Page 53 of One Breath After Another

Right?

Luca winked, adding, “Ever, okay?”

“Okay.”

Everyone lied.

Or that’s what life taught her.

But right then, she believed Luca.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she admitted, grabbing her book bag from the floor of the car. “It’s that sometimes I think about what would happen if you did cross a line. I think about it more than I should.”

Luca glanced her way, the hard lines of his face softening as his mouth opened to respond. Before he could say anything, Penny leaned over the seat and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, saying, “Thank you for helping me today.”

And then she was gone.

She didn’t look back, either.

It was just easier.

11.

Luca

LUCA didn’t have time to pull out of the driveway before a familiar figure stepped out of the front door. He could still feel Penny’s kiss on his cheek. Her words continued banging around in his mind long after she disappeared inside the house. He had no business obsessing over what she did or told him in the first place, but he still did.

Even as Naz approached. He couldn’t get it off his goddamn mind while Naz came to stand beside the car, and he rolled the window down to talk.

What was wrong with him?

“You okay?” Naz asked.

Luca passed his friend a look from the side, but shrugged it off. “Yeah, man. I’m always good.”

Naz nodded, but his attention returned to the front steps leading up to the house. “Any news for me?”

That earned his friend a laugh.

“Depends,” he returned.

“On what?”

“What, specifically, you want to know?”

Naz grinned, and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “That good of a day, huh?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

The day had certainly started in a different way than it ended. None of it had been what Luca expected after he got that message from Penny and decided to go pick her up. Then again, when was life ever what he thought it would be?

“Start with whatever, then,” Naz said. “We’ll work from there.”

Right.

“Might as well since I’m already here,” Luca replied, sighing.

Luca massaged at the tension starting to form between his eyes while his mind went back to the original duty he had that day. Chasing down information on the caseworker that might possibly cause issues for Naz and Roz’s guardianship over Penny. He figured that was as good of a place to start as any, surely.