EPILOGUE

1 Year Later

“Mine (Taylor’s Version)” – Taylor Swift

“I THINK THERE’S SOME SAND still stuck in my ass,” I groan, wondering when my body will stop shaking from the cold.

“At least it didn’t get stuck in your ears.” Luca scratches his right ear as he opens the door to our apartment after coming back from the beach.

“Yeah I don’t get the hype around skinny dipping at all,” I admit.

“I told you,” he says as more sand continues to fall off his jacket while we both groan and laugh simultaneously.

Most of the evening included the two of us laughing at each other at the beach, reminding me that where we’re at or what activity we decide on doing isn’t all that important. If he’s there, chances are I’m going to have a good time.

As I continue shivering, Luca declares obnoxiously, “Let’s get you near warm water fast!” My giggling only increases when he picks me up over his shoulders while resting his arms over my ass as my legs dangle below his grip.

And with that, enough heat returns back to me that I no longer need any assistance from the shower.

“How hot do you want it?” he asks so innocently as he puts me down once we’re in the bathroom.

I swear that he still makes everything sound dirty. And I still act like I don’t love it.

“You already know the answer to that,” I confess through my scarlet cheeks as we strip down for the second time tonight.

As soon as he turns on the water, I immediately shudder from the heat. “Ahh much better.”

“This is basically like skinny dipping,” he jokes.

“But without all the shit that gets attached to your body,” I add.

“Precisely.” He grins into my lips, catching the first sigh I’ll exhale for the evening.

_________

When I walk into the kitchen afterward, Luca is already laying out our baking supplies, wearing his lime green apron. “What do you want to bake?” he asks.

“I wasn’t thinking of anything specific,” I reply, while putting on my lemon yellow apron. “Maybe the chocolate cake we made last year? Do you remember the recipe?”

“I think I have it somewhere. Let me check.” He walks over to a drawer by the refrigerator and starts rummaging through it. “Do you remember it?”

“Not at all. Sorry. I was a little distracted by you that night…”

His cheeks flush. “You think you were distracted? You should’ve seen how I felt. ”

Reliving the memory in my head again, I say, “I still get chills every time I remember how your neck felt tickled against mine the next morning.”

Luca stops what he’s doing and walks toward me in a way where every inch he moves closer only adds to the pressure growing down my body. “Like this?” he teases so facetiously as he lifts my damp hair to the side, making me scream when all he does is nuzzle his neck along my shoulder before lowering his lips onto my exposed collarbone. Just to kiss it once and innocently at best.

Wanting much more than that even though we’re supposed to be crafting a dessert right now, I express coyly, “I could hardly tell. Maybe you need to try again?”

His thumb slowly brushes along my collarbone. “Maybe I’ll show you something else later tonight if you stay on your best behavior.”

Tracing his bottom lip with my index finger, I taunt back, “No promises.”

Instead of replying, he just gives me my favorite smug grin of his as he places a piece of folded paper into my palm.

When I open it up, my eyes glimmer. “Wait. You kept this?” Thinking he simply rewrote the recipe just to have for his own reference leaves me a bit stunned when I realize that he kept the original one. Especially given how heavily annotated it is to the point where it mainly now looks like a scribbled mess.

“It was something to remember you by,” Luca reveals timidly as his eyes glance into mine.

I bite down on my lip. “If you want me to be on my best behavior you’re not helping with that…”

His smirk only confirms to me that he knows exactly what he’s started. Again .

And so he gives me a knowing smile while walking over toward the speaker by our toaster. “I know the perfect distraction .”

When the familiar melody of Dean Martin’s “On an Evening in Roma” fills the room, I don’t even bother concealing my excitement. “I see someone’s been influenced by my music taste?”

He raises his brows, pretending to look a bit scared. “Trust me. No one’s more shocked than I am.” But then his expression softens as his eyes turn vulnerable. “I listened to it while cooking the same way you do. It made time move faster when I’d miss you.”

If a certain set of words could make you fall in love with someone all over again, this is the closest it would get for me. And after doing the same for him but with things he likes, I cannot even imagine Luca missing me more than I missed him when we were apart.

A year ago, I didn’t think I’d ever move somewhere an hour away let alone to another country. But when I found an editorial position at a Spanish publishing company in Madrid, I decided that even being a thousand miles closer to Luca was worth it. Liking the job as much as I do now was a nice surprise, making it the first one I look forward to waking up for, considering how it’s given me an outlet to channel my imagination through the world of storytelling. This alone made the time move just that much faster. But luckily I didn’t have to wait any longer when Luca finally moved into my apartment a few weeks ago.

When I offered to move back to Marbella, Luca insisted he’d come to Madrid instead, convincing me that since my job didn’t have the same flexibility that he’d figure out a way to make his work remotely. Especially since he’s started painting a lot more extensively now, even entering the art festival this year and getting the highest award, as I knew he would .

It never left my attention how Luca knew how happy this job made me and the words he said to me mentioning that I sacrificed a lot to move this far away from home. And so he decided to meet me halfway. A concept I had never experienced before and am still getting used to.

Another thing I’ll never get used to is how he makes me feel, like right now .

And so I take the opportunity to tease him about our cooking song to see just how much he missed me. “So how many times did you listen to it?”

Luca grins. “It ended up on my Spotify Wrapped last year if that should tell you anything.”

I roll my eyes, laughing at the reminder of one of our first conversations about the streaming service, never dreaming that I’d know him the way that I do now.

“Spotify, huh?” I mock.

“ Premium ,” he corrects as he bites down on his bottom lip.

“Oh, of course.” I shake my head. “You’re so dumb.”

“Not dumb enough to keep using Apple Music.” He raises his brows. “By the way, we could make the key lime pie instead if you wanted to.”

