“Did you really lose a contact?” I rasp.
“Yep.”
“I don’t need to talk.” I blow a breath out. “I have therapists for that.”
“Oh yeah?” Again, his fingers move around mine. I feel his thumb stroking my hand, and this time my heart stops and sinks a little.
“Yes,” I rasp. “My family is…a mess. My dad is an attorney, and he’s represented doctors over the years. So of course we see a therapist from his client’s clinic. It’s on Church Street. They have ginormous windows and fake plants. I consider that suspicious, don’t you? All that sunlight and they chose fake plants? Which still have to be dusted—leaf by leaf, I would think, so they aren’t no maintenance. Better to water something that’s alive. So anyway...” My voice wobbles again. I look at our feet, walking in sync. As if we know each other.
“It’s sort of weird to hold your hand,” I whisper. I can feel my heartbeat in my temples, and my throat is so tight it feels raw. It’s weird, and it feels dangerous.
“Bad weird? Or just…okay weird?”
“I don’t know yet.” I manage a laugh. “We might need to keep walking.”
There it is—the easy smile from him. The blue eyes, pale but warm. They’re on me so long my face burns. His arm bumps mine, and his long fingers stroke my shaky ones.
“I’ve been watching you since last year. You were right,” he says. I would climb inside that husky voice if I could. Let it take me under.
“I could feel your stalking,” I tease. “Did you feel mine in our class last year?”
He laughs. “No. Was it…there to be felt?”
“Well, you were in front of me. And I was always bored.”
“Oh, so it’s like that. When you’re bored…”
His eyes close. His black hair is fanning slightly in a breeze that blows over the field between our track and the river.
“I was always bored.”
“You shouldn’t tell me that.” He smiles slowly, and his eyes are on me—making me warm.
“Why not?”
“Because,” he says. “I like it too much.”
His face takes on a dreamy look, the angel look. It’s a look that says the whole world hurts him, but he likes it.
Or maybe that’s how I feel, holding hands with this strange boy as we march slowly around the school track, the river birds cawing and our blood whooshing through our veins, and we’re alive—for who knows how long—but for this moment bound together by…confessions.
“Secrets are the currency of intimacy,” I offer to him. “I read that once.”
He gives me a somber, knowing sort of smile.
“My sister is dying,” I say. It’s like jumping off a bridge. My heart is caught behind my collar bones, my aching eyes half shut.
He lets a breath out, silent. Then he stops and pulls me into his arms, nearly crushing me against him.
I press my cheek against his shoulder, and my heart is beating hard and fast and taunting. “I’m sorry,” he says, and I can tell he means it.
“It’s okay.” I’m on the verge of crying, so we both know I’m a liar. His hand comes to my back, and he starts rubbing. I close my eyes and take deep breathes, trying to get a grip. When I do, I notice he’s pulled me close.
“You make a good boyfriend,” I choke-laugh.
“You can rent me if you want to. If you need a stand-in.”
I pull away, so I can see his face when I look up. I’m surprised at how somber it is.
“My sister always used to want to meet my boyfriend,” I whisper.
He blinks, and I clarify. “I haven’t had a serious one. Now that she’s sicker, my dad went insane—like turbo controlling—and he won’t let me date or go out really. Maybe I could take a picture of you for her. Would you mind that?” Now I’m pretty sure I might be blushing.
His hand on my shoulder feels heavy and warm.
“No.” He blinks. “You can.”
My stomach twists. He’s got a poker face. Probably because he thinks I’m insane.
“Never mind.” I try to laugh it off. “That’s crazy.”
“No, let’s do it. You can take a picture of me. Do you have a camera?”
I assess his face, relieved to find he seems sincere. “I think you’re at least sixty percent good guy, for what it’s worth.”
That brings a quick grin to his face. For once, he looks boyish.
“I don’t have a camera, but I could bring one.”
“Any time.” Luca steps closer to me, reaches out and twirls a strand of my hair around his finger. “Too dangerous for me to stop by your place? I’ll throw off as many good guy vibes for your sister as I can.” He arches a brow and points to his eye. “Might want to wait another four or five days for this to fade, though.”
I frown at it. “How’d it happen?”