I can’t tear my eyes away. Something begins to break through the messy feelings I’ve had since our falling-out. I don’t dare to hope, but the way he looks at me has changed. The hardness has shifted into something softer.
‘Simo, have you . . . picked upThe Currentlately?’ I ask, because whatever is happening, he needs to have the full picture. And there’s more than enough pictures of us in the town newspaper.
‘The Current?’ he repeats, and I can tell he’s not following.
‘It’s all over social media too. Have you looked at your phone at all?’ He shakes his head. ‘Tuned into Lombard FM? Watched the regional news?’ Still nothing. ‘Then I think you should know—’
‘I don’t care. I don’t care what they have to say. Come here.’
A tingling sensation travels up my spine. ‘What?’
‘I said, come here.’
I shuffle forward on my knees, but before I can fall back into a sitting position, his hands wrap around my neck and pull me forward. His grip is far from gentle. I struggle for balance, until my hands find his thighs, and the nextmoment, his lips are on mine. His hot breath fills my mouth and burns in my lungs. We don’t break the kiss, not even to come up for air. He pulls me down, down on top of him. With my entire weight on him, he still tears at me. I’ve never known a kiss could hurt this good. Something breaks in me, wracks my bones, covers all of me in shivers. It’s longing, built up over years, then doubled in the past three days, tripled under his touch, and, finally, released.
He winds his fingers through my hair, grabs shocks of it in his fists, as I sink mine in the soft flesh of his thighs, let them wander over burning skin. I might be crying, or maybe he is. All I can think, with our bodies pressed into the sand, and the fog erasing everything but us, is that Simo feels truer than anything I’ve ever known. He feels like home.
CHAPTER 26 – SIMO
When I wake in Luca’s bed I don’t know what time it is. The light that filters through the blinds grazes his parted lips and tells me that the day started without us. I slept like Snow White in her glass casket; I might as well have been dead. Considering this is the first decent sleep I’ve had this week, I’m not surprised. And judging by Luca’s snores – the lightest snores known to mankind, more like a string of contented sighs – he hadn’t fared differently.
His hair is endearingly unkempt; it sticks to his temples and stands up in all directions. I comb my fingers through it, because I don’t have to resist any more. I smush my nose in the crook of his neck, the softest, safest place in the world. He hums, a sound that vibrates in his chest and wraps his arms around my torso.
‘It tickles,’ he whispers, when I cover the spot below his ear in kisses. ‘Don’t stop.’
It’s exhilarating that I can do this now; scoop him up and kiss him without inhibition. I was stupid not to try it sooner.
Hunger eventually drives us out of bed. I drift into the lounge wearing one of Luca’s hoodies and stop when I spotMaz seated at the table. He’s served up food. I smell fried mushrooms and eggs and fresh toast. Luca is beside me, barefoot and befuddled.
Maz is looking mighty smug. ‘Aw, good morning, boys. Though strictly speaking it hasn’t been morning for hours. How nice of you to finally join me.’
‘You’re not being weird at all,’ Luca says, and drops into a chair. I follow his example.
‘Well, I have the pleasure of informing you that not only have you missed an entire day of school, you also missed a short but delightful visit from your grandparents, who graciously let me know that they’re “not angry, just disappointed”. They also bestowed some parental advice on me, namely that if I’d raised you better, you’d have known not to bring champagne bottles near a pool.’
‘So you’re being a pain now, because you had to deal with them on your own?’
‘Correct.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Anything for my son and his best friend. Boyfriend? Or are we so modern that we decry any form of labelling?’
I feel my neck going red, though something in me stirs at the sound of the word boyfriend. Luca’s face shows a range of emotions, panicked at first, then pissed.
‘Not quite. I find some labels incredibly helpful, such as “deranged parent” and “none of your business”.’
‘But the masses want to know! And now that the storm clouds have passed, I want to share all the newspaper clips I’ve saved for the occasion. In fact, I’ve already shared them with Poppy, but I thought you might want a look too.’
Luca groans and sends me a rueful look. ‘I’m really sorry.’
‘I’m not.’ Maz grins and slaps a stack of newspapers on the table. ‘Here we go: “The Most Dashing May Couple Yet”, front page in the local newspaper. Look, it comes with a picture of you on the red carpet entering the charity ball, not that you can miss it, considering it takes up the entire page. A day later, the school newspaper drops a think piece on the use of charity balls – “Brandenburg Boys: Budding Activists or PR Props?” Another picture, of you and Simo leaving the ball, holding hands too! And my favourite: “DeLorca Represents: from the Humble Streets of Lombard to the Red Carpet”. A bit of a mouthful, but they coined your official shipping label.’
I run my eyes over the articles in front of me. Now I get what Dad meant by ‘everything that’s going on’. A message on the noticeboard is one thing, but the news coverage is so blatant that I can see how it left my parents no choice but to intervene.
Luca is suspiciously still. He bites his lip and avoids my gaze, until I link my pinkie finger with his.
‘DeLorca,’ I say. ‘I expected worse.’
