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Smoothing a hand over Florence’s hair, she says, “I have a plan.”

“Oh?”

“You come home with me.” Another off-center kiss. “You take a shower.” Kiss. “I cook something for you—” Kiss “—and you eat it.” Kiss. “Then we go to sleep and don’t set an alarm.” One more kiss, soft enough to wrench a small noise from Florence. “And then, in the morning, you stay.”

She expects refusal, or at the very least hesitation. Instead, Florence looks up at her, eyes shining in the dim light, and says only, “Yes.”

“Yes?” Luca echoes.

For the first time that night, a tentative smile steals onto Florence’s face. “Yes. To all of it.”

“Oh,” Luca says. “Good.”

Florence pulls away. It takes her a few minutes to find her shoes and stuff her things into an overnight bag. Luca waits by the door, taking the bag and Florence’s hand as they emerge back into the pub. She still hasn’t stopped grinning by the time they slink past Earl, throwing him a thumbs-up behind Florence’s back when he catches her eye and offers an approving nod.

34

Florence has replayed the night she spent in Luca’s room so many times that walking back into it now feels like stepping into a memory. Luca lets go of her hand to turn on the little lamps strewn about her dresser and bedside table. Each one lights up another corner of the room, like tiny spotlights pointed at different set pieces on a stage. Here, the unmade bed. There, a laundry basket filled with clothes waiting to be put away. The skateboard leaning against the closet. The sticky note on the door—Keys? Phone? Meds?—and the familiar fidget toy on the desk. The plants on the windowsill that Luca’s roommate must have kept alive in her absence. The posters on the wall, peeling at their corners. Tiny trinkets Luca collected on tour—a statue of the Eiffel Tower, a sticker from the tattoo shop in Warsaw, a pair of thrifted sunglasses she picked up in Berlin—lined up on the shelf like trophies.

Florence watches as Luca crouches in front of the closet and pulls out a towel and a change of clothes for her. Their fingers brush as Luca hands them to her, and she can’t help but laugh, quiet and nervous in the two a.m. hush. “This feels familiar.”

Luca’s eyes crinkle as she smiles. “Shower, then food?” she asks.

“Okay,” Florence agrees, but instead of leaving the room, she steps closer, one hand cradling the towel to her chest while the other curls loosely into the front of Luca’s shirt. It only takes the faintest tug to get Luca to lean down, an indulgent laugh muffled against Florence’s lips. The kiss is soft enough to make her toes curl. After weeks of denying herself this, the ease with which they fall into each other is dizzying.

It’s Luca who pulls away first, ignoring Florence’s displeased huff. “Go take a shower,” she says, lips pressed to Florence’s temple. “I’ll be in the kitchen.” She laughs again when Florence’s eyes dart to the perfectly good bed right behind them. “Come on.”

Her fingers thread through Florence’s, thumb tracing an absentminded circle on the back of her hand as she leads Florence down the dark hallway. She opens the door to the bathroom and flicks on the light. “Try not to fall asleep,” she says. “I’m just down the hall if you need me.”

She’s joking, but falling asleep in the shower feels like a real possibility at this point. Florence’s limbs are like lead as she sets the clothes and towel down on the closed toilet lid and moves to take off her jumper. She barely slept the last two nights. Waiting for the water to run warm, she feels herself crash, exhaustion dragging at her as the room steams up.

She steps into the shower, pulling the flower-patterned curtain behind her. For all her resistance, a pleased sigh slips from her mouth as the warm water washes the tension from her neck and shoulders. The water pressure is better than at her and Miray’s place, and definitely better than at most hostels they’ve stayed at. Florence tilts her face into the spray, feeling it wash away the tear tracks and basement dust.

There’s a familiar bottle tucked into the rack on the wall. Florence squeezes some of it into her hands, smiling stupidly at the tiled wall as the shower begins to smell like Luca’s shampoo—that same evasive, woodsy smell that Florence associates with burying her face in the crook of Luca’s neck and falling asleep on the same pillowcase. Florence’s hair is going to be hell to work with tomorrow, but right now she couldn’t care less.

By the time she steps out of the shower, her skin is a tender pink. She feels—not quite reborn, but cleaner than she has since they came back from tour. She towel-dries and finger-combs her hair, slips into the clothes Luca picked out for her, and shuffles back into the hallway.

It smells heavenly, like garlic and herbs. When she reaches the kitchen, Florence catches herself on the doorframe, heart skittering in her chest as she takes in the scene in front of her. Luca is standing at the stove, rocking back and forth on her feet, humming softly to a tune that only she can hear. She must have changed while Florence was in the shower; in place of jeans and a T-shirt she’s now wearing sweatpants that ride low on her hips and a black tank top that shows off the scorpion on her arm. Her bicep ripples as she stirs something in a pan. Her copper hair falls into her tired, lovely eyes.

After a moment she must feel Florence watching her. She turns around with a smile ready on her lips, but it slips off her face as she takes in Florence. Her gaze dips down to Florence’s bare legs before moving up to where they disappear into a pair of Luca’s boxer shorts and then farther, taking in the shirt hanging off Florence’s shoulder and the damp curls sticking to her neck.

Her voice has a rasp to it as she asks, “Good shower?”

“Yeah,” Florence says, sounding strangely breathless. It takes only three steps to cross the kitchen and slot herself behind Luca. Her arms wind around Luca’s waist as she gets on her tiptoes and peers over Luca’s shoulder at the stove. “That smells so good.”

“It’s nothing fancy,” Luca says, sheepish, nudging her glasses farther up her nose. “Do you like vodka pasta?”

At the question, Florence’s stomach—which, until now, has made do with a single croissant and more peanuts than any person should probably ingest in a forty-eight-hour period—responds with an audible growl.

Luca’s laugh rumbles through her body. Florence reluctantly lets go of her as Luca moves to take the pasta off the stove and gets two bowls from the cupboard.

“I texted Miray to let her know that you’re here,” she tells Florence over her shoulder.

Now it’s Florence’s turn to be sheepish. “Thanks.”

She eats her pasta sitting on the kitchen counter with Luca crowded between her thighs. They could move to the table, but Florence prefers this; her back against the kitchen cupboard, her ankles crossed behind Luca’s back, keeping her close. An intimate silence has draped over the kitchen, the only sounds the clinking of cutlery and the faint humming of the fridge.

“This is nice,” she says as she watches Luca eat. There’s tomato sauce smudged on her chin. Florence almost stops herself from reaching out to wipe it away before she remembers that she’s allowed. Luca instinctively leans into the touch.