AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His hand slipped from my hair to rest on my thigh, fingertips sliding over the fabric of my leggings. I dropped one of my hands to tangle with his. The road was empty enough and I wouldn’t have to worry about curves until we got closer to the mountains.
Luca turned the volume up on the music. “Keep singing. I like listening to you.”
I sang along to a couple songs until Luca was asleep in the passenger seat. That boy was a lightweight.
And now he’d left me alone with my own thoughts after his cocktail-fueled ones.
I should let him go, but I didn’t want to. Maybe that was painfully selfish of me, but Luca was basically the most stable person I’d ever had in my life, and I wanted to keep him around. It wasn’t fair to either of us. Even if I somehow caved enough to make what we had official, it was only a matter of time before Luca got tired of me. The amount of times he had taken care of me, dragged me out of my ugly thoughts, and put me back together, was telling of the future. I would never stop needing that, and I already knew Luca was the type to give until he broke. I didn’t want to be the one to break him.
As if he could sense what was cycling around in my head, his fingers twitched and curled against my leg, whiplashing me back into focus. He was still completely asleep. It was ridiculous that he didn’t even need to be conscious to help.
If only it lasted.
We were both too attached. Far more than I had ever anticipated when I agreed to this arrangement. I had been naïve to think rules would be enough to keep me from becoming dependent on a man like Luca. He was too sweet, too fucking consistent, for me to stand a chance.
Everything I had ever craved from a parent, Luca handed over without a thought. All the tenderness and passion I had ever wanted from a lover but had never expected I would get, Luca gave easily.
I swallowed past the thickness in my throat. As grateful as I was that Luca was seemingly happily providing what I had always craved, it felt more and more like I was using him. Sure, I liked being around him, I liked having him in my bed and hearing about his day, but maybe that was my brain making an excuse. It was always possible that anxiety had twisted things around and I was mistaking gratitude for something else.
If I was smart, I would turn the car around instead of digging myself deeper. Luca was a gravity well. I could fight all the way down, but nothing I did would stop the slide. And here I was, twisting myself into knots instead of just enjoying that ride.
I laughed quietly to myself. That was my whole fucking life. I twisted everything. Enough expectations had been shattered growing up that I started to expect everyone to do that. Every parent had lost my trust. Every time I had attempted to find someone I could trust with every facet of my life, they had been one disappointment after another. I wasn’t sure if that’s what I was waiting for with Luca. Every time I thought he would disappoint me, he surprised me instead.
The darkness of the mountain roads wrapped around us, my thoughts becoming as tangled and swerving as the asphalt beneath my wheels. Running myself in circles solved nothing and instead only fueled the ball of guilt and self-loathing that sat in my stomach.
Luca stirred about twenty minutes from our destination. It was too dark for me to see his face, but I could feel the brush of his finger against the back of my neck and the stroke of his thumb on my cheek.
“Hey there, sleeping beauty. Feel better?”
“A million times better,” he confirmed. “I feel like some of the cocktails they gave me were doubles.”
“My little lightweight.”
“I used to have a better tolerance, but it’s been years.”
“Nothing wrong with that. If drinking isn’t for you, then it’s not for you.”
“I’ll make an exception for a glass of champagne tonight.” Luca shifted and sat up more fully, covering a yawn. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” I responded automatically. “Why do you ask?”
“It smells like burnt lemons.”
“That’s probably from the herd of deer on the road we passed a little while ago,” I lied. “I always stress that one of them is going to leap and go through the windshield.”
“Deer do have that habit.”
We were both quiet for the rest of the drive, but it was easier to keep my thoughts from spiraling when I knew Luca was awake.
After checking in at the hot spring hotel, we were led to a row of cabins, each with their own fenced-off section of the steaming, shallow river that wrapped around the resort. Our treats and drinks arrived a few moments afterward.
I washed off the car ride and strode out into the cabin fully naked. Luca choked on a strawberry he was sneaking. I patted his back helpfully.
“You’ve got to warn a guy. I was not ready.”
“Consider this your warning that I’m not wearing clothes until it’s time to go to the festival tomorrow.”
Luca shucked his outfit in a hurry and I luxuriated in the warm expanse of his skin pressed against me, his mouth dipping down to meet mine while I stood on tiptoe.
