“Not a kink,” Dell murmured, but shit, it felt so good, maybe it was. “Just feels good.” And then, “Thank you.”
Luca was quiet another minute, fingers continuing to do their thing, before he murmured back, “You’re welcome.”
And maybe if Dell hadn’t been so tired, maybe if he was a better person, maybe if he had taken even a second to get his brain functioning better, he would have stopped the night there. Fallen asleep to a scalp massage, Luca’s body heat at his side.
Instead, for absolutely inexplicable reasons, he opened his mouth again.
“I think I’m developing feelings for Mae.”
Luca’s fingers stilled in Dell’s hair. As they very well should have.
“And Mae is…”
Holy hell. What was Dell doing?
He swallowed, caught between an awkward laugh and a flush of embarrassment. In his mind, everyone within a sixty mile radius now knew who Mae was. But Luca did keep to himself. Like Dell. Or, like Dell used to.
“The person who’s renting out the shop, on Main Street.”
“Ah.” Luca’s fingers retreated from his head. Dell winced at the loss. “The Portlander?”
“Yeah.” And after an excruciating moment of silence, “Sorry. I don’t know why I told you that.”
Luca flopped onto his back. Dell wanted him close again, didn’t want to talk like this, both staring separately at the ceiling, like it was some big serious thing.
“They said to tell you hi.” Jesus Christ, every sentence that came out of Dell’s mouth was worse than the last. “They’re looking forward to carrying your book one day, in their bookstore.”
Silence. Until, strained, Luca asked, “You told Mae about my book?”
“I’m sorry,” Dell said immediately, squeezing his eyes shut. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
And for one irrational second, he felt a hot, flashing bolt of anger at Mae. If Mae hadn’t crashed into his world, if she hadn’t been so persistent. Maybe he and Luca could have started to build something different. Maybe everything about this moment could be different.
But just as quickly, it faded, the anger switching on himself. It was on him that he’d negotiated with Mae Kellerman in the first place. That he’d never kicked her out of his ADU.
Because the truth was, in some private part of himself, Dell had liked her from the start.
“It’s okay,” Luca said, but the way he barely said it, a half whisper, Dell didn’t know if it was.
A long, painful stretch transpired until Luca said, “So,” voice back to normal, hitting Dell like a punch to the gut. “Was this a goodbye fuck?”
“No.”
“I mean, it was a fucking great one, if so. Good job on that.”
Dell turned on his side, feeling frantic at the odd timbre of Luca’s voice, needing to feel Luca’s shoulder against his chest.
“Luca. No. Doesn’t have anything to do with us. I just…” Dell rubbed his forehead. This couldnotbe the last time he saw Luca. That hadn’t been the plan at all. “Sorry. I know we don’t share shit like this. Nothing’s even happened between me and them. They’ll probably be back in Portland in a few months anyway. Don’t know why I said it.”
Luca looked at him. His eyes seemed sad.Fuck.
“It’s okay, Dell,” he said after a minute, sounding more like himself. “We’re not…beholden to each other. You know that. It’s okay.” And then, breaking eye contact to stare at the ceiling again, “They’re opening a bookstore?”
“Yeah.”
Luca made a small sound of approval in his throat. “Cool.”
His hair was really starting to grow in now, a thick layer of fuzz. He was beautiful.
