Page 46 of Trouble in Love
After a deep breath that expanded her chest to even more voluptuous proportions, she winced and nodded toward the house. “Look at this place, Luca. It’s perfect. They are perfect. That house on the beach with the white picket fence, and probably a perfect dog, four perfect babies, and the mum and dad that are so crazy in love the world itself spins just for them.” Turning away from me again, she stabbed her fingers at the home that might never have been had she gotten her way. “They have everything. I have nothing. And sometimes I need a reminder of why.”
“What? So you stalk the beach by their house just to catch a glimpse of their happiness? All to punish yourself? That’s so—.”
“—Pathetic? Creepy? Bunny boiler-ry? It’s okay, Luca. There’s nothing you can say I haven’t said to myself a million times.”
Her self-contempt felt eerily familiar. “I was going to say sad, actually. I think that’s really, really sad.” Looking so damn gorgeous that I wanted to fall at her feet, she glanced up with rosy cheeks, her lips plump and as red as the lollypop she had taunted me with at the beach. “I’m not supposed to be talking to you,” I mumbled., feeling myself slipping under her spell. “I promised them and myself I would stay away.”
“Why are you then?”
Rubbing my hand over the overgrown hair on the back of my neck, I rocked back and forth on my heels and exhaled through puffed cheeks. “Because some might say the reason I’m here on a beach in Australia and not at home preparing for a new season is equally as pathetic.”
She dried her cheeks with the back of her hand and edged closer. “Not so long ago, before I ruined it all you offered to listen to me. Now it’s my turn. Tell me.”
I dropped my head back, briefly look to the heavens above and repeat, “I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
“Look at me, Luca.”
For a breath or two I resist, knowing I’m an open book and the fear and uncertainty and want would be there in plain sight the second I did. But then she begged, “Luca, please. Please look at me,” and something inside me snapped.
“If I do, I might cry more than you are. And hockey boys aren’t allowed to cry.”
“Maybe hockey boys aren’t. But hockeymenare.”
“Hang on a sec. So, he actually stood up and yelled her name when the priest did the whole, forever hold your peace thing?”
“Yup.”
“And then she kissed your cheek, whispered sorry—.”
“Yup.”
“And then ran?”
“Yup.”
“And now she’s up the duff?”
“Yup—wait. I don’t know what that means.”
Sending my heart into a flutter, Polly giggled and tucked her onyx hair behind her ear. “Preggers. She’s pregnant?”
“Oh. Okay. Yep. She is definitelyup the duff.Just found out tonight.”
“And so all of this … minus the baby, which you didn’t know about—” I nodded in confirmation, “—led to a fight with your teammate, surgery, expulsion and deportation.”
“Suspension, thank you very much, and yes. All of that.” To demonstrate the size of my fuckups, I drew a large circle with my hands then dropped them to my side where they hung lifelessly.
“Wow, suddenly, I don’t feel like such a pathetic loser.”
Scoffing, I nudged her with my shoulder, sending her flying from the hood of her car we’d rested against on when I began my tale of woe. I shot out my hand and caught hers, halting her fall,andmy ability to breathe. “Why do I feel this way when you touch me?” she whispered, studying where held I her, where her skin, cold and damp, prickled from my touch.
Choked with need my voice broke as I entwined fingers, “I don’t know. But I feel it too.”
“You do?”
“You know I do.”
“Is that why you’re here talking to me when you told them you’d stay away?”
