CHAPTER 16

“Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)” – Taylor Swift

WHEN ENRIQUE INVITED US TO the wedding, we quickly realized that this was his way of telling us any extra help at the reception itself would be much appreciated.

As I’m approaching the lobby and notice Luca walking toward the gardens, I realize just how well I’d shut out the events from this morning. But now, all it took was a glance. A glance from his eyes, that slams so hard into me, it might as well be the wildest wave that brings Every. Single. Detail. From earlier back to the forefront of my mind.

“You look ravishing ,” he says seriously. Or at least he’s trying his best to sound serious, his humor momentarily taking my attention off the more distracting memory.

My brows crease, while I blink a few times trying to process the compliment. “That didn’t quite land the way I thought it would.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think it did either,” he says.

“It was a little cringy actually.” I bite back my smile .

His lips part. “Okay, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that…” Then his smile fades. “You look really beautiful though.”

You know how I described the goosebumps when my head was nuzzled along his neck? Yeah, scratch all of that. This . This is the strongest I’ve felt goosebumps reach all the way down to the tips of my toes that they almost curl against my strappy heels.

And it seems like my efforts paid off. Considering how I basically got ready for tonight in a way where in the back of my mind, I hoped it would impress Luca. The way it now looks like it has .

I chose a simple navy-blue strapless dress and placed my hair in a half braid when I’m usually shit at doing braids. Yet I made sure I practiced enough for it to look good tonight. And how I meticulously decided on a fragrance that smells like sea breeze mixed with citrus and a hint of vanilla.

Come to think of it, I got ready as if I’m about to go on a date. But without having the date yet. And arriving in a way that would make the other person wish that it was one. Aka me dancing with my own emotions in this summer dress.

Although, it looks like Luca also dressed to impress. Me? I can’t quite say. But why else is he wearing a light cornflower blue dress shirt that is the most striking color I’ve seen on him? A shade that complements his dirty blonde hair so well. Oh and his black dress pants that are fitted devastatingly well that my jitteriness from the lingering espresso starts to take it’s full effect.

Maybe it’s a good thing Enrique extended an invitation to us for tonight. At least this can temporarily redirect my attention away from Luca. And how his body felt brushed up against mine on his apartment floor. How for a moment I felt the comforting yet strong grip of his arm wrapped around my shoulder. How I need to stop thinking about all of this before I feel dizzy again.

_________

The wedding itself is beautiful. The bride and groom exchange vows in the late afternoon sun on the spanning patio of the resort. String lights hang above the guests sitting in the audience, creating what I know will be a cozy feel once we lose all daylight.

Flowers are overgrown purposefully for this occasion and scattered everywhere you look, making it feel like a secret garden of sorts. It feels romantic. And perfect. I can’t help the wistful smile I feel creep across my face as the bride and groom kiss, the minister pronouncing them husband and wife.

I want that . So bad. A knot in my stomach tightens, hoping I can have that one day. Wishing it will all feeljust as magical as everyone makes it out to be.Wondering who it might be standing across from me .

As the happy couple makes their way up the aisle, I see Enrique approaching from my periphery. He’s been running around all day, looking handsome and poised to guests yet stressed and disheveled when nobody is looking. When we got back this morning, Luca took the cakes to him while I went up to my room to get ready, so this is the first time I’m seeing him since yesterday.

“Hey,” he says as he sidles up to me, exhaling a deep breath. “I feel like a wedding planner.”

I laugh because, in this moment, he looks like a wedding planner. “Hey. You never know. Maybe that’s your calling,” I tease.

He gives me a sarcastic smirk, before his expression grows tender. “Thank you again for helping out. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I could do.” I shrug like it’s nothing. “Everything seems to have gone smoothly.”

“So far,” he says. “We still have the meal and the rest of the reception to get through.”

“It’ll be great,” I reassure.

He gives me a half-smile, and I catch him looking over his shoulders as if expecting something to go wrong. “I know you’re busy. You should go,” I offer, nodding my head toward the area the guests are heading. The chairs are being cleared off to make room for the dance floor, and it feels like an important time for Enrique to be “on.”

He nods. “Seriously, thank you,” Enrique repeats, squeezing my hand in a gentle grip. It’s sweet. It’s a kind gesture. But, at the same time, it feels like nothing . No electricity. No butterflies. No desire to twine our fingers together.

My feeling is further proved when he lets go of my hand a few seconds later and I don’t feel like his presence next to me is missed. I don’t feel like my hand is missing something when it’s not holding Enrique’s.

_________

An hour later, I find myself running around the reception in my heels carrying trays of pastries, while trying my best to not faceplant in front of all these people. While I knew that Enrique needed our help for the remainder of the day, I didn’t expect it to be this intense. Or to do this much cardio.

As the food starts to dwindle and music starts playing, I use this as an excuse to take a break. Moving past the countless orchids, peonies, and gardenias, I manage to sneak two very fancy glasses of champagne as I look for Luca who I just saw pass by here a second ago.

After walking around for a few minutes with no luck, I notice the familiar silhouette of him sitting near some rocks overlooking the shore. “Champagne?” I offer as I approach him.

