I’m so damned convinced Luca is the missing ingredient to what could be our new unstoppable era, I’ve formulated an idea for a new defensive scheme. One that would require two edge rushers to line up on our side of the ball together, rather than only Moriarty lining up while his backup sits idly by waiting to relieve him.
First things first, though, I have to get Luca through the next three weeks of preseason games and onto the fifty-three-man roster. And that’s what I’m still determined to do, even if I’m no longer officially assigned to him as his personal coach.
A quiet tapping noise draws my attention to the right side of the room, and when I look toward the sound, a scream hurtles out of me at the face staring at me from the other side of my balcony’s sliding glass door.
Wait, that’s Luca. He’s standing on my third-story balcony and pressing his face comically against the glass!
My heart racing, I lurch out of bed and bound over to him.
“What the hell?” I shout. Gruffly, I open the door and add, “You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“You paid me an unexpected and delightful visit the othernight,” he says calmly. “So I figured it’s only polite to return the favor.”
“Jesus Christ!” I grab the front of his Mastodons sweatshirt and yank him into my room. “Someone might have seen you!”
He snickers. “Only Spider-Man. He was coming down as I was going up.”
“How the heck did you even get here?”
“I climbed.”
I blink rapidly, feeling flabbergasted. “You could have broken every bone in your body, Luca. My room is three stories up!”
He waves dismissively at the notion. “I’m an excellent climber.”
“A promise-breaker, too. You swore you wouldn’t come to my room again, remember?”
Luca raises an index finger. “Actually, I promised not to come to yourdooragain. That’s exactly what you made me promise, and I never have.”
I stare in slack-jawed awe for a long moment. I’ve never felt such utterly conflicting emotions in my life: simultaneous rage and arousal. This nutjob is a maniac for pulling such a reckless and stupid stunt, especially on the eve of his first preseason game when everything’s on the line. But that doesn’t make the fact that he apparently couldn’t stay away any less enthralling and hot.
“After all the times you’ve called me Montague,” Luca says. “Did you really think I’d never appear on Juliet’s balcony at some point?”
I run a palm down my face. “Romeo stoodunderneathJuliet’s balcony, Luca. He didn’t maniacally climb a three-story hotel façade after curfew like a lizard and then smash his face against Juliet’s sliding glass like a Peeping Tom. Never give me a heart attack like that again.”
“I promise I’ll text before climbing up next time.”
“There won’t be a next time!” I throw up my hands. “Seriously, how the hell did you get all the way up here?”
Luca flashes a self-satisfied smile. “It was easy. I just did a little shimmy up a drainage pipe that was thankfully attached by someone who took pride in their work, and then I leaped like a flying squirrel from balcony to balcony, did some pull-ups to get where I needed to go next, andboomshakalaka, here I am.”
I blow out my cheeks in disbelief. “If anyone saw you, you’ll get cut. Is that what you want, after all the hard work you’ve put in?”
“Yes, Chelsea. That’s exactly what I want.”
“You’ve smoked Moriarty in back-to-back scrimmages and made him look like a clown, and now—”
“That’s why I had to come see you! To celebrate how much I’ve dog-walked Moriarty! Oh my God, Chelsea, I’ve been making him look like an overpaid backup!” With a happy cackle, he enthusiastically raises a palm for a high five, and as pissed and freaked out as I feel in this moment, I couldn’t possibly leave him hanging. Not when he’s smiling like that. And not when he really has made Moriarty’s new deal look like a very bad decision, indeed.
Begrudgingly, I slap Luca’s palm with mine. “Moriarty wishes you made him look like an overpriced backup. He looked more like an overpriced member of the practice squad to me.”
Luca whoops at that and folds me into a bear hug without warning, and the second my face is smashed into the soft fleece covering his hard chest, I’m instantly hit with a scent that sends tingles racing across all my most intimate nerve endings: the musky, delicious scent of Luca’s distinctive aftershave.
“I’m gonna make this team, baby,” Luca murmurs into the top of my head. “And it’s all because of you.”
I press my nose into his warm chest and inhale deeply,reveling in his intoxicating aroma and the sensation of his strong arms wrapped around me. “I know you are,” I murmur, my voice stifled by his body. “But you’re going to do it all by yourself.”
All of a sudden, I feel a certain bulge poking at me, and just like that, our warm, happy embrace has ignited into something heated and sexual. Plainly, our wholesome celebration is now over and has morphed into foreplay.
