The world came to life slowly.
Stella blinked her eyes open against the thudding behind them and saw an empty space next to her in the bed.
He’d gone after all.
She stretched an arm out and the bed was cold. There was no beautiful man next to her. She’d asked him to leave and he’d left. He’d respected her decision. That was what she wanted. It was what would be best for him, for both of them, but that didn’t make it easy. That didn’t make it anything other than heart breaking.
Stella propped herself up on one elbow and reached for her phone.
When she saw the time—1 pm—she sat up with a panicked jolt. It was Saturday and she was supposed to have opened the shop two hours earlier. Her feet hit the bedside rug with a thud and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping it would stop the pounding.
She needed to get to Style by Stella. She needed to open up and get her life back to normal. What passed for normal in her life.
For weeks, everything had been upended and rearranged and her foundations now felt shaky and uncertain. The damage to her shop. Luca. Employing Molly. Her birthday. She felt as if darts had been tossed at her and she’d spent so long dodging them she hadn’t even taken the time to feel their sting. Until now.
The hurt she carried inside felt like the weight of a thousand bad memories.
Stella plodded to the bathroom and hastily swallowed another couple of paracetamol. Whatever happened in her private life, her business had to go on.
Her business.
Her labour of love.
Her whole life.
It was all she had.
Fifteen minutes later, Stella rounded the corner of her street and crossed the train line slowly and cautiously, every step feeling like an earthquake in her head.
She sipped some more water from her water bottle and willed herself to keep going. Style by Stella wasn’t far. Just a few more steps and she could flip over the Closed sign on the door and open.
A few more steps.
She lifted her sunglasses to peer into the distance. Two women were walking out of her shop carrying bags. The sandwich board was propped on the footpath.
Style by Stella was open.
Stella couldn’t comprehend what was going on and the closer she got to her shop, the more confused she became. How was it possible that it was business as usual without her?
When she stepped gingerly inside the shop, the bell tinkled above her and she could see Molly behind the counter serving a customer. Summer was over by the change rooms handing a hanger to another customer and Anna was, naturally, by the shoes, deep in animated conversation with a grey-haired woman holding a leopard-skin stiletto.
Stella didn’t want to cry but her chest clenched in an unfamiliar spasm and she couldn’t take another step.
‘What are you doing here?’ Summer had spied her across the shop and was by her side in a hot second. ‘You’re supposed to be in bed.’
‘What’s going on?’ Stella couldn’t raise her voice above a whisper.
‘Stella?’ Anna’s stilettos clickety-clicked across the painted concrete floor and she placed a palm against Stella’s forehead. ‘God, you look terrible. You need to be in bed. Drink plenty of fluids and sleep, for god’s sake. Everything here is under control.’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on.’
Summer reached for her friend and placed a gentle hand on her arm. ‘Luca called me this morning. He tried to wake you, apparently, but you were dead to the world.’
Luca had been there this morning? He hadn’t left the night before? But he’d said goodbye, she remembered, he’d kissed her on both cheeks and said goodbye. She’d heard the front door close before she’d drifted off.
‘And then he called Summer and she called Molly and we’re here. I’ve even sold four pairs of shoes,’ Anna announced proudly. ‘Go home. We’ve got this.’
The bell over the front door tinkled and Stella slowly looked over her shoulder.
It was Luca. Her angel. When he saw her, his smile transformed into a hard grimace. He was carrying four takeaway coffees in a cardboard holder and without a word he placed them on the counter. Then he turned, ran a hand through his hair and glared at her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same thing,’ she answered weakly.
‘I’m taking you home. To your place,’ Luca clarified. ‘There are the coffees I promised. And Molly, your tea. Ring me if you need anything.’
‘We will,’ Summer said earnestly.
‘And you ring me if she gets worse, Luca,’ Anna called. ‘Promise?’
Luca nodded and took Stella’s hand. Without saying another word, she followed him out the door and along the street. A couple of minutes later, they found Mouse meowing on the front veranda; when Luca opened the door the cat streaked inside.
‘She must be starving,’ Stella said quietly, glad to have something to say at last, wishing every footstep didn’t pound in her head quite so much.
‘She shouldn’t be. I fed her last night and this morning.’
So he’d still been there that morning? Nothing was making sense. Mouse slipped in and out of Stella’s legs as she stood in the living room, obviously craving her attention, but Stella ignored her. She watched Luca instead. His lips were pursed together and there was tension flickering in the muscles of his jaw. If he was wanting to say something, if he wanted to talk about last night and about what she’d done and said, he was holding it in. Barely.
‘I’ll just …’ Stella pointed to her bedroom.
‘Good,’ he replied, following her. Once they were in the bedroom, he lowered the roman blind and pulled back the covers on the bed. They shared a glance as his eyes darted from the crisp sheets to her.