He playfully searches every direction but where I’m standing before looking at me, making me giggle. “Thanks,” he says. Even his tired smile lights up the already moonlit beach. Then his eyes immediately drop wide open when he takes a sip. “Shit. That’s strong. Way stronger than the sangrias you like.”

I sit on the rock next to him, take a large gulp, and shrug. “I didn’t even notice. I’m still asleep.”

“Oh me too. I almost fell off this rock. I felt like I was you again,” he says smugly, before taking another sip, while holding eye contact with me.

I would roll my eyes. But the warmth that’s cascading down my body at the way his eyes curved to the side just now has my full attention. “Did you hear that couple talking about our cakes?” I ask, trying to pull myself together.

Luca chuckles. “Yes. I literally had to walk away because I was about to start laughing.”

“I actually laughed. So I hope they didn’t hear me.”

“Of course you did.” He smiles. “It was the ‘these cakes must be from an award-winning pastry chef’ for me.”

“No, I liked the lady who was shit talking the mousse,” I add. “She literally said it was the worst filling texture she’s ever tried.”

He shakes his head. “The contrast between their comments was gold.”

“It really was,” I say as my laughter subsides. “I know I’m biased, but I think we did a pretty good job.”

He jolts back so quickly with brows creased. “We did a fucking amazing job,” he says, before pretending to look around again. “Where’s our trophy? ”

I giggle at his silliness. “I should just move here and start a bakery.”

“I mean, you could. Why not?”

“I’m a thousand percent joking.” He shrugs and now my brows furrow. “You weren’t joking?”

“It’s just a thought,” he replies. “You were saying how you haven’t found something you like to pursue yet. Keeping the possibilities open wouldn’t be a bad thing.”

I’m so taken aback by Luca’s suggestion that I almost don’t realize how much he’s opened up to me. And just as impressively changed his opinions on certain things. With a now warmer chest, I confess, “I could never imagine doing something like that.”

“Like what?” he asks.

“Honestly? Moving here or starting a bakery,” I admit. “I’m just not adventurous.”

He looks at me like he doesn’t agree with a word I’m saying. “You really don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Trust me,” I argue, “part of why I waited this long to do so many things is because I’ve if anything given myself too much credit. Thinking I had it all figured out and that I knew what was best when I didn’t know anything.”

He sets his glass down, turning his body slightly toward me. “I know how easy it is to self-deprecate, and looking at the past usually makes you feel worse, but where you are right now deserves to be appreciated.”

My heart is fluttering again. “I love how you speak,” I say, while I shake my head as if I’m in a daydream.

His brows knit together amusedly. “What do you mean?”

“You make things sound so simple, yet so meaningful that I actually believe what you’re saying. ”

“Well I’m just telling you the truth. And I’m not one to go around complimenting everyone for the sake of it.” He smiles with such sincerity that I’ve lost count at how many times I’ve wanted to kiss him at this point.

It might be wrong to compare. But I can’t get Enrique’s response to my question from yesterday out of my head. The curiosity of hearing Luca’s answer won’t go away.

Glancing at him, while he’s now focused on the deep blue water, I ask, “What color would you say my eyes are?”

He doesn’t even flinch. “What a perfectly normal and not at all random question to ask?”

I don’t particularly feel the need to explain myself to him.

It’s Luca after all.

“Your eyes are brown,” he says.

Okay same answer as Enrique.

I look at the ocean thinking he’s done.

But then he resumes talking, “With a ring of honey around them when you’re looking at the sun. Depending on the lighting though, you have some tiny specks of turquoise near your pupils.”

I try to look back at him. But it’s hard to do so, considering how I’ve completely froze.

As if he hasn’t already pierced every corner of my heart, he continues so purely, “It’s kind of cool. I’ve never really seen anything like it.”

I can’t tell if I want to smile. Or just cry. I get the sense that he’s too tired to read any of my emotions, for once thankful for this as I face toward him again.

“Oh I almost forgot,” Luca says, while reaching for his pocket, before taking out a napkin .

Temporarily forgetting how he just shattered my heart in the best way possible at his description of my eyes, I tease, “You brought a sandwich napkin?”

He tries not to roll his eyes, while biting down on his smile. “Yes, I brought a sandwich napkin.”

As he unveils the second burnt disaster cake we made last night, I cover my mouth with my hands. “You did not bring that.”

“You don’t throw away perfection,” he says with an alluring look in his eyes. And a bit seductively if you ask me…

Luca closes his eyes with exaggeration, making me giggle as he breaks the cake that might as well be the hardest cookie into two. He then reaches out to hand me my half when his fingers brush over mine. I immediately look at his eyes. He quickly meets mine.

It’s then that my reflexes fail me, and my wrist nudges his glass, sending a pool of champagne over the edge, covering the bottom half of his shirt.

He snorts. “What’s with you and spilling drinks on me?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see it,” I say nervously, not really feeling sorry at all when I almost notice a trace of his v-lines peek through his now damp shirt.

He smirks with a tilt of his chin. “Is that a fetish of yours or something? Wanting to see me wet.”

