Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
KAI
The private terminal at Los Angeles International is too bright, too quiet, and too empty.
We’re supposed to be boarding the jet to Europe in twenty minutes—the start of the overseas leg, the big push after the US tour.
Tasha is pacing near the gate, phone glued to her ear.
Michael keeps checking his watch and muttering under his breath.
Min-ho sits beside me, silent but tense, his usual calm cracking around the edges.
Luca isn’t here.
He hasn’t answered any calls.
Not from Tasha. Not from Michael. Not from me.
I sit with my elbows on my knees, staring at the polished floor, trying to keep my breathing even. My bag is at my feet. My passport is in my hand. Everything is ready.
Except him.
Tasha hangs up and walks over, face tight with frustration.
“Still no answer,” she says. “His phone goes straight to voicemail. Harry’s people say they don’t know where he went after he left the Bahamas.”
Michael runs a hand through his hair. “This isn’t like him. Even when he’s late, he at least texts.”
Min-ho glances at me. I don’t meet his eyes. Because I know why Luca isn’t here. And I’m pretty sure it is all my fault.
No, I know it’s my fault.
My phone burns in my pocket. I pull it out before I can stop myself, because who doesn’t love to torture themselves. I open the browser and type in his name, the same way I’ve done over the last week and a half.
The photos load instantly.
Luca outside a club in L.A.—grainy but clear enough. He’s laughing, arm slung around some guy with dark hair and tattoos. Another shot shows him leaning in close, the guy’s hand on his lower back. They look comfortable. Intimate.
Jealousy burns through me—hot, ugly, and completely unfair.
I have no right to feel this. But seeing him with someone else twists something dark inside my chest. I lock my phone and shove it back into my pocket.
“He was in L.A. last week,” I say. “Pap photos caught him outside a club.”
“Shit. What if he was murdered?” Michael says as he pops to his feet. “Doesn’t Harry have Dax’s phone number? He could call his dad…”
“I’m sure Luca would love that,” I mutter.
Tasha sighs. “We can’t wait much longer. The pilot says we have a narrow window for takeoff.”
Michael looks at me. “Kai…you were the last one with him. Did he say anything?”
I shake my head. My throat feels tight.
“No.”
The boarding announcement crackles over the speakers. Tasha looks at her watch again, then at the empty chair where Luca should be sitting.
“We have to go,” she says reluctantly. “We’ll figure it out in the air. Maybe he’ll meet us in London.”
I stand up. My legs feel heavy. As we walk toward the jet, I glance back at the terminal entrance one last time. No Luca. No sign of him.
The automatic doors slide open for a family dragging suitcases behind them. A businessman rushes through with his phone pressed to his ear. A flight attendant hurries past us toward another gate.
But it’s not him.
My chest tightens.
I knew he wouldn’t come. I knew the moment I walked out of that villa that I’d broken something between us that might not be fixable.
Still—part of me hoped.
We climb the stairs to the jet. The cabin smells faintly of leather and coffee. The crew greets us with practiced smiles, but even they seem to sense something’s off.
This jet is larger than our normal one. It has private quarters for each of us to get some rest if we want. Not that I’ll be sleeping much. I’m pretty sure the guilty can’t sleep.
Michael drops into the chair across from mine with a frustrated sigh. Min-ho takes the window seat and pulls his headphones around his neck without putting them on.
Tasha talks quietly with the pilot near the front.
“Maybe he overslept,” Michael mutters.
Min-ho gives him a look. “I think he’d be answering his phone if that was the case.”
The flight attendants start the pre-checks. My stomach drops. This is actually happening. We’re leaving without him. I pull my phone out again before I can stop myself.
Still nothing. No messages. No missed calls. But, at this point, I didn’t expect anything else.
The only thing that keeps looping inside my head is the photos that I can’t stop looking at, attempting to dissect the look on his face. Was it a smile? Has he moved on? The thought punches straight through my ribs, stealing my breath.
Maybe he has. Maybe that night meant a lot more to me than it did to him, and I just made things easier for him.
Tasha checks her watch again.
“He has five minutes,” she says. “Then we close the door.”
Five minutes.
Michael mutters under his breath, “I swear if he bailed on the Europe leg—”
The time ticks down like a bomb, and I watch the open door.
The flight attendant steps up beside Tasha.
“We need to close the door.”
Tasha hesitates. Three seconds. Four. Then she nods.
