Lindy grins, her lips pursing as she smothers a laugh. “Goodbye, Lucca Cruz.”
“Goodbye, Belinda,” he says, smiling back at her and making my heart speed up.
Wyatt gives one last wave before they are out of the gate and on their way.
Lucca draws circles on my bare arm, sending pricks and pins over my skin. Depleting any boundaries that I thought about pretending we have. “BelindaandMargaret. I don’t know anyone else with these names.”
I trace the letters on the chest of his Red Tails tee, pretending I’m not so wholly aware of every part of his bodytouching mine. “They’re older. We were named after our grandmothers.”
“That’s sweet,” he says, his lips brushing over my temple.
“What was your vovó’s name?”
“Clara.”
“Pretty.” I swallow. “She sounds lovely.”
“She was the best woman I’ve ever known. The only woman I ever fully trusted.”
I tilt my head to look at him.
“Until now.”
Words catch in my throat. Lucca’s dark eyes fall to my mouth, and when he moves in a single inch, I find my voice. “We can’t date.”
“You are like… What do they call it? A record that’s stuck on repeat.”
I press my lips together, lying in his strong arms, and say the exact opposite of how I feel. “It can’t happen.”
“Okay then,” he says. “We won’t date.”
“We won’t?” I blink, my eyes casting down to where my hand rests on Lucca’s chest. There’s no other place for it. It isn’t my fault. It’s this hammock and Wyatt. “I mean, we won’t.” Also, how are we getting out of this hammock? I’m really not sure. So, for now, we’re having this conversation here. Snuggled up. Not because I want to. But because it’s necessary.
“Fine,” he says. “We can hang out.”
“I guess.” I mean, we are currently hanging out. “That’s probably okay.”
“And if I happen to do this—” His free hand finds mine at his chest and entwines our fingers. “No big deal.”
“No big deal,” I repeat. Maybe I am a broken record.
“And this—” He brings our knotted hands to his lips and presses one gentle kiss to my wrist. “No big deal. That’s not a date.”
Do wrists always have so much sensation in them? I’ve never noticed so much feeling in my wrist before—but then, I’ve never been kissed so many times on my wrists until Lucca.
I tilt my head up to watch him, to see exactly what he’s doing to make my wrist decide it has a million nerve endings within it.
“None of that means we’re dating,” he says, his lips next to my skin.
“Because we can’t,” I agree.
With a tender touch at my hand, he presses another kiss to my pulse. The bristles of his short beard tickle my skin.
I gulp. “You probably kiss every woman’s wrists. That’s Lucca. Right?” My words are slow and drunk as if it makes no difference to me.
He hums out a snicker. “I do not.”
“But you’re Lucca.”
