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“It was all you,preciosa. I didn’t write a word. You did.”
Tonight was Lucas’s last night in New York. In the States. In my apartment, my bed, my time zone. And with every passing secondthat pushed us closer to tomorrow morning, my mood plummeted to the ground.
Together with my heart.
During the week we’d spent together in my apartment we never discussed what would come next after he and Taco jumped on that flight and returned to Spain. For good. It had been as if none of us had wanted to burst the blissful bubble we had slipped in. And that was probably a mistake.
Not probably, it definitely was one.
But what was I supposed to say? How would I broach the topic? Hey, Lucas, I have fallen in love with you. And I know your life is in shambles, and I know you are struggling to come to terms with what you’ve lost and who you are right now, but what are we?
That would be so selfish.
Even thinking of burdening Lucas with that conversation made me sick to my stomach. All I wanted was to protect him, to make it all better for him, to see him find his way and thrive in his new life, and I knew this—a long-distance relationship with someone he’d met a handful of weeks ago—wasn’t a way to make any of that easier.
Or was it?
I didn’t know at this point. And it made me so unbelievably sad.
So yeah, my mood. Plummeting.
And Lucas noticed. Of course, he did.
That was why he had been trying to make me smile all evening. He hadn’t even held back in front of Aaron and Lina when we’d met them for his goodbye dinner. He’d held my hand, touched my back, whispered in my ear, and just… acted like the man I wanted him to be for me. Like he was mine.
Standing in the bathroom, in front of the mirror as I brushed my teeth, I checked my phone.
I had a trail of messages from Lina. Understandably so. She knew there was something between us, and I owed her an explanation. But that could wait until tomorrow, I hoped. She could deal with the fallout of my broken heart, too, if she wasn’t too mad at me. Two birds with a stone.
Locking the device, I placed it screen down on the vanity and continued staring into empty space until I was done and ready for bed.
I walked back to the bedroom and found Lucas zipping up his backpack. Taco at his feet. The sight made me want to scream. It made me angry at myself, at time for going by so fast, at fate for crossing our paths only to take him away from me.
What would he say if I took that stupid backpack, ran to the window, and flung it out?
What would he say if I asked him to stay? He couldn’t stay more than three months without a visa. But I could hide him and Taco.
What would he say if I told him that I didn’t care about whatever he thought he could or couldn’t give me? I’d take it. I’d move to Spain myself. I’d—
“Hey.” Lucas’s voice made me jump.
There was something in his face that looked a lot like… pain. Concern.
He walked up where I was, and his arms came instinctively around my waist.
“What are you thinking?” he asked me.
“Honestly?”
He nodded.
“I was considering how pissed off you’d be if I threw your backpack out the window.”
He let out a laugh, and not even that lifted my mood. “Do you want an honest answer, too?”
“Always.”
“I wouldn’t be all that mad about it.” His hands came to cup my face. He tilted my face up and looked right into my eyes. “I don’t think I could ever be angry at you, Rosie. Not really.”
