by Angie Pepper
They got to Tina’s house. The bed was still how she’d left it, unfolded.
Luca dropped the crutches and fell onto the bed like it was his own. Within seconds, he was fast asleep, still in his clothes. He wore one big boot, on the foot that wasn’t in a cast. She pried it off his foot for him. He stirred but didn’t wake up. He sleepily rolled to the side of the bed—it was a king-sized mattress, which was why the couch was so large—leaving plenty of room beside him.
Tina yawned. It wasn’t quite five o’clock yet.
She kicked off her gardening sneakers, pulled a spare blanket from the hall closet, and lay down next to Luca.
She didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but she did.
Chapter 25
Tina woke up to the sound of cursing nearby.
Luca was in her kitchen. By the smell of it, he was burning toast. By the sound of it, he was knocking stuff over like a bull in a china shop. There was barely enough space in the kitchen area for him, but certainly not for him and his crutches.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Luca said. He leaned back on the counter and stuffed burned toast into his mouth. “I hope you don’t mind me rustling up some food. I need to eat something with my painkillers, or I might get funny.”
“Funny like you were last night?”
“Last night’s a blur. You’ll have to catch me up.”
Tina rolled off the bed and started folding it back into a sofa.
Luca said, “Don’t do that. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“I don’t like crumbs in my bed,” she said. “Or people who don’t pay rent here.”
“You want rent?” He smiled as he finished the toast. “How much?”
She ignored his question as she tossed the couch cushions back in place. “If you were hungry, you should have woken me up. You should be sitting. Your foot should be elevated, so it doesn’t swell up inside your cast.”
“Tina, it’s just a cast. I can make toast.”
She went to the kitchen, grabbed his big arm, and tried to pull him out. He leaned back and wouldn’t budge.
“Get out of here,” she said. “You’re banging into everything with your crutches.”
“I’m not going,” he said.
“Go sit on the couch. I’ll make you some eggs.”
“Nope,” he said. “I might be a jerk, and I might make mistakes, but I don’t make the same one twice.” She was still pulling on his arm when he let go of the counter. He fell against her, wrapping his arms around her. “Oops,” he said. “Clumsy me.”
“What are you doing?” Her voice was muffled from having his shoulder against her mouth.
She felt the rumble of his voice in his chest as he spoke. “You’re not pulling me or pushing me out of your life again. I shouldn’t have left you that night.”
“I want you to go.”
“If you really want me to go, I will, but I don’t think you do. Look at yourself. You’re hugging me.”
“If I let you go, you’ll fall down and break everything in my kitchen. Again.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and tensed her body, rejecting his hug while still being in it.
“When did I break everything in your kitchen?”
She didn’t answer.
“You mean I broke your heart when I left,” he said.
“You did.”
“What about you? You didn’t come to my grand opening. You sent me those boring funeral flowers and a generic card. You might as well have stuck an ice pick in my chest.”
“That was different.”
“You broke my heart,” he said. “I barely made it through the night. I’ve been barely making it through a lot of nights.”
Tina relaxed into the hug. There was a lump in her throat. She managed to choke out, “I don’t understand what happened with us.”
He reached up and stroked her upper back. “We had our first fight,” he said. “That’s what happened. And I didn’t know how to apologize. My bookkeeper quit helping me with my text messages, and I couldn’t go see my favorite florist for advice.”
She pulled away and poked him in the stomach with two fingers. “Don’t make jokes, Luca. Don’t make me laugh.”
“I shouldn’t have left you here that night,” he said, gazing down into her eyes. “But I was stubborn, and I thought I was right and you were wrong. Or maybe I was scared.”
“Why would you be scared?”
“My wrist hurts.” He kept looking into her eyes. “I know I only broke my foot last night, but when I fell, I reached out to break my fall. I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and the same thing must have happened with us.”
“Are you saying I hurt your wrist?”
“Yes and no. I think I realized I was falling, and I freaked out. I tried to stop my fall, but I only made it worse.” He leaned down and gently kissed her. “I tried to stop my fall, but then I broke both of us.”
She pulled away, slipped out of his arms, and took three steps back, until she was against the back of the sofa, with nowhere to go.
Luca said, “Don’t you dare run. I’ve got crutches, and I’m not afraid to use them.”
“Where would I go?”
He grinned. “I knew there was a reason I loved this house.”
She looked away. “Luca, don’t kiss me, and don’t look at me like that. You have a girlfriend. She seemed nice.”
“I do? Can you tell me who it is, because I don’t know.”
“Very funny. The woman you were with at the street party last night.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Her? You know all about her. She’s the one I sent the other apology flowers to.” He shook his head. “Tina, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s married.”
“You fool around with married ladies? You’re not just a jerk. You’re disgusting.”
“It’s not like that,” he growled, sounding annoyed.
“You kept telling me you were a jerk, so I shouldn’t be surprised.” Tina rounded the sofa, edging toward the door.
Luca grabbed his crutches and hobbled toward her. “Wait a minute. When you came to my house for dinner, you met Chris and his wife. Why would you think she was my girlfriend?”
