Forgotten Luca (The Four 1)

“Not even a little bit. Vaughn decided we should go for a walk on the beach to keep our minds off of food. I was whining like a baby and reciting all the foods I wanted to eat at that very moment. I was pissing Vaughn off. We started arguing, but then I saw this flash of something out in the ocean. We thought it was a shark at first, but Vaughn said the fin wasn’t right. And there were too many of them.”

“Dolphins,” I said softly. Despite having lived in Seattle for the past two years, I’d only seen the Sound and not the actual ocean. And I’d yet to see anything like the orcas or other mammals that called the beautiful blue waters home.

“Vaughn and I didn’t even have to say anything. We just looked at each other and then ripped our shirts and shoes off. The water was cold and rough, but we both knew how to swim and only had one goal in mind. But by the time we swam out to the spot where the dolphins had been, they were gone. We were so damn disappointed.”

I found myself leaning in toward Luca because the adrenaline that had been trying to make up for my body’s need to get high was starting to crash and I felt cold.

“We treaded water while we tried to figure out which direction they’d gone, but the waves were too big. But just as we were about to swim back, this fin came up out of the water right between us. I freaked out,” Luca murmured. “Not sure how I managed not to shit myself.”

I heard myself laughing. Luca’s body radiated heat, so I tried to subtly shift closer so I could absorb some of it.

“Vaughn was so fucking excited because one fin after another began appearing around us. The whole damn group had come back. I thought they were going to eat us or something.”

“Why’d you go into the water, then?” I asked.

Luca shrugged. It took me a second to realize I’d felt the shrug rather than just witnessing it. How the hell had I ended up practically pressed up against the man? And was his arm actually around my shoulders?

“I would have followed Vaughn anywhere he went… except up trees. I’m not a fan of heights.”

“Luca, we’re in the penthouse. You were just outside on the balcony,” I reminded him.

Another chuckle. Luca shifted a little and then suddenly he was leaning back against the couch cushion, taking me with him in the process. The move was so fluid and relaxed that I wondered if he even realized he’d done it.

“You didn’t see me out there. I was pretty much hanging on to the door handle, and I smoked that cigarette so fucking fast it almost wasn’t even worth it.”

Luca was still holding my hand, but the free one he had around my shoulders wasn’t just sitting idle. No, he was gently gripping my shoulder and releasing it, much like he’d done with my knee that afternoon when I’d been having a similar episode.

“So the dolphins?” I reminded him.

“Right. Vaughn pretty much told me to stop acting like such a baby and then he started stroking the fin of this one dolphin that kept coming close to him. None of the rest of the dolphins stuck around long, but that one did. It was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.”

“Was it enough to make you end your hunger strike?” I asked.

“You could say that. Our mother found me and Vaughn the next morning asleep on the beach surrounded by bags of chips and boxes of cookies. Our plan had been to watch for the dolphins to come back. We ended up being grounded for a week. The day our punishment ended, we were back in the water with the dolphins.”

“Did you get to touch one?”

“No, I chickened out,” Luca murmured.

“Do you… do you still go to the water?”

Luca didn’t answer right away, and I automatically tensed up because I thought maybe I’d overstepped my bounds. I started to sit up, but his fingers subtly gripped my shoulder to keep me from moving. I could have easily moved away from him, but for reasons I didn’t want to explore, I didn’t.

“Vaughn and I still own the house we grew up in. I don’t go there much anymore, not after Gio…”

His voice dropped off for several long seconds. I thought he wasn’t going to continue, but he pulled in a breath and said, “The few times I’ve been there, I still see them. I know they’re not the same ones, but sometimes I wonder…”

This time when he fell silent, he stayed that way. I couldn’t be sure what he would have said next, but I figured it probably had something to do with swimming with the beautiful animals again. I’d only ever seen them in movies and on TV, but it was easy enough to imagine what it was like to watch them in the wild, to be envious of the freedom they had.