“That would be amazing,” I admit. “But I don’t think we have most of the ingredients.”

He walks over to the refrigerator. “We should. I got the few things we didn’t have for it the other day. I figured it would be a fun thing to make to celebrate the apartment and all.”

“And I thought that I couldn’t get more impressed by you?” I voice out loud.

“Oh this is nothing,” he says.

Luca’s also put so much effort to back his words and has made me feel validated not because I need him to, but just by loving me in spite of my flaws. So I take the moment to express how I feel back to him, considering how he still continues to brush off all the amazing things he does as if they’re not much. With the subtle things sometimes making my entire day .

“This isn’t a dig at your exes, but they really lost a gem,” I confess.

“You think I’m a gem?” he asks bashfully, but with sarcasm.

“The prettiest gem I’ve ever seen.”

“That sounds more like you . But thank you for the compliment.” He chuckles as he starts placing the ingredients onto the counter. While I eagerly look through everything, he gives me a warm grin. “I’m guessing that you want to make the key lime pie then?”

I tilt my head at him knowingly. “Is that even a question?”

While he continues to organize everything, my loose shirt falls a bit off my shoulder, revealing a glimpse of my bra. When Luca looks at it but doesn’t comment, I tease, “If you’re curious, I finally found a yellow one that I thought was cute.”

Though his cheeks look even more flushed than before, he pretends to glance away playfully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see anything.”

“Oh you didn’t?” I roll down my sleeve slightly and notice his posture changes again.

Putting down the bowl of limes, he moves in closer, pinning me between the counter as he places his hands on both sides of my hips as a barrier. “You’re not behaving…”

“And you are?” I counter.

His lips are dangerously close again, so I tease them with my fingers.

It’s then that his mouth travels along my exposed shoulder. He could very easily just kiss down to my breasts. So of course that’s exactly what he doesn’t do. Instead, he traces his mouth along my collarbone, moving just inches above my cleavage when I feel his lips curve into a smug smile. And then he leaves the softest kiss, making my body scream when he lets go.

Acting oblivious yet again, he asks, “So you’re liking your job?”

Still with my neck tilted to the side, I groan, “Thanks to you now I need to take a seat.”

“I mean, I’d offer, but the pie,” he teases, while brushing his fingers across his lips.

My body whimpers, wishing we’d be doing that instead right now. But when my mind has a second to gather itself, knowing how fun this will be, I reply to his previous question, “Yeah. I love this job. Which is a first .”

“That’s awesome. I’m happy for you.” Luca smiles so warmly as he kisses my hair.

“Thank you for helping to push me to come here,” I say.

“No, that was all you,” he says.

“I know that you don’t make a change unless you really want to be the one who wants to make it, but having a push from someone who has your best interests in mind is always nice. Like you could have easily insisted for me to move to Marbella, but you didn’t.”

“Of course I wanted to, but that wouldn’t have been fair.”

“See that’s what I mean. You’re a gem.” I cup the side of his face, giving him the biggest kiss possible as he grins into my lips before we begin working on the recipe.

As I start squeezing the limes, they immediately splash onto Luca’s cheeks. “You know the bowl is over there?” he mocks .

When some of the limes he’s preparing splash on my arms a moment later, I dish back, “ Where were you saying the bowl was again?”

“Maybe these are extra juicy limes,” he concludes.

“That sounded so weird.”

“Juicy limes??” He laughs.

I snort. “Stop it!”

Luca wipes his hands with his apron and then deadpans, “Remember. Two cups of flour, not 12.”

My mouth drops at the reminder as I sprinkle some flour on him before he sprinkles some back at me.

Once we’ve prepared the batter and placed the pie in the oven, I rest my back against the counter and exhale blissfully. “The kitchen smells so good right now.”

Luca runs his fingers through his hair, distracting me again. “We should just make our own fragrance using lemons and limes.”

“No, I love your cologne,” I say, pulling his waist into mine.

“Oh you do?” he teases as his hands hold onto my ass, causing an almost grinding motion near my hips.

I gasp, while breathing in the scent off his neck. “Mhm. I do.”

But then I almost groan when he moves to shuffle the music again.

When I instantly recognize Vance Joy’s “Georgia” playing in the background, I lick my lips as he watches me. “Ah yes…the sex playlist.”

He scoffs as he tilts his head down. “I told you it’s not a sex playlist.”

“You know? It would be a shame to waste this song just because my friend happens to have the same name…” I bat my lashes at him.

Luca stares at me blankly before abruptly widening his eyes. “Oh shit. I think that was my cue.” Wiping off the flour from his hands, he takes off his apron before raising the volume of the song as I giggle at the unseriousness I love about him.

Facing toward me, he reaches his hand out for me to take until we’re just a few inches apart. I realize my apron’s still on when his hands wrap around my lower back before tugging on its strings.

The way he’s untying the fabric feels like he’s untying a dress that I’m not wearing. The anticipation for him to finish is only further intensified by the intrigue in his eyes. But right now we’re focusing on baking. And that’s for another time.

As Luca’s hands reach his favorite spot on my waist, mine fall around his neck while we sway back and forth softly in this candlelit glow.

With my head now resting on his shoulder, he asks, “You set the timer right?”

Still in a trance, I lift my face toward him. “I was supposed to set the timer?”

He looks at the ceiling, trying not to smile. “Oh no.”

Snorting in unison, I conclude, “This is going to be a long night,” before remembering, “oh wait. Esta va a ser una noche larga .”

He pulls me into his arms, temporarily making me forget where exactly in the world I am at the moment. But knowing, with a certainty, that I am home .

_________

Thank you for reading All at Once!