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“I love you,” he said softly.
My inner Frankie screamed.
“You do?” I asked, sounding hopeful.
He nodded. “I’ve known it for a while now. But… over this last week? I’ve really come to find
out that you not only mean the world to me, but that you think the world of me. I like having someone in my corner.”
I sat up until he was plastered against my front now.
“Luca,” I said softly. “You have no idea what you do to me.” I leaned closer to him. “And you
would have more people in your corner if you’d only let them in.”
It was a challenge and he knew it.
“I’m worried,” he admitted. “Baby, I’m not the same person anymore. I don’t have any of their
Luca’s memories. I don’t have any of that kid’s hopes and dreams. I don’t have anything left in here for them.”
He patted his chest, where his heart lay.
I dragged my fingers down his neck to rest at his collarbone.
The one that’d he’d broken so many times before.
“Did you know,” I said softly. “That when you were born, you got stuck, and they had to break
your collarbone to get you out?”
Luca paused. “No.”
“Your mother told me about that day,” I said. “She told me how freakin’ scared she was. How hurt
and confused, all she hoped for was that you were born, healthy and whole.”
He swallowed and leaned back against the door.
“Baby,” I said, crawling closer to him until I was practically on top of him. “The same thing is
going to be the case here. They’re not going to care that you’re not the same little boy they raised.
They’re just going to care that you’re healthy.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, so I allowed myself to lay my head against his chest once
again and just breathe him in.
His hand moved absently up and down my back, his fingers playing along my spine.
“I still have a hard time with you calling me Luca,” he said out of the blue. “If I have a hard time with that…what do you think I’m going to do when they start treating me like their son?”
“You are their son,” I said finally, once again looking at him. His face was a mask of indifference, but I knew there were a whirlwind of emotions pouring through him. “They’re going to treat you as
such. But, baby, they’re allowed to. You. Are. Their. Son. They gave you life. And baby, trust me
when I say, they’re going to be so happy.” I paused. “Do you want me to go back to calling you Riel?”
