Oh, Luca, why are you here when you don’t belong to me? This moment is out of place, not part of our timeline.
I reach out and stroke his furry beard.
He looks so rugged, even in his sleep. I don’t know if I like the beard that much, but I definitely like his face.
I wonder what he’s going to say for himself in the morning.
Chapter 23
I wake up to the sound of cursing.
I sit up in my bed, and twist around to find Luca in my kitchen. By the smell of it, he’s burning toast.
There’s not enough space in the little galley for him, let alone him and his crutches.
“Good morning,” he says. His eyes are as clear blue and beautiful as the sky outside the window. He’s stuffing the last bit of toast into his mouth. “Don’t mind me. I need to take food with those painkillers, or I might get funny.”
I jump out of the bed and fold it up into the sofa.
Luca says, “Don’t do that. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“If you were hungry, you should have woken me up.” I toss the cushions back in place hurriedly. “Come and sit down. I’ll take care of that.”
“Tina, it’s just a broken bone. I can make toast.”
I walk over to him, grab his big arm, and try to pull him out of the kitchen. He grabs hold of the counter and won’t budge.
“No, you don’t. I won’t make this mistake again.” He grabs me and pulls me into an embrace.
“What are you doing?” My voice is muffled from him pressing my face against his shoulder.
His chest rumbles, and with a gravelly voice, he says, “You’re not pulling or pushing me out of your life again. I know I shouldn’t have left you that night.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my body tense, like I’m rejecting his hug while still being in it.
“No, you shouldn’t have left, you big jerk. But you did. And you broke my heart.”
“What about you? You didn’t come to my grand opening. You sent me those funeral flowers and a generic card. You may as well have stuck an ice pick in my chest.”
My body gradually relaxes, conforming to his. He squeezes me tighter, and my arms wrap around his middle.
It’s hard to talk, but I choke out, “I don’t understand what happened with us.”
“We had our first fight, and I didn’t know how to apologize, because I couldn’t go see my florist for advice.”
I pull away and poke him in the stomach with two fingers. “Don’t make jokes, Luca. Don’t make me laugh, because it hurts too much.”
“I shouldn’t have left here that night,” he says, gazing down into my eyes. “But I was stubborn, and I thought I was right and you were wrong. Or maybe I was scared.”
“Why would you be scared?”
“My wrist hurts.” He keeps looking into my eyes. “I didn’t break my wrist last night, but when I fell, I reached out to break my fall. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think the same thing happened with us.”
“I hurt your wrist?”
“I realized I was falling, and I freaked out. I tried to stop my fall, but I only made it worse.” He leans down and gently kisses me. Our lips stick together, like they don’t want to let go. “Falling in love,” he says into my lips.
I pull away from his kiss, slip out of his arms, and take three steps back. He reaches for the crutches leaning against the wall and comes after me.
He can’t move very fast, so I start walking. There’s nowhere to go inside the small cottage, so I circle the large L-shaped couch.
“Luca, don’t kiss me and don’t look at me with those eyes. You have a girlfriend. She seemed nice. She shook my hand.”
He keeps coming after me, patiently circling the sofa with the help of his crutches.
“The girl who was with me last night? She’s the one I sent the second apology flowers to. She’s my neighbor. She’s married.”
“Oh, yeah? You fool around with married ladies? Oh, gross. Double gross.”
“It’s not like that,” he growls, sounding annoyed. “She was mad at me because she sent me on a blind date with her friend, and I was a real jerk.”
I keep walking, speeding up my pace so he doesn’t catch up to me. “You were a jerk? Why am I not surprised?”
He’s puffing from the effort of chasing me on the crutches. “Wait a minute. When you came to my house for dinner, you met Chris, but you didn’t meet his wife, did you?”
I yell back, “No! Was that her? Gross! You sleep with everyone.”
“I told you, I didn’t sleep with her. She sent me on a blind date with her friend.”
I keep moving, and now I’m puffing from the effort as well. Luca can move, even on one foot.
“You slept with her friend and never called?”
“No, Tina. You are so exasperating.”
“At least I don’t sleep with everyone!”
“Slow down. I went on the blind date. We had dinner, and that was it. We didn’t even kiss. I found out later she was mad at me because I spent the whole night talking about another girl.”
I snort. “Shocker.”
“I wouldn’t stop talking about the pretty girl I met at the flower shop. I couldn’t get her out of my head.”
“Me?” I stop walking.
Luca is really motoring and doesn’t see I’ve stopped. He slams into me, and accidentally tackles me down onto the couch.
I’m face down and he’s on top of me.
My voice muffled, I ask if he really was talking about me on his date.
“Yes, you,” he says.
What he’s saying gradually sinks in. The woman I saw him with is his neighbor. She’s married to Chris, the nice guy I met from next door.
Last night, I cried out a bucket of tears, and it was all a misunderstanding?
Luca’s weight on me is comforting, like a hug.
I wriggle around so that I’m on my back, facing him. His face is red, his eyes bright blue. He’s still breathing heavily.
“Luca, are you okay? Did you bang your foot?”
“Shh.” He leans down and kisses me again.
This time I don’t push him away.
I reach up and stroke my fingers through his new beard.
We keep kissing. Time collapses, and I’m feeling our first kiss, our second kiss, our third kiss—an infinite number of kisses, from the past, present and future.
He murmurs, “I miss you.”
“I’m right here. Don’t miss me.”