“Alright. Close it.”
The attendant reaches for the handle. And right then—
“Hold it!”
Every head in the cabin turns. Footsteps pound up the stairs outside. A second later, Luca appears in the doorway. He’s breathing hard like he ran the entire terminal. His hair is a mess, sunglasses pushed up on his head, hoodie half-zipped.
For a second, no one says anything. Michael is the first to recover.
“Jesus Christ,” he blurts. “Where the hell have you been?”
Luca steps inside like nothing’s wrong. “Traffic.”
I can’t hold back my scoff. He’s lying.
“Problem?” he asks lightly, eyes flicking to me for the briefest second before looking away.
I clamp my mouth shut. I’d rather bite off my tongue than get into an argument with him right now. Just the sight of him makes my chest hurt, and the familiar scent of his cologne reminds me of our very brief time together. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.
Tasha sighs in relief. “Just sit down. We’re already behind schedule.”
Luca drops into the seat farthest from me—the one in the back row by the window. He pulls his headphones on and turns toward the glass, shutting everyone out.
The door finally closes. The jet taxis. We take off. And the silence between us feels louder than the engines.
Hours later, after we’ve been in the air for a while, I can’t take it anymore. I unbuckle and walk back to the private quarters at the rear of the plane. Luca’s door is closed. I knock once. No answer. I knock again, harder.
The door opens.
Luca stands there, hoodie still on, eyes tired and guarded.
“What?” he says.
I step inside and close the door behind me. The small cabin is dim, just the reading light on above the bed.
“We need to talk.”
He crosses his arms. “About what? You made it pretty clear in the Bahamas that there’s nothing to talk about.”
The hurt in his voice is unmistakable. It makes my stomach twist.
“I was scared,” I say. “I still am. But running away wasn’t fair to you. Or to us.”
“Us?” He laughs, the sound bitter. “There is no ‘us,’ Kai. You made sure of that.”
I step closer. The space between us feels too small and too big at the same time.
“I was wrong,” I admit. “I pushed you away because I was terrified of how much I feel for you. Because if this is real, it could destroy everything—the band, my control, my heart. But these last ten days without you have been hell. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop wanting you.”
Luca’s eyes darken. He doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t reach for me either.
“So what?” he says. “You want to pick up where we left off? Pretend the last ten days didn’t happen?”
“No.” I take another step. We’re close now, close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “I want to stop pretending. I want whatever this is. Even if it’s messy. Even if it scares me. I want you.”
“Well, I don’t want you.”
Luca’s voice is cold, flat, but his eyes betray him, they are dark, angry, and hurt all at once. He stands there in the dim light of the private cabin, arms crossed tight over his chest as though he’s trying to hold himself together.
I freeze.
The small space suddenly feels even smaller. The hum of the engines is the only sound between us for a long, painful second.
I step closer anyway.
“You’re lying,” I say quietly.
Luca’s jaw clenches. “Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you. You don’t know me.”
“I know you well enough to know that you’re scared, too.”
His eyes flash, and he backs me into the door. He plants his palm against the wall beside my head and lowers his face to within inches of mine. The anger in his eyes makes me second-guess coming back here. I’ve never seen him this way before.
“You think you know me?” he growls, voice low and dangerous. “You think you can walk away, not reach out for ten days, then come back and tell me you want me? After you made me feel like I was nothing? I’ve been there before, it’s not a place I want to ever be again.”
His free hand grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me forward until our chests collide. His mouth crashes into mine—hard, angry, and punishing. He bites my bottom lip, hard enough to sting, then soothes it with his tongue only to bite again.
I groan into his mouth. He doesn’t let me pull back, but I’m not sure if I would. He kisses me like he’s trying to punish me for every second I made him wait, for every time I ran.
He breaks the kiss only to drag his teeth down my neck, nipping sharply at the sensitive skin over my pulse point. I hiss at the sting, but my cock twitches hard in my pants.
“You don’t get to do this,” he snarls against my throat. “You don’t get to push me away and then come crawling back when you’re lonely.”
His hand slides down, palming me roughly through my jeans. I buck into his touch, gasping.
“Luca—”
“Shut up.”
He spins me around, pressing my chest against the door. His body covers mine from behind, hips grinding against my ass so I can feel how hard he is.
“You want me?” he growls in my ear. “Fine. But we’re doing this my way.”