She’d been getting in and out of bed by herself for almost thirty-six years but she didn’t want to argue. Luca was there. He’d stayed. He’d fed her cat. And now he was helping her out of her clothes in an entirely new way. He unbuttoned her white shirt and slipped it gently down her arms. He found the zip at the side of her Capri pants and lowered it, and then helped her step out of them, bearing her weight as she held his arm to steady her shaky knees. When he reached around and undid the clasp on her bra, she let him, and then he put all her clothes neatly on the chair next to her bedside table. She watched him as he slid open the second drawer of her wooden chest and found a silk nightie. He held it out to her and she raised her arms so he could slip it on over her head.
When his palm grazed her breast as he lowered it, her body betrayed her. She wanted him all over again. Ached and yearned for him, wanted to be in his arms so she could slow her breathing and let sleep come. But she’d crossed that bridge and there was no going back. Without saying another word, he urged her to the bed and, when she’d gingerly slipped in between the sheets, she turned to face him. Luca pulled the cotton blanket up to her shoulders and tucked her in.
Their eyes met and he gently pressed his palm against her forehead. He softly pushed her hair back, stroking it as his dark eyes met hers, and then he kissed her, so soft and tender, his full lips pressing just at her hairline, and Stella swore the pain went away at the spot where his mouth touched her skin.
She watched him walk out without looking back.
The room was quiet but there was a whoosh in her ears and a pain in her jaw so intense Stella thought her teeth might crack.
He’d stayed.
He’d looked after her.
He’d tucked her in.
She pressed her head into her pillow and squeezed her eyes closed, hard and insistent, to stop the sobbing, but they betrayed her, and the tears flowed like a river.
Luca settled in on the sofa in Stella’s designer living room and Mouse joined him, circling until she found just the perfect spot nudged up against his left thigh. He grabbed a soft drink from the fridge, rustled himself up something to eat and planted himself in front of the TV.
He was still there.
Sure, he’d got the message, confused and sex-crazed as it had been, that Stella wanted to end it.
So he wasn’t staying to beg or convince her otherwise.
He was there as someone who cared about her. He was there as a friend. A friend. He hated that word, but if that’s what he had to do, he’d do it. Anyone who was sick deserved to have someone watching her back. And anyway, Luca thought as he absentmindedly stroked the cat, Stella was sound asleep and therefore in no position to argue with him.
What the hell was he going to do now?
He thought over all his options. He could continue his renovations and, since he wouldn’t be driving to the south coast every five minutes, he’d complete them earlier than he thought. He could spend more time with Francesca. Yeah, that would be good. And he really should get back into soccer, now that the summer was nearing its end. The season proper would be starting soon and, as well as going to watch a few A League games, he could resurrect the scratch matches he’d been organising in the Adelaide parklands. A few guys got together every week to have a run, shoot the shit and kick the hell out of a soccer ball.
Yeah, that’s what he needed. To kick the hell out of a soccer ball. He wanted to kick the hell out of something. He’d made it clear what he wanted; he’d said the words. He’d told Stella he loved her. More than once.
And she’d cried and asked him to leave.
He got the message loud and clear.
So he’d left her bedroom, fed the cat, let the furball out and then back in, and crashed. Not that he’d had much of a sleep. When the morning light streaked in through the front window, he’d gone to wake Stella but couldn’t bring himself to. He’d walked quietly to her bedside and she was still there, in the same position he’d left her the night before, turned on her side towards him. Her fringe was still tousled where he’d kissed her forehead and she was breathing quietly.
She was gorgeous and precious and fragile and strong. Damn, he loved her.
He’d found his phone on the rug by his makeshift bed and had called Summer and Anna. They’d swung into action and opened the shop and he’d come through on his promise to stop by and see how they were doing, give them an update on Stella.
When she’d walked in, pale, wide-eyed and trembling, he’d wanted to tell her off and hold her, both at the same time.
It was no surprise she had trust issues. She’d been burnt by the people who were supposed to love her. What would it take for her to let him in? How could he get her to understand that he loved her?
He had no fucking clue. But he wasn’t going to give up. He couldn’t give up. But as he thought over and over what she’d been through in her life, he knew there had to be a way to help her learn to trust.
Luca flicked the TV from channel to channel but couldn’t concentrate on anything. When he tossed the remote on the coffee table, it hit a DVD case. When he leant over to pick it up, Mouse still purring volcanically against his leg, he realised it was the movie Stella loved, the one she’d been talking about at Christmas. The old black and white one: It’s a Wonderful Life. He looked at the cover, thought what the hell—he had some time to kill anyway—and slipped the disc into the player.
Stella slipped on her kimono and walked slowly to the living room, following the sound of voices and music. As she took each step, she realised the pounding had gone. There was no more throbbing in her head but she still felt washed out and dozy. At the end of the hallway, she looked across to the source of the noise and there was James Stewart hugging Donna Reed by a Christmas tree.
