Page 57 of Family Bonds- Gabriela & Luca

As if her mother didn’t interrupt her sexting with Luca last week. Right when it was getting good, no less. Now they were going to ask her a million and one questions. Again.

“I’m not sure how many times I have to tell you we are friends for you to believe it. If I argue too much, you’re going to think I’m lying. If I blow it off, you’re going to think I’m hiding something. How is it you want me to answer?”

“I told you she’d say that, Selena.”

“Thanks, Dad. There is no winning here. You’ve never asked me so many questions about a guy before. Why now?”

“Because most times you volunteer and you do it in a way that is so funny that we know you’re fed up. But you’re not joking about this.”

“Oh,” she said, waving her hand and chewing the bite of muffin she’d popped in her mouth. “I joke all the time with him. He does the same. It’s the type of relationship we have. I’m not sure why you are so concerned with it.”

“You said he’s a widower. Tell me more.”

“Mom,” she said. “I don’t like to gossip.”

“Yes, you do,” her mother argued. “All the time.”

“Yeah, that’s when it’s funny. This isn’t funny.”

“All the more reason to share.” Her mother’s crossed arms and firm expression said she wasn’t getting out of this.

She wished her brother would show up, but she was positive he wasn’t going to save her either.

“Fine. His wife died in a house fire when he was filling in at the ER. The power was out at their house, there were candles lit and one caught fire. Without the power, the alarms didn’t go off. That’s what I read. We haven’t talked too much about it. It’s not something you bring up. Especially when everything we talk about is more like a joke.”

“That’s not right,” her father said. “You need to be serious too.”

She threw her hands up. “You too? I thought you were on my side.”

“There are no sides. I meant I hope you don’t joke about everything, even at work.”

“Please, Dad. You know better. And I deal with kids. They like to laugh. It makes it easier for everyone. But I take my job very seriously. So does Luca.”

“Hudson said he’s great in the ER. It makes his job easier when Luca’s on. Even the mornings and nights he’s doing rounds, he’s fast up there and back in the ER.”

“I can see that. Remember, he has that training and can do that, but I’m limited, which is why I spend more time in the ward and go down to the ER when they page me.”

She always felt as if she was just in the way staying there waiting for something. It wasn’t like there were always children coming in, and even if they did, it didn’t mean she could see them first.

“We know,” her mother said. “And I know you’re serious about your job also. We meant nothing by it. Luca is with his parents today, you said?”

“Yes. They came in on Tuesday. I haven’t talked to him since Monday.”

Which wasn’t a lie. She hadn’t talkedin personsince lunch on Monday. Where they chatted, talked about the event in two weeks, when his parents were coming in and everything else other than the sexual tension between them.

The heat that made her body light on fire just watching his struggle to find the right words to say to her.

She put him out of his misery, cut to the chase like she always did, then changed the subject.

No reason to scare him off. Or maybe she didn’t want to scare herself off either.

He had some seriously heavy baggage in his life, and though he turned her on, was a treat to look at, and made her laugh, it didn’t mean it could ever be more than that.

That itshouldbe more than that.

Nor did she want to be some kind of a rebound.

Could you be a rebound two years later? She didn’t know that, and it wasn’t like she could ask him.