The Romance Revival(49)
I want to express how grateful I am, but I know, too, that it would mean admitting to him that he deserved so much more than what I gave him, and that might be the one truth I’m most afraid of.
* * *
We stop at Necessity Coffee for another hit for me and a cookie for Luca—his favorite, a black-and-white monstrosity that he used to take down in about three bites. He holds it, staring, before shrugging like Why the fuck not and digging in.
Finishing it in three bites.
I grin again, steering us out of the parking lot and heading somewhere very specific. “How’s the leg feeling?” I ask. Luca hasn’t had any pain medication today—said he wanted to try to go without it now.
He runs a hand down the thigh of his shorts, and I swallow the veritable flood of saliva the action triggers. “Good. I’d say about a two, if that. It’s more of an ache.”
I drag my focus away from the image and concentrate on the road, my hands gripping the steering wheel. “Think you’re up for some walking today?”
“I’d fucking love to do some walking today.”
I take the familiar turn, and Luca follows our progress out the window, trying to piece together where we’re headed. After a few minutes, I turn into a paid lot across from Powerhouse Park. Luca would usually run to the beach, but he isn’t going to be running anywhere for a while and, frankly, I would only run if a serial killer was chasing me.
“The beach?” he asks.
“If we’re going to start over, I thought we’d do it where we had our first real date.”
Parking here is usually a nightmare, but we’ve timed it just right. This isn’t really known as a surfer beach, and the crowds haven’t shown up in a big way yet. Luckily, I’ve only driven down one row before eyeing an open spot just on the left. Hopping out, I round the car to help him, but he’s already rising from the seat, no grimace of pain to be seen. Grabbing the cane from the back seat, I see the way he looks like he wants to refuse, but he takes it. He doesn’t really need it at the house, but those are short distances, and on even ground. Besides, Luca doesn’t only have to get to the beach, he has to be able to make it back to the car.
Even hunched slightly with his limp, he still towers over me, big and solid and commanding and here. I’ll never take it for granted again.
“All good?” I ask. My voice comes out breathier than I planned, but we’re standing so close, and he’s always had this effect on me. I mean, of course I liked sex before, but with Luca it was something else entirely. Animalistic. Instinct, from the very first time. We’ve never gone this long without it, and I wonder if there’s some tension spring inside me that’s slowly ratcheting up, making the thought of touching him, feeling him, take over more and more real estate in my mind.
Oblivious to all of this, he closes the car door behind him. “All good,” he says with a wide smile. “Lead the way.”
“So, I did some research on accessibility,” I say as we walk, unhurried, toward the park. “Mostly I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have any issues getting to the sand, but they have accessible bathrooms, paved trails, picnic tables, parking, and direct access to the beach. They even have special beach wheelchairs people can rent, with these big all-terrain tires. I didn’t know this, but some of them even float in shallow water, which is pretty cool.” When Luca is quiet, I glance over. He’s smiling. “What?”
“Nothing. That was just very thoughtful.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling my face warm. “Well… good.”
The path cuts between two wide swaths of grass, with a playground at the far end. We both look toward the laughter of a pair of toddler boys chasing a cloud of soapy bubbles.
“Their mom must be exhausted,” I say, hearing their delighted demands for More bubbles! More bubbles!
“It’s crazy how little kids look like tiny drunks,” he says, and stops to watch them. He’s not wrong. Their little bodies look so top-heavy, tiny legs veering one way and tottering the other, trying to keep up with the chase.
“Not everyone can be built like Thor,” I tell him.
“Thor, huh?” he says with a grin, then tilts his head. “Did we ever talk about kids?
“A couple times,” I say, my chronic guilt raising a single hand to make itself known. “I know you wanted them one day, but—”
“You were always so busy,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah,” I say quietly.
“And what about now?”
His question is so direct, my brain feels like it’s run over a speed bump. Old Luca would have danced around the subject or given hypotheticals. This Luca is looking right at me, waiting for an answer. I’m not sure I have one. We never made a concrete timeline, because if it looked like it was headed in that direction, I would change the subject or put it off, and true to form, Luca didn’t push. I never thought I’d have time for a relationship, so I obviously never even considered children. Then Luca came along, and in hindsight I think subconsciously I knew that if I could barely make time for my husband, I couldn’t possibly be a mother.
But it’s a good question. What about now?
“I think… I think I’d like to talk about it,” I say finally. “Maybe not now, but when things are more settled.” I hear how that sounds, another procrastination attempt, another when, but it’s not the same. “What I mean is, it’s not a no. I don’t think I would have said that before.”