She could just make out the top of Luca’s head, his intertwined fingers covering his dark hair, his elbows in the air on either side.
She stopped and waited, wondering if she could find the right words. What was the etiquette of talking to someone who’d told you he loved you when you couldn’t say it back?
When the credits rolled, Luca jabbed the remote at the TV and the screen flicked to black. He remained seated, staring out the front window into the afternoon shadows. For a few more moments, she let herself imagine that he would be there always.
And then she packed the thought away into the part of her heart that held everything else she’d never had and couldn’t have.
‘So, what did you think?’
Luca started at the question, and he turned to her. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’re you feeling?’
Stella crossed the room and sat next to him. She noticed Mouse was curled up in a ball by his left leg. Her on one side. Mouse on the other. Luca in the middle.
‘Better.’ She nodded and didn’t try to stifle the yawn that overcame her. She tapped her temple. ‘No more throbbing.’
‘Good.’
Before she realised she shouldn’t, she’d dipped her head and his shoulder was right there and he stretched out his arm behind her and held her close.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said.
‘You should know me better than that.’
‘Even though I asked you to go, you didn’t.’
‘No.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘For everything. For the shop and for staying here and feeding Mouse and …’ There was more she wanted to say. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for telling me. And then, I’m sorry I can’t love you the way you want.
‘It’s what friends do, Stella.’ He turned his head and pressed his lips to her hair. ‘So, the movie.’
‘My favourite film of all time.’
Luca’s hand caressed her shoulder, rough fingers against her cool silk. ‘It’s not a fantasy, you know, that life that George Bailey had. Friends. Family. People who cared about him. That’s what counts at the end of the day. It’s what binds us to other people. It’s what makes us who we are and it makes me happy, having that all around me. But you don’t see that, do you?’
Stella looked up at him.
‘You’re like George at the beginning of the movie—you know that? You only see what you missed out on, not what you have.’
Stella found the ends of the tie from her dressing gown and knotted them while she thought about his question. ‘I did miss out on a lot as a child. I think … I know that’s left scars that maybe even I still don’t understand. I don’t even know if I remember half of what happened to me, to be honest. There are whole stretches of time that are a blank.’ Stella shivered with the awareness of how big this confession was. She’d told him about her past, but she hadn’t laid out before the link to how she’d treated him, why she was pushing away his love.
Luca turned to her with searching eyes; she knew he was trying for all the world to understand her. ‘Is that what you want for yourself, some kind of big life, like the guy in the movie wanted? Did you want to get out and see the world, have big adventures?’
Stella twisted her fingers into knots. ‘I did and look what happened. I nearly lost everything.’
‘But you made new adventures, didn’t you? You didn’t let anything beat you.’ Luca nudged her. ‘You did that with Style by Stella. Look at everything you’ve got here. This house. Your shop. Good friends. Your cat. An ex-lover.’
Stella paused. ‘You’re not talking about Duncan?’
‘No.’ Luca moved, lifted his arm from her shoulder, and stood. He looked down at her, so visibly sad that her heart broke at what she’d done to this man. ‘I’m talking about me.’
‘You’re such a wonderful man, Luca.’
‘There’s always a “but” though, isn’t there?’
‘I’m screwed up—not that that’s any big revelation to you, I’m sure, after what I’ve put you through. Every few years, my fucked-up life comes back to haunt me. Just when I think I’m about to be happy … just when I am about to be really happy, it’s all there again. It’s as if some part of me doesn’t want me to be. Some part won’t let me be happy.’
Luca shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘You ever talked to anyone?’
‘I had a social worker when I was a kid. More like a revolving door of social workers, to be honest. And I had Auntie Karen.’
‘But you lost her when you were eighteen.’ Then his voice dropped, quiet and serious. ‘You’ve been on your own a long time.’
She’d been on her own for half her life. Fending for herself. Protecting herself. Creating her suit of armour. Her costume. Her mask. She wished she could stop. She was so tired.
Her tears ran hot and wet down her face. ‘I need to sort myself out, Luca.’
He said nothing but looked down at her. They held that moment for a long while. Stella hugging herself on the sofa. Luca standing in front of her, his hands trapped in his pockets.
He sighed deeply. ‘I’ll ring Anna. She wanted to come and check you out. I’ll let her know you’re okay.’
‘Tell her I’m fine. Tell her that … Tell her that I’ve been well looked after by her wonderful brother.’
Luca’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. He picked up his phone and walked to the front door to make the call in private. But he stopped. Looked back to her with a longing that killed her. ‘Stella?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You could talk to Anna. She’ll know what to do. She’ll help you.’
Stella breathed, pondering what Luca had said. Could she talk to Anna? She was Luca’s sister and maybe that was too close. But she liked her and she was a Morelli. There was a loyalty about that whole family that Stella couldn’t dispute.
‘Okay.’
And when Luca smiled back at her this time, his eyes shone bright.