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Luca: Are you all packed for Vancouver?
Griffin: That would be a negative. Like I said, no motivation.
I’d had a lot of time to think during the ride. One of the things nagging at me was the need to listen to the song Griffin had written. The one that I had assumed was about me based on the title. Technically, that would have meant Googling him, which I’d promised not to do.
Luca: I have a confession.
Griffin: Okay . . .
Luca: I had to stop myself from Googling you several times on the ride home. I want you to know I didn’t give in once. But there is one thing I really want to know more about.
Griffin: Alright. What is it?
I could sense his agitation.
Luca: Your song . . . the one called “Luca.”
My phone suddenly rang. It was him.
I picked up. “Hey . . .”
“I was going to tell you about that. I wasn’t sure if you knew. You never mentioned it, so I figured maybe you hadn’t discovered it yet.”
“Well, I saw it online and never had a chance to actually hear the lyrics.”
“Luca . . . listen. When I wrote that song . . . I didn’t know.”
“I know that. It’s okay. I won’t take it personally.”
“It’s basically the musical version of the letter I sent you when I was drunk. A glorified angry rant . . . that happened to sell millions of copies.”
“Can I hear it?”
He let out a long breath into the phone. “Of course.”
“Is it okay if I pull it up on YouTube now?”
He sounded a little defeated. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be right here.”
With Griffin on the line, I opened my laptop, logged in, and punched in Luca Cole Archer into the search bar.
A version of the video that had the words to the song listed as subtitles popped up.
I pressed “Play.”(Opening Music)There was Griffin’s gorgeous face as he sang the first words.The letters were the window to your soul.
Before you left me with a giant hole.
When you disappeared into thin air
And proved you didn’t really care.Now I see your soul was black.
Because you’re never coming back.
You’re nothing but ink and lies.
A devil in disguise.Luca, Luca, Luca
Were you just a dream?
Luca, Luca, Luca
You make me want to scream.Luca, Luca, Luca
Are you happy now?
Luca, Luca, Luca
If so, baby, take a bow.(Music)
Looks like the joke was on me.
So blinded by love, I couldn’t see.
In the end,
You were never my friend.The really messed-up part . . .
You’re still living in my heart.
And if I had to do it all again,
I’d still have lifted that damn pen.Luca, Luca, Luca
Were you just a dream?
Luca, Luca, Luca
You make me want to scream.Luca, Luca, Luca
Are you happy now?
Luca, Luca, Luca
If so, baby, take a bow.(Music)
Take a bow.
Take a bow.
Take a bow.Luca, Luca, Luca.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(Music Fades)I must’ve listened to it a hundred times over the next twenty-four hours. While beautiful, the song had a heavy, sad vibe, which totally went with my melancholy mood. One particular part kept replaying in my mind over and over.Luca, Luca, Luca
Were you just a dream?Because last week was beginning to feel like just that—like it had been one big fantasy in my dreams. One that was incredible but would forever be just out of my reach. I dragged my ass around like someone had died for most of the day today. I’d managed to write, but I was pretty sure that my characters had caught my blues, and my thriller was turning into a women’s fiction ugly cry.
Since I’d cleaned out my refrigerator before my trip to California, I had no food in the house, and a middle-of-the-night trip to the supermarket was inevitable. The parking lot was almost empty, and I breezed down the aisles without seeing a single person until I got up to the checkout line.
Doris was ringing up a young guy’s groceries and smiled at me. I hadn’t mentioned my road trip to California to her, or anything about Griffin for that matter, which I was glad about now, because the last thing I felt like doing was talking about it. My emotions were all over the place, and I probably would’ve burst into tears telling her how great it had been finally meeting the man I’d crushed on for more than a decade.
The guy in front of me in line sure did have a shitload of tattoos. When I finally stopped wallowing in my own self-pity long enough to take a good look at him, I noticed he also had safety pins outlining his jaw—actual safety pins just pierced through his skin and clipped right into his face. The two-in-the-morning crowd was always interesting. He caught me staring, and I diverted my eyes, failing at pretending I hadn’t been scrutinizing him and wondering what the hell made him think it was a good idea to do such a thing.
