“Ooooooofff, you goddamned Amazonian oaf, get off of me.” I’m half laughing and half dying because she knocked the wind out of me. Suddenly, Luca is there, pulling us to our feet. “Woah, you move fast!” I look up at him, my eyes wide. He huffs and leads us out of the closet. Lil pulls away, flopping onto the foot of the bed and crawling up to her pillow.
“I love this pillow.” Lil hugs her pillow to her face, sighs, and promptly starts snoring.
I snicker as Luca guides me around to my side of the bed, but I drag my feet and come to a stop after a few steps, turning toward him. When I sway on my feet, Luca places a hand on my side to steady me. His palm is warm through the material of my shirt.
“Thanks, Luca. Sorry we worried you.” I go up to my tiptoes and stretch my neck as far as possible to kiss his cheek. Even with him sort of leaning down, I still can only reach his jaw.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I reach up and trace the scar above his top lip with my fingertip, then rub my hand down his other cheek. “Scratchy.” My nails drag along the stubble.
His eyes darken, and he closes them for a heartbeat. He takes a deep breath before we start moving again. I climb into bed and curl up, facing him.
“Are you going home soon?” I ask. He tucks the blanket up around my shoulders. How does he know I need it that way?
“Why? Tired of me already?” Did he just chuckle? Nah, Drunk Ariana must be imagining things.
“Because then maybe I can stop thinking about you all the time.” My eyelids are too heavy, and I stop fighting to keep them open. “Night, Luca,” I yawn.
He probably says, “Goodnight, Ariana,” as he closes the door, but for some reason, it sounds like, “Goodnight, baby.”
Chapter 19
Do I even want to know what a "why choose" is?
Luca
When I wake up Sunday morning, the first thing I think about is the last thing Ariana said the night before. I grin to myself while I get ready and then head down to the gym. I hope she doesn’t remember it. Or me calling her baby. I didn’t mean to, but fuck, it felt right.
Marco has someone working on expanding the gym and adding a fighting ring to it, but it won’t be ready for a few days. I work out before hitting the heavy bag for a while. Becca has a protein shake waiting for me when I’m done. Lil’s door is still closed when I walk by to take a shower, but open when I get out.
I head down to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee and find Ariana pouring some in a mug with a unicorn on it that says, ‘ew, people’ and is already half full of some kind of too-sweet creamer. She glances over at me, and a small chuckle escapes my lips because she’s wearing sunglasses.
“Don’t be an ass, or I’ll drink the whole pot,” she warns as she fills another mug and hands it to me with a smug little smirk on her face because the damn thing says, ‘Coffee makes me poop.’
“So very mature.”
“Shhhhhh,” Lil groans, her head down on the counter with her arm and hair hiding her face.
Ariana places a mug in front of Lil. “I would feel sorry for you, but I know you put more nasty ass schnapps in your second drink than you should have because you knew I wouldn’t make you switch with me halfway through, so technically, you had more like four drinks. One night after whatever the fuck you had at Amanda’s. You get what you deserve.” Lil flips Ariana the bird and then grabs her coffee. Her mug says, ‘Have a nice day,’ but when she takes a sip, I see it has the middle finger on the bottom.
I roll my eyes again, but mostly out of habit because I also have to hide a grin behind my coffee cup. They start bickering, and I head out to sit at the patio set in the backyard to avoid getting caught up in their chaos.
“Fuck, it’s bright as shit out here.” I turn toward the sound of Lil’s voice to where she’s standing, blinking and cringing at the sunshine.
Ariana’s a few steps behind her. “Well, why the fuck did you follow Luca out here then?”
“I dunno, to continue to harass him because it makes me feel better?” Lil reaches her hand out and snatches Ariana’s sunglasses. She puts them on her own face with an overdramatic sigh.
“Bitch. Don’t break those. They’re my favorite pair.” Ariana plops down in another chair with a groan. “What are you up to today, Luca?”
I shrug. “Don’t really have plans or anything.”
“We’re going to hide in the house, away from the evil sun.” Even though it’s the opposite of what she just said they were going to do, Lil sits down at the table as well. We all sip our coffee in a silence that strangely isn’t uncomfortable.
It doesn’t last long, though. Within minutes, they’re talking about books and their reading competition.
“I’m going to win Total Number of Books Read,” Ariana declares, a cocky tilt to her head.
“Because you’re a cheater. You and your novellas.” Lil pouts, crossing her arms.
