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“Yeah,” Luca agrees, setting her empty bowl down next to Florence. Florence shivers as her hands settle on her thighs.

She keeps eating, savoring the taste of the pasta and the feeling of Luca’s attention trained entirely on her. There’s still a part of her that worries about what Luca is seeing; she probably looks a mess, wearing clothes that aren’t hers, tired and barefaced as she licks sauce off a spoon. But despite the lingering discomfort, it’s difficult to be self-conscious when Luca is looking at her the way she is now, a content little smile on her face, her hands a hot brand on Florence’s bare skin.

She doesn’t mean to get teary again, but it’s hard not to. She’s freshly showered and smelling like Luca’s shampoo. She’s wearing Luca’s clothes. She’s eating food that Luca made for her. After days of being alone in a basement convinced that everyone in the world hates her, this level of affection is almost too much to bear. She feels very small. Cared for. Claimed.

“What’s wrong?” Luca asks, alarmed.

“I think I want to stay here forever,” Florence says, and oh God, she really is seconds away from crying into her pasta now. She doesn’t mean here as in Luca’s kitchen, specifically; she means here in this moment, where there’s no one else around and Luca is cupping her face in large, capable hands.

“Then stay,” Luca says, like it could really be that easy, and kisses her gently on the mouth.

Florence only just has the presence of mind to set aside her bowl before she’s kissing her back, hands slipping under the front of Luca’s shirt to map out her soft tummy, heels digging into Luca’s lower back to pull her impossibly closer.

Luca groans quietly into her mouth, and the sound is enough to make Florence feel half insane. She buries a hand in Luca’s hair and tugs in an attempt to hear it again, but all she gets is a shuddery noise that escapes through Luca’s nose. Luca leans back and takes off her glasses so she can kiss Florence even better, both hands on her jaw to tilt her face just so, and Florence sinks into it, drowning in Luca’s taste and smell and heat until her lips are sore and the time on the microwave blinks three a.m.

They stumble into the bathroom and then the bed together. As they keep kissing, sleepy and messy and uncoordinated, Florence’s brain makes a list of all the things she wants to do to Luca. She drifts off before she can get to the end of it.

35

They forgot to draw the curtains last night, so when Luca wakes up around ten in the morning, it’s to sunlight streaming through the tall window. Already, the room has heated up, leaving her feeling overwarm and drowsy. Florence is lying behind her, curled up against her back with one arm slung over Luca’s hip. Her soft breathing rustles the hair at the nape of Luca’s neck.

Even though there’s no one around to see it, Luca turns her face into the pillow to hide her grin. This is so much better than sharing a hostel bed. For the first time, she gets to bask in the warmth rolling off Florence. She gets to thread her fingers through Florence’s. She gets to roll over and study Florence’s sleeping face, count the birthmarks on her skin and the thick lashes fanning her cheeks.

It’s unreal, seeing her in Luca’s bed, with Luca’s duvet twisted around her ankles and Luca’s pillow swallowed up by the flood of her hair. She’s still wearing Luca’s boxer shorts and Overworked and underfucked T-shirt, which has ridden up enough in her sleep to expose a sliver of her stomach. The sight is enough to make Luca’s mouth go dry, like she’s a little Victorian boy seeing an ankle for the first time. Her hand moves on instinct, settling against the sleep-warm skin, fingertips sliding under the worn cotton to rest lightly over Florence’s rib cage.

Florence stirs. Luca pulls back her hand like she’s been burned.

“What’re you doing?” Florence mumbles. Her eyelids flutter; it takes them a few tries before they stay open, and even then the eyes beneath them remain hazy and unfocused. She blindly grabs Luca’s hand and returns it to its spot on her waist.

Ears heating up, Luca asks, “Did you sleep well?”

“Mm-hm,” Florence confirms. She stretches, catlike, making the T-shirt ride up even farther. “You?”

“Mm-hm,” Luca echoes. Her eyes are still glued to the spot where her fingers are splayed over Florence’s side, her pinkie just shy of slipping under the waistband of her boxer shorts. “Can I,” she begins, suddenly aware of the pulse in her neck, “can I get you off?”

“I don’t know.” Florence’s lips twitch as she opens her eyes to squint at Luca. “Can you?”

Huffing a laugh through her nose, Luca grabs Florence’s hips in both hands and pulls her close. There’s something easy about Florence this morning, as if the tension she was wound with when Luca met her at the practice room yesterday has melted away. At the first brush of Luca’s lips, her eyes drift shut, her own lips parting on a pleased sigh. She arches against Luca when she slides a hand to the small of Florence’s back, shivering when Luca presses a kiss to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. Luca wants every morning to start like this. She wants to learn Florence’s body like an instrument, like a song she can play without thinking, deep and instinctual.

Sliding her thigh between Florence’s earns her a shuddery exhale, Florence’s head dropping to rest on Luca’s shoulder. Her hips grind down, seeking friction, and Luca smiles because she knew they would. Trust Florence to go after what she wants.

She uses the hand on Florence’s lower back to press down, encouraging Florence as she rocks against Luca’s thigh in earnest. Her lips blindly find Luca’s, panting against her mouth. “Luca,” she says. “Come on.”

The haughty impatience of the command while she is all but melting in Luca’s arms is so quintessentially Florence, Luca can’t help but laugh. When she pulls back, she finds Florence’s cheeks flushed and eyes glazed. The sight makes something inside of Luca ache in a way that has nothing to do with her current state of debilitating horniness. She knows that when they leave this flat Florence will be back to impeccable lipstick and perfectly pressed slacks, but right now—breathless, needy, her hair spilling in wild curls over her shoulders, still wearing that stupid T-shirt—she couldn’t be farther from the Florence Gibson she shows to the rest of the world.

Her words from last night echo in Luca’s head again. Because I wanted you to see me.

“All right,” Luca says softly. “Here, let me . . .”

Florence helpfully raises her arms as Luca tugs the shirt over her head. The boxer shorts join it on the floor a second later, and there Florence is, naked and impatient on Luca’s navy sheets. She looks like something out of a painting: dark curls falling down to her breasts, generous hips, stretch marks along her thighs that Luca has spent the last six weeks very pointedly not thinking about. There are faint tan lines along her neck and shoulders from days spent sightseeing around different cities that weren’t there the last time they did this.

Luca realizes she’s been staring for too long when Florence begins to squirm under her attention. “Luca.”

Luca ducks her head and drops her hands to the hem of her own T-shirt. “Sorry,” she says. “Got distracted.”

Florence laughs incredulously. Luca can feel her eyes on her as she clumsily strips. Once she’s finished, she nudges Florence’s thighs apart so she can kneel between them. Her hands roam up and down Florence’s sides, unsure where to touch first. Looking up at Florence, she asks, “What do you want?”

“What do you want?” Florence returns. There’s a fond smile on her face as her hand settles in Luca’s hair, fingernails scratching her scalp. “I already picked last time.”