindy actually doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about. I’m very happy. And Lucca is an acquaintance, a newish friend at most.
So why does my stomach flip, then flop, when my phone pings with a text and his name lights up the screen? It must be a nervous flip or an annoyed flop.
Because I cannot like Lucca Cruz. Everything in the Laws of the Game guidebook forbids it.
Lucca: Thinking about you.
Me: Why would you say it like that?
Lucca: How should I say it?
Me: Not at all. Keep all your ‘thinking about me’ thoughts to yourself.
Lucca: Maggie, lying to you and to myself will do no good.
Me: Are you having a stroke?
Lucca: Am I what? Confused…
Me: Okay, let’s start over.
Me: Lucca. Buddy. Pal. Chum. What’s happening, dude?
Yep, I’ve turned into a ’90s TV sitcom side character. One that’s heart pounds and stomach acrobats every time it sees five little letters: L-U-C-C-A.
Lucca: Chum?
Lucca: I don’t know this word.
Lucca: Does it mean: incredibly handsome man that I’d like to try kissing again?
I press my lips together and hold in a delirious laugh.
Me: No. It’s an old word. It means FRIEND.
Lucca: Ah.
My heartstrings tug. I don’t want to hurt him. I never thought that possible before. Who hurts playboy Lucca? At least, I used to think of him as a playboy. A man like Lucca doesn’t fall for a girl like me. He is simply a ticket to me working at the market with Lindy.
Me: You know that’s all this is. I’m sorry, Lucca. I don’t have romantic feelings for you. And I don’t think you do for me. I’m not your type.
Lucca: I think you’re wrong. I think you are exactly my type.
Okay… Not what I was expecting.
My heart pounds, and I try really hard to remember my goal here—convincing Lucca that he shouldn’t like me, that something between us would never work.
Me: Sure, I’m female. Is that all it takes to be your type? Up until a couple months ago, you couldn’t stand me.
Lucca: Ouch. No wonder you’re making me chase so hard. You think so little of me.
Ugh.
Me: No. I’m sorry. I don’t. But Lucca, you have to admit, you have a not-so-small reputation of being a bit of a ladies’ man.
And then my phone is ringing.
Ringing?
Why? Why? Why call me?
A text comes in while my phone is still ringing.
Lucca: I know you’re there, Maggie Pie. Pick up.
I peer down at my pajama shirt—because, of course, this is a FaceTime call.
“Ughhh,” I groan. “Fine.” I sit back against my childhood headboard, cross my legs, and answer my phone.
“Hello, Lucca,” I say, teeth gritting. My hair pokes up in the back, where I’d been lying on it.
Aw, man. I cringe, but quickly turn that frown into a grin.
Yep, I’m leaving the chaotic cowlick. That wild patch is going to fuel my aspiration of convincing Lucca that we should never, ever, ever date.
“Hello, Maggie. Can I tell you a little about my life? Something I know about myself and something I discovered?”
My heart thumps in my chest. I want to know this. I want to know whatever it is he wants to tell me so very bad. “I guess,” I say.
“I told you my father died and my mother left.”
I nod, afraid to speak.
“My friends know this. They know about my vovó. But there is something they don’t know.”
The pounding in my heart moves to my throat. I press my lips together and watch Lucca through my phone. “Okay,” I say, when he doesn’t continue.
“While I was an infant when my mother left, it still impacted me as a child and an adult. You called me a ladies’ man.”
“Lucca,” I say, ready to take it all back. “I shouldn’t have labeled you. I wasn’t trying to judge or offend.”
“And I suppose I have been.” His brows knit. “Women like me. It’s understandable—”
“Lucca,” I groan through a tired laugh.
He smothers a laugh. “What? They do. And yes, I’ve dated a lot of women. I have never wanted to date only one woman. My mother made sure of that.”
My voice is small. “Your mother?”
“Yes. She didn’t want me. So, I made sure all other women did. I also promised myself I’d never be hurt by another woman. She’d be the last to hurt me. I told myself there would only ever be one constant girl in my life.”
“Vovó,” I whisper.
But he hears me. “Vovó. She loved me for me. She made me believe I was perfect exactly as I was. I knew from a very young age that she would be the only woman I could ever truly love.”
A shaky breath falls from my lips.
“And then I met you.”
The thumping in my chest and throat starts to beat in my ears. I’m stuck on him truly loving Vovó and no one else.
“And you drove me crazy.”
I laugh, realizing for the first time since he started talking that there are tears in my eyes.
“But you also reminded me of her—” His nose wrinkles. “In a non-creepy way.” He coughs. “Let me make myself clear, I loved my grandmother in a very grandmotherly, appropriate way. She was my mother and father in one.”
I breathe out a small laugh and force all the liquid in my eyeballs to stay put. “I know that, Lucca.”
“The thing is, when you started to like me—because you do, Maggie Pie…”
I roll my eyes at him, dramatic and very adolescent.
“It was after a long period of not liking me. Now that you do, you liked me for me. You see me in some ways as she did. Honestly. You are the one person I’d risk getting hurt for.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Lucca,” I whisper, shaking my head and bowing when one tear streaks down my face. I wipe it away with the back of my hand before peeking back up to look at him.
“I’m nothing if not forthright,” he says. “This is how I feel. I thought you should know.”
“You don’t really know me,” I say.
His jaw flexes. “I do know you.”
“Not enough for feelings like these.”
There’s a long pause where I lie in bed and stare at Lucca on my phone screen, waiting for him to reply. For anything.
“Lucca,” I say. “For so many reasons”—I shake my head—“this won’t work.”
He studies me, his throat bobs in a swallow, and he pulls in a long breath.
I bite my inner cheek, waiting.
“I still say you’re worth the risk.” He nods. “So friends, then.”
I go warm—everywhere. My entire body flushes. “Friends.”
Then Lucca Cruz, soccer player extraordinaire, smiles at me. “Friends hang out, Maggie Pie. So, when are we getting together?”
This man is incorrigible.