Luca was still sleeping when I left to work the wedding party at Isaac’s. I snuck down the hall to peek in on him. He was wrapped around the blankets, the way he used to wrap his body around mine. I wondered about women after me. If they shared the same closeness. Eric and I never took that kind of comfort in each other.
At work, I struggled to push thoughts of Luca’s possible girlfriends from my mind. What were they like? Were they past or present tense?
The sound of a sewing machine is a peaceful hum to a calm mind, and a driver of repetitive thought to a chaotic one. But once the bridal party came in, their noisy bluster and relentless demands forced me into the moment.
* * *
When I got home, Luca and Nan were in the living room playing music and looking through records. They didn’t notice Bark slip away to greet me. I whispered my hello to him, and watched from the hallway.
“I love this one,” Luca said, smiling in recognition at a record with a white cover and a picture of a woman in a striped shirt. “My mother has a thing for Eydie Gormé. She had this one.”
“Play it,” Nan said, so eager to make him happy.
He placed the record on the turntable, careful to put the needle down exactly right. The cowbell started and Luca bopped his head in time with the music, wide smile on his face. “I haven’t heard this in forever!”
“May I?” Nan offered her hand.
Luca bowed, slipped his hand into hers, and they twirled around the room as Eydie sang “Blame It on the Bossa Nova.”
In college, Luca taught me how to waltz on the gravel roof of his dorm, after he confessed that his mother made him take ballroom dancing as a child. I watched the way he held his neck long and straight as he moved through the steps with Nan, and the wanting collected in my chest until it hurt. I snuck to my room so they wouldn’t see me.
I was scared of so many things, but I’d never been more terrified than this. I always ruined everything, and Luca was too special to ruin.
* * *
A few songs later, Luca knocked on my open door. “I didn’t know you were home.”
“Just got in,” I said, avoiding his gaze.
“I’m going to head out early tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving? Already?” I said, showing too many cards. I didn’t know how to be around him, but I couldn’t stand the idea of him leaving.
“Only for the day,” he said with an inflection on only that suggested he knew it would calm me. “My friend Danny in Orlando has camera equipment to lend us.”
“That’s good!” I said, attempting to pull all my feelings back in.
“Would you—Do you want to come with me?” Luca asked, lifting his arms to stretch them against the top of the doorframe. I tried not to look at the swath of belly he exposed. Toned, muscular, like maybe he exercised purposely now, not just the occasional soccer game.
My knee-jerk reaction was to say no, pretend Isaac needed me, but I made eye contact with Luca for a split second and saw my wanting reflected in the look he gave me. “Sure.”
He drummed at the top of the doorframe. “Good!” He stood there for a moment, looking at me, like there was more he might say. Then, “I’m going to go clean up. For dinner. Are you going to Ruth’s?”
I shook my head. “No. I need to get over to Bitsie’s and work on the costumes.” It felt like way too much to share him with the other ladies again, and I needed to store up my energy for our road trip.
“Oh,” he said, face falling. “I’ll—I can bring home a plate.”
I stared at the doorway long after he walked away.
* * *
That night, at Bitsie’s, working on costumes, the hum of the sewing machine seemed to be asking, Why can’t you? Why can’t you? Why can’t you? A brave person would have grabbed Luca’s hand and gone to dinner.