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She looked up at me with the sweetest eyes. “Yeah!”
Luca reached across the table and plucked the pancake from my hair before dipping one of the unused napkins into his ice water and passing it to me to save my hair from becoming crispy.
Nova was back to scrutinizing us. “Why are you being so nice? Daddy never even talks to Mom when we go out to restaurants.”
My heart broke that she was questioning the kindness of someone because Rodney had never shown that kind of decency to her mother where she could see it.
“Your mom deserves more than that,” Luca said. “So does your auntie, and you.”
Nova’s eyes dropped to her plate. “I wish Daddy was nice to Mom. I don’t like staying with him, but I’m kinda glad he’s gone. I really don’t like hearing Mom cry like she did before he left.”
Before I could get up to comfort her, she tucked her little head against Luca’s shoulder and started to cry. He patted her head, murmuring quiet assurances to her. He looked at me, mouthing, What do I do? but I could only shrug and motion for him to keep doing what he was doing. Nova was a good judge of character, and if what she wanted right now was Luca, who was I to stand in her way?
Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Stella knew about Luca. At least she didn’t know the Marinos and she was too busy with her own problems to worry about who I was dating. Not that we were dating. Officially. God, I was fucking bad at this casual concept with Luca. I didn’t want to tell Stella, but it felt like an inevitability now that Nova was insisting there was something.
“Hey, Supernova?”
She peeked up at me.
“If you don’t want to go back to your dad’s, we can go talk to your mom.”
“Will he get mad at her?”
“I don’t know. But your mom and I can handle anything that needs to be handled. The important part is that you’re staying somewhere you feel safe.”
She chewed her thumbnail, still leaning on Luca. “I don’t like staying with Daddy.”
“Then we’ll get it figured out, okay?”
Nova nodded, finally sitting up. “Can we go home now?”
“Sure thing, babe.”
Ihadn’t expected to be invited to a birthday brunch for Jasper, but it was nice to be included. The pack was chatting away, updating my family.
“We’re waiting on permits to start construction on the new facility,” Jasper said. “I heard from Billie that Luna agreed to the yoga studio, so she’ll fit right in.”
My eyes widened. I guess in all of the chaos Luna had forgotten to mention that it was a done deal. “That’s great!”
“It should be pretty fabulous. It’s going to coordinate well with Hana’s new gym.”
By the time brunch was over, I was all talked out and ready to go hermit mode for a while. I didn’t get to indulge myself, though. An hour later, I was in class, learning to roll the perfect croissant, followed by a closing shift at the gym. As tempted as I was to call out, Lux was short-staffed at the moment, but luckily she’d loosened up her rules about staff using their phones at the gym. I wasn’t going to neglect my work, but it was nice to be able to message Luna whenever I wanted there.
I did just that when I took over for my boss and set up camp in my little gym domain at the staff desk.
Luca:
Congrats on deciding to start the studio!
Sunshine:
Shit, I forgot to tell you it was official
I panic-agreed when Billie messaged me again and then just shoved the whole thing out of my brain
Luca:
You don’t have to tell me everything