“In your dreams,” I say. But also in my dreams.

As if this isn’t the most flustered I’ve felt around him thus far, he also has to remind me how charismatic his laugh is, while we try our best to slowly eat the overcooked dessert. “It’s a damn shame that this wasn’t the cake the wedding could have experienced,” he says.

I snort. “Yeah. I think they’d never come back here though, but for sure it would have been an experience. ”

“This is like a fucking hockey puck. Look.” He clinks the cookie against his phone, now making me laugh.

“Wait,” I say.

“I’m waiting…” Luca is starting to look as delirious as me.

“So a cookie is just a cake that’s hard,” I conclude.

He nods with exaggeration. “I think you’re onto something.” Then gets up and reaches his hand out for me to take. “Let’s go tell the rest of the world. C’mon.”

I roll my eyes as he sits back down. “We both need to go to bed now.” His jaw drops open before he covers his mouth. “Get your mind out of the gutter. You know what I meant.”

He cocks his head skeptically. “How do you know what I know that I think you meant?”

I laugh. “You really are turning into me.”

He feigns a look of fear as his eyes widen. “Told you. It’s scary. You’re scary. This is all very scary.”

I don’t know if it’s just the sparkly night talking or something much, much more than that. Nonetheless, the overwhelmingly blissful feeling in my chest keeps growing as I look at him. “I still can’t believe I didn’t see you in college.”

“Maybe we passed by each other without ever knowing it?” Luca says lightheartedly.

“Impossible. I would have remembered you.”

“Yeah? And why is that?”

“I just would have.” I wonder if he picks up on what I’m really hinting at.

That it’s because he’s beautiful and the epitome of what my crushes would have looked like back then and still now.

He just laughs to himself, then reveals, “Well technically, we almost did.”

What ?

His eyes give away that he wonders if he shouldn’t have just said this, only making my brows furrow even more.

“What do you mean?” I finally ask.

He looks so tired. Even more than last night. “It’s actually a funny story,” he says, while smiling nervously.

Something tells me this is going to be the furthest thing from funny. But he knows that it’s too late to backtrack and so he takes somewhat of a deep breath, before explaining, “Enrique told me how he wanted to introduce me to his lit tutor right when the semester had started. I wasn’t seeing anyone at the time, so I was interested. He brought it up a second time, but then I guess he forgot to actually introduce us. It was a pretty hectic semester for us anyway so even though I remembered, I didn’t really bother to bring it up to him again.”

I’m not just shocked. I almost can’t believe it.

“When did you realize this?” I blurt out.

He replies, “The day after we bumped into each other where Enrique officially introduced us.”

WHAT?

I clench my fingers to my sides, while Luca adds, “I didn’t know your name before that, but I put two and two together as soon as he said that you were his tutor in college. Since he only had one tutor during freshman year.”

I look at him wide-eyed. “So we could have met almost a decade ago?”

What I really want to say is that we could have dated almost a decade ago. And that could have changed everything for me.

“Yeah. I guess so,” he says with a timid smile.

Except my brows continue to furrow with frustration. “Why didn’t you say any of this to me right when you realized this? ”

“You were so excited to be with Enrique that I didn’t really see the point in bringing it up.”

“So what’s the point in bringing it up now?” I challenge. All that time I was worried what Enrique was thinking and if us meeting again was fate and now he has to tell me this .

Luca defends, “I don’t know. I’m tired. I didn’t even mean to bring it up.”

He didn’t mean to? For a second I thought this could mean he might actually have some feelings for me, but his response contradicts this .

“When you brought up college just now, it reminded me of everything,” he adds.

I must look more upset than I want to let on when his Adam’s apple flexes, before he looks at me with a seriousness in his eyes. One that’s so intense, I almost gasp. Maintaining his gaze on me, his lips part and he says, “Did you want me to tell you?”

I don’t answer.

Instead I barely move in closer. But enough to where he notices. As he swallows again, a satisfying warmth fills my entire body. I don’t really know what I’m doing. Actually, I have no idea what I’m doing. In my mind, if he likes me, he’ll also lean in.

And he does.

I move in even closer, my heartbeat about to burst by the second. He slowly matches my distance, before a strand of my hair falls to my face.

Luca lifts it so gently that I don’t feel his skin until he tucks the strand behind my ear as goosebumps dance all over my neck and collarbone.

My longing eyes reveal how badly I want to feel his lips on mine. And there’s no way he doesn’t sense it .

He glances down at my lips. “If I try to kiss you…,” he whispers, before looking into my eyes. “Will you stop me?”

I barely shake my head, too consumed by the moment. A wave of pleasure rushes between my legs the closer his lips move near mine, until they’re only a few inches away.

As I’m about to close my eyes, Luca sighs strong enough for me to feel the vibration off my lips. “What am I doing?” he says.

He immediately moves away as I look up at him with eyes wide in shock.

I’m speechless. At the moment. At how close we were. That he stopped it.

Yet I still can’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” he confesses with so much pain in his voice as he walks away.

But not as much as it pains me to watch him go .