Page 75 of Breakaway
Chapter 27: Luca
Hazel eyes above me. Hands on my shoulders. The light from the kitchen behind him.
He can't be here. He has a game tonight. In Washington.
But the hand on my shoulder is real. The weight of it is real. The face above me is Wes.
I throw myself at him. Off the couch, against his chest, my arms around him. The sound that comes out of me is not a word. I have never made this sound in front of another person. He holds me. His hand is on the back of my head and I am sobbing against his shirt and I don't know how people survive this. Any of it.
I pull back. My face is wet. His shirt is wet. His bag is by the door. He is here. In Atlanta. In my apartment with the dishes in the sink and the mail on the counter and whatever I smell like right now.
"What are you doing here?"
He holds my face in his hands, wiping away the tears. "I was worried about you after our last call and you didn’t return any ofmy calls the last few days. I wanted to come make sure you were okay."
My hands are still gripping the front of his shirt. I let go. I step back. The couch is behind me and I sit on it because sitting is what my legs are doing.
"I'm fine.” He keeps watching me, expecting more. “Can we just not do this right now?"
"Luca, baby. I think we do, though. Eventually." His thumbs trace under my eyes. "When was the last time you ate?"
I wave my hand.
He pulls his phone out and taps through a few things and then sets it down and sits beside me, pulling me into his side. "Food will be here in about forty-five minutes. Do you want to go back to sleep? Or take a shower?"
He has been here ten minutes and he has seen everything. The mess. The dishes. The trash.
Mouse walks along the back of the couch toward him. She sniffs his shoulder once, twice, her whiskers twitching. She has never met him. She has never been in a room with him. She is an Atlanta cat and he is a Miami man and the only thing connecting them is me. She sniffs the sleeve of his jacket with the focus of a cat deciding whether someone is allowed in her apartment.
She settles on the cushion beside him.
"That's Mouse," I say.
"Volume indicates leadership?"
"You remember."
"You sent me fourteen texts about her the day you brought her home. I remember."
Mouse pushes her head against his hand. His fingers move behind her ears and her purring starts, steady and enormous.
A knock at the front door. We both look up because it is not the food he ordered minutes ago.
I stand. Wes stands with me.
"It's my apartment," I say. I go to the door. I look through the peephole.
Avi and Ash. Standing in my hallway with a container. Ash holding it with both hands. Avi beside him.
I open the door. Wes is behind me in the hallway and I can feel the moment their eyes find him over my shoulder.
Their faces go through about twenty different expressions. Both of them, eyes bouncing between the two of us. Between Wes and me. Between the man they know as my old teammate and the fact of him being here, in my apartment, when he should be with his team in Washington right now.
"Hi, guys. Did you need something?"
Ash gets there first, glancing past me at Wes, then back. "Yeah. We made you some soup. You seemed a bit out of sorts earlier and we wanted to come check on you."
I step aside. "Come in. Kitchen's on the left."