“You’re sleeping with your neighbor’s wife? That’s low.”
“No, Tina. I’m not sleeping with anyone, except you, last night. You are so exasperating!”
“At least I don’t sleep with my neighbor’s wife!”
“Slow down. I sent apology flowers to my neighbor’s wife because she tried to set me up on a blind date with a friend. Then I was a jerk because I spent the whole date talking about another girl.”
Tina edged toward the door, saying nothing.
Luca said, “I wouldn’t stop talking about the pretty girl I met at the flower shop. I couldn’t get her out of my head. And that’s what the second bouquet was all about.” He hobbled one step closer, awkwardly navigating the tight space on his crutches.
Tina reached for the door handle but didn’t turn it. “You’re not seeing anyone else now, and you weren’t then?”
“Not since Jessica Fitzgibbon, which I think we can all agree was a giant mistake.”
What Luca was trying to say to Tina finally sank in.
“Oh,” she said, twisting the door handle. The door cracked, letting a breeze into the tiny space.
“Tina Gardenia, if you open that door and run out of here, I will chase you down on these crutches, and it won’t be pretty.”
“You should be resting,” she said. “You need to put your foot up.”
“I would happily rest, if I could get the prettiest, sweetest, funniest woman I’ve ever met to stop hating me.”
“I don’t hate you,” she said.
He pointed to his lips. “Prove it.”
Chapter 26
It was time for dinner, and Luca was still in Tina’s house, still wearing the cut-apart jeans he’d worn there from the hospital.
He was sitting on the sofa with his foot propped
up while Tina prepared a meal using the new cookbook she’d gotten from Rory the week before. Over the last three months, Tina hadn’t just thrown out a bunch of things from high school. She’d also been learning some new skills, such as how to make food that wasn’t nachos.
“I’ll have to throw these jeans away and get new ones,” Luca said. “Unless you want these to make a pair of cut-offs?”
“Your jeans would be way too big on me,” she said, not looking up from the bowl of ingredients she was mixing.
“But there’s something in them for you.”
She chuckled. “I bet there is.”
“Naughty girl,” he said. “I mean there’s something in the pocket for you. Do you want it?”
She walked over to him and held out her hand. “Sure. Whatever.”
He placed a tiny charm in the palm of her hand. A heart.
“It’s all yours now,” he said. “Even if you drop it, and step on it, and bend it out of shape, it’s still yours. I don’t want it back.”
“You had this in your pocket?”
“I’ve had it in my pocket every day for the last three months. Except one day when I thought I lost it in the washing machine, but then I found it in the filter. Don’t worry. It’s clean.”
She stared at the heart and thought about all the times she’d taken the alley to work, or ducked into a store to avoid seeing Luca on the street. All the times she’d missed her chance to get Luca’s heart back.
“I can understand if you don’t want my stupid heart,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t take me back either, because I’m not always a fan of Luca Lowell. He doesn’t always do the right thing.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. If I hadn’t gotten backed into by a truck last night and hadn’t gone to the hospital, I don’t know if you ever would have brought me back to your house. Back into your life.”
“My tiny house, and my tiny life.”
He shrugged. “It’s big enough for me.” He stretched out on the sectional. “You’ll have a hard time kicking me out again.”
“Luca, I can’t make you any promises.”
“Yes, you can. You can promise to give me a second chance the next time I screw up.”
“You didn’t screw up. I did. I’m the one who kicked you out.”
“Then I’ll give you a second chance. I won’t be a chicken and take the alley to work so I don’t run into you.”
“You did that?”
“Only for about a week, until your sister busted me sneaking through the alley like a burglar, and tore me a new one.” He rubbed his beard. “You know, now that I’m thinking over my conversations with her, it’s all making sense. She must have thought Chris’s wife was my girlfriend. The two of them stop by the garage a lot, but not always together. I thought your sister was being—well, you know how she is—but now I think I understand what was really going on.”
Tina looked down at the heart in her palm then at Luca. She closed her fingers around the charm.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to drop it again.”
There was a scratch at the door. Luca rolled himself along the couch, reached out with one long arm, and opened the door.
Muffins strolled in like he owned the place.
Luca exclaimed, “Kitty!”
Muffins jumped up on the couch and started sniffing Luca’s cast. Then he meowed about dinner.
Luca picked the cat up gently and held him like a baby. “You are a cutie patootie,” he said, then he cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Yes, uh. This is a healthy cat specimen. A strong hunter. I can tell by his, uh, ample midsection.”
Tina said, “That’s some pretty impressive baby talk for a big, tough guy like you.”
“Big, tough guys have feelings, too,” Luca said. “And they like cats.”
Chapter 27
Tina Gardenia was as happy as a cat with a full belly.
She had kept Luca Lowell’s heart safely on her charm bracelet, and it had been wonderful.
It was Sunday morning again, and Luca was clunking around in the tiny kitchen on one bare foot and one walking cast, making coffee by the smell of it.
Tina snuggled Muffins close to her face. “You’re a handsome boy,” she cooed.
