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“I think she would rather I do anything else,” she says honestly. “And I think it hurts her to see me following in my father’s footsteps. I think some part of her is afraid I’m going to leave her as well.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Florence’s throat feels suddenly tight. “I can’t really blame her for any of it. At least she was there. Too involved, sometimes. Too overbearing. But there.”

“I really hate your dad,” Luca says. The moment the sentence is out, her hand flies to her mouth as though she can push it back in.

Florence laughs before she can apologize. “God. You don’t know how satisfying that is to hear from someone else.”

“Oh.” Slowly, Luca lowers her hand, face breaking into a sheepish smile. “Good.”

“What about your parents?” Florence asks. “What are they like?”

“They’re both teachers,” Luca offers. “My dad teaches art and PE, and my mum maths and English. My dad’s kind of like me. He’s brilliant at what he does, but kind of all over the place. I think, if people had known more about it back in the day, he probably would’ve gotten tested for ADHD as well when he was a kid.”

Florence can see it all play out like a film in her head: a loud, warm household filled with laughter and bickering and three ginger-haired children constantly getting underfoot. Shared meals at the kitchen table and football matches in the garden. Two tired parents at the kitchen table preparing lessons together while the children watched TV in the next room.

“And your mum?” she asks.

“She’s much more structured. I was lucky she caught on really early that I had attention problems—she had me tested when I was seven and did everything she could to help me get through school.” When Luca smiles, the gap between her front teeth is on full display. “She and I had this point system. Whenever I finished a task—my homework, cleaning my room, whatever—she would give me a little sticker. Once I’d collected a bunch of them, I could trade them in for rewards.”

“What were the rewards?” Florence asks.

“Silly things. Getting ice cream together. Going to the swimming pool. Getting to stay up past nine on a Saturday.” She laughs. “God. I wish I still had someone to give me stickers.”

“It must’ve been hard,” Florence says quietly. “Moving out and having to structure everything yourself.”

Luca shifts. She’s fidgeting with her bracelet again, short fingernails picking at the knot. “A bit. I just . . . I get so overwhelmed sometimes,” she says. “There’s—fuck, there’s laundry and household chores and then there were all these courses that all started at different times, and homework and exams and group projects.” She shudders.

“This is a bit like a group project,” Florence points out, grinning.

Luca makes a face. “At least we don’t get graded.”

“No,” Florence snorts. “Only picked apart by the entire internet.”

Luca laughs. Her forehead drops to her arms, still folded on the banister. Her T-shirt—Everybody loves Italian girls!—stretches across her shoulder blades. Her hair has grown since Florence first met her, curling a little at the nape of her neck. Florence has to fight the urge to run her hand through it or do something ridiculous like trace her finger along the ridge of Luca’s spine to see her shiver.

“Was it very difficult? Uni, I mean?” she asks.

“It was okay.” Luca props her chin on her arms. “More difficult than for other students, I think, but I was getting better at handling it. I probably could’ve done it, if I’d cared at all about anything I was learning.”

Florence studies her. “But you wouldn’t have been happy.”

“No,” Luca agrees. There’s a moment of silence. The river glitters in front of them. The sounds of traffic are quieter here. Luca’s eyes, tired and lovely in the distant light of a streetlamp, slide over to meet Florence’s as she says, “I love spending time with you after our shows.”

It’s so sweet—so unbearably earnest—that Florence’s heart twists painfully. “I do too.”

Luca’s eyes crinkle with a sleepy smile. They’re standing close enough for Florence to feel her body heat, just a little warmer than the summer evening. Florence wishes she didn’t know what it would feel like to run a hand along Luca’s back and feel her muscles shift, or to thread her fingers through Luca’s hair and hear the soft little noise she’d make in the back of her throat. Maybe then it would be easier to step away.

“We should probably go back,” she says, severing the moment before it can take hold. “Before Miray thinks we’ve fallen into the Spree.”

By the time they get back to their room, the others are already asleep. As Florence changes into her pajamas in the dark, trying to ignore the rustle of Luca’s clothing as she does the same somewhere behind her, her eyes fall on Toni and Miray in the bunk above hers. Toni hates cuddling, but that hasn’t stopped Miray from tucking herself under her chin and pressing as close to her as humanly possible. The sight makes Florence smile, choked by a sudden surge of fondness.

Behind her there’s the creaking of bed springs as Luca climbs into her own bunk. They’ll be in Warsaw tomorrow. It’s going to be Florence’s turn to share the bed with someone. Probably it’s going to be Luca. There is no reason for it not to be Luca.

Florence doesn’t know whether the flutter in her stomach is anticipation or dread. She falls asleep trying not to think of the thousands of followers watching a video of her singing a homoerotically charged murder ballad to Luca in this very instant.

Soph!!