Page 149 of Can't Always Get What You Want

Until finally, Luca pushes his chair back and crosses the small space between us. He stands in front of me, solid and still and steady.

“What do you think you’d do if your brother walked in on us right now?” His hand lifts, brushing his knuckles across my jaw, then tucking a piece of hair behind my ear.

I shake my head.

That’s not going to happen again—I don’t think.

“I don’t know.”

He tilts his head as he studies my expression. “Why do I feel like…there’s an ultimatum brewing. Is that crazy?”

My stomach tightens.

He’s not wrong; this is exactly what it feels like and it’s my fault we’re in this position. Mine and Gio’s, for initially telling me to stay away from his teammates.

Like a fly to honey…

“The worst part of all this is—I have no idea where I stand with you,” Luca confesses.

I swallow hard. “You stand exactly where you’ve always stood.”

Weak.

So weak…

“That’s not comforting,” he tells me, bitterness edging into his voice, the familiar tone he’d used the other night. “One minute you’re kissing me like I’moxygenand the next you’re pulling away like I’m fire.”

Translation: you’re hot, then you’re cold.

“You’re both,” I whisper. “You’re everything.”

“Doesn’t feel that way.” The flowers he brought me are already wilting on the counter from lack of water, and I want to give them the attention that they need, but don’t have the courage to pull away from Luca.

What began as a fun, flirtatious fling has turned into a messy mess.

One I don’t know how to fix.

Luca’s gaze drops to the floor for a second, jaw tight, chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm. When he looks up again, something in his expression is different.

Final.

I feel it before he even moves, my breath hitching as he steps closer—enough to slip his hand around the back of my neck, fingers threading into my hair.

“Nova,” he murmurs, voice wrecked.

Then,

He kisses me.

It’s not soft. It’s not patient.

It’s everything he’s been holding back the past three days; everything we’ve avoided, everything we’ve both too afraid to say out loud.

I am a coward.

His mouth moves over mine like it’s the last time he’ll ever have the chance. Like he’s memorizing the taste of me. Like he’s letting go.

It’s a goodbye, andI feel it in every inch of my skin.

---