“I know you’re talking to the cat,” Luca said. “Why don’t you talk to me like that?”
“You already get more than enough compliments, Mr. Lowell.”
“How many dunks do I dunk your tea bags?”
“You don’t dunk. Just pour the water on and let it steep.”
“How’s it going to steep if you’re not dunking?”
“Fine,” she said. “Give it... seven dunks.”
“Gotcha. Seven dunks.” He started counting them out.
Tina nuzzled the ginger cat sprawled out on the couch. “You’re the prettiest boy in the world,” she said.
Luca growled, “I heard that.”
“Focus on your dunking.”
“Darn it. I lost count.”
“That’ll teach you for listening in on other people’s private conversations.”
Luca snorted and went back to dunking.
For the last two weeks, Muffins had been coming to visit at the tiny house regularly, and Luca had been pretending to be a jealous boyfriend. He and the cat were bonding on their own, though, often snuggling up on the couch together, watching their favorite shows. Luca liked true crime shows, and Muffins liked a warm lap and chin scratches.
Tina buried her face in Muffins’s belly and inhaled. The cat always smelled so good. Tina’s attention became overwhelming, and Muffins got up and flicked his tail in annoyance.
“Why do you keep sneaking over here?” Tina asked the cat.
He flicked his tail.
“Oh, Meenie’s not giving you enough attention, is she?”
Luca brought Tina her tea, moving with surprising agility for a guy in a cast. “Careful, it’s hot,” he said.
“You take such good care of me.”
“Hah!” He hopped back to the kitchen to watch the coffee maker finish brewing his cup. “You’re the one who looks after me,” he said. “Trust me on this one. For a guy who grew up with just his father, I notice when a woman is being good to me.”
“Who wouldn’t be good to you? You’re adorable.”
He snorted, which only makes him look more adorable.
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “I don’t like to talk about the past, because it’s all in the past, but I’ve dated a few women with funny ideas about how things should be.”
“Like Jessica Fitzgibbon? Somehow, I can’t imagine you putting up with a woman like that for long.”
The coffee maker finished, and he hopped over to the couch to sit next to Tina.
“Cheers.” He clinked his mug against her tea cup. “What’s going on? You’re quiet this morning.”
“I’m worried about my sister.”
“Meenie? Why would you worry about her?”
Muffins climbed onto Luca and took possession of his lap. Luca patted the cat with his big hands, stroking him hard enough to pull Muffins’s upper eyelids back so he looked like he was in a wind tunnel. The cat loved it, preferring Luca’s lap over Tina’s. The little traitor.
“She’s been acting weird lately. That’s why the Muff-meister is always over here.”
“Your sister’s fine. The cat is obviously in love with me.”
Tina rolled her eyes, even though it was true. “I’m worried that her loser self-help group is becoming her main relationship. Do you think it might be a cult?”
“If she shaves her head and takes an interest in the tambourine, then we’ll get involved.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on Tina’s lips. She didn’t like the taste of coffee, except for on Luca’s mouth. She could taste that all day.
“Meenie’s always had trouble with relationships.”
He sipped his coffee, listening without commenting.
“When we were eight, she’d hold boys down and kiss them,” Tina said. “One family moved away from the neighborhood because she was allegedly bullying their son.”
“Was she?”
“By today’s standards, probably. But it didn’t seem that bad at the time. We were all just kids. Kids do stuff like that.”
“I would have loved to have gotten bullied like that,” Luca said. “By a girl, of course.” He wrinkled his nose. “But not your sister, of course.”
“You wouldn’t have been her type,” Tina said. “You don’t back down.”
“Megan’s got a good heart,” Luca said. “And she cares about other people. You know, I’ve got a mechanic at the shop who might be her type.”
Tina patted Luca’s chest. “You’re the one with the good heart.” She kept rubbing, enjoying the ridges of his muscles under his shirt. He grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips.
Luca asked huskily, “Is it too early for a game of Scrabble?”
It wasn’t too early at all.
Chapter 28
Tina and Luca were playing Scrabble late Tuesday night when there was a knock at the door.
Luca said, “Is that Rory, back again?”
“You wish,” Tina said. “You like having her on your side so you guys can gang up on me.”
Since they’d been introduced to each other, her best friend and her boyfriend had gotten along well. Quite well, considering Rory’s quirks. Luca respected Rory’s boundaries and her cooking. Rory appreciated Luca’s patience, and his relaxed energy seemed to be helping her open up. She’d even joked about him getting a job as a sort of therapy pet for anxious people like her.
Tina answered the door. It wasn’t Rory after all.
It was Megan Gardenia, who’d had to knock because Tina had been keeping the door locked lately.
Megan peered around Tina’s shoulders. “Did I interrupt anything spicy? It looked like the cottage was shaking on the foundations again. We might need to have another seismic assessment done, if we keep having all these localized earthquakes.”
Tina resisted the urge to strangle her sister. “Meenie, do you have to be so rude, all the time?”
Luca called out, “Hey, Meenie! We’ve got an open bottle of wine. Come in and help yourself.”
