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Claire

Me: How about now? I’m going insane.

“Are you going to talk to me or just stare at your phone, smiling?”

I suppress a smile. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Carter is messaging me.”

“Fucking Carter…” He grumbles under his breath, but loud enough for me to hear.

I don’t think I would find this nearly as funny if Lucca didn’t insist he wasn’t jealous. It’s clear he is. He’s just too stubborn to admit it.

“Hey, be nice to Carter. He’s my best friend.”

Lucca pins me with a glare as he pulls into the Chick-Fil-A parking lot. “You have no best friends. If you want a best friend, then I’ll be it.”

I bite my lip. I want to tell him that the last thing I want him to be is a friend, but know that right now isn’t the time.

“I don’t want you to be my best friend,” I tell him.

“Too bad. I don’t care what you want, in case that wasn’t already obvious.” He smiles, showing off his perfectly straight white teeth.

It’s like looking a great white shark in the mouth and hoping he doesn’t bite you. Ten out of ten times, you’re going to get bitten. The same applies to Lucca, and for some stupid reason, every time he breaks my heart, I come back for more, hoping for a different result.

As I stare at him now, knowing he is bent up with jealous rage, I wonder if this time will be different. I wonder what it will take to set him over the edge and make him realize he wants this as much as I do.

* * *

After dinner, we drive home. Lucca is tense and heads straight for his bedroom upon arrival. I do the same and spend the evening doing homework. Since we ate dinner so early, by the time seven rolls around, I’m hungry and tiptoe out into the kitchen.

Shockingly, Lucca isn’t anywhere to be found. He’s probably trying to avoid me and my seducing ways. I laugh inside and pour myself a bowl of cereal, shoving spoonful after spoonful of the sugary goodness into my mouth.

I lean against the counter and wait for him to appear in the kitchen, but he never does. I’m disappointed but not shocked. When I’m finished, I put my dish in the dishwasher and shut off the light. The house is eerily quiet, and I stop at the door to my room. I’m tempted to go knock on Lucca’s door and see if he’s awake but stop before I can build up the courage to do it.

If he wanted to see me or talk to me, he would.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

After a quick shower, I climb into bed and wrap the covers around me. The loneliness of my life weighs heavily on me. It compounds like interest, and I don’t know what to do.

My life before Lucca wasn’t anything special, but at least I had my father. Even if he didn’t love me or treat me like he should, he was still there. Lucca protected me, but everything he’s done has been from afar. My heart aches, and I can feel tears in my eyes.

I toss and turn in bed for an eternity. No sooner than I’ve rolled to my back and am staring at the ceiling do I decide I can’t stand to be alone tonight.

Even if he pushes me away, at least I tried.

Like a child sneaking from her bed at night, I tiptoe out of the bedroom and into the hall. When I reach the door to Lucca’s room, I hesitate but push through the fear of rejection. Taking the knob into my hand, I twist it and push the door open slowly.

The room is blanketed in darkness, minus a few slivers of light from the streetlamp outside, making it possible for me to see Lucca’s shirtless back. Closing the door behind me, I move closer to the bed.

I’m trying to figure out how I will get into the bed without waking him when his entire body jerks into a sitting position. I’m rooted in place by fear, and that fear only intensifies when my eyes catch on something silver in his hand.

Gun. He has a gun, and he’s pointing it at me.

A scream rips from my throat, and I stumble backward, barely catching myself from falling flat on my ass. The side table light flicks on, emitting a soft glow in the room.

“Jesus, fuck, Claire!” Lucca growls, his deep grumble filling the room. He places the gun in the bedside drawer, and my eyes track the movement.

He almost shot me. My bottom lip trembles.

“I could have killed you! Is that what you want? For me to shoot you?” The anger in his voice pellets against my skin. I can’t bring myself to look at him. Would he have done it? Would he have shot me?

“No…” My heartbeat echoes in my good ear as I stare at the floor. “I was… I’m lonely, and I just wanted to sleep beside you.”

Silence follows, and I peek up at him through my lashes.

Lucca shakes his head. His chest rises and falls so rapidly it looks like he just got done going for a jog. He fists the strands of dirty blonde hair with frustration.

“Never, ever do something that stupid again,” he warns. “If I hurt you, I would’ve… It would’ve killed me.” The sincere look he gives me tells me he isn’t lying.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I manage to get out, still shaken up.

I look toward the door, knowing what’s coming. Even after what just happened, he’s going to ask me to leave. He’s going to tell me to go back into the other bedroom and go to sleep. I’m prepared to be let down but shocked when his features twist, softening, making him appear more like the Lucca I remember from my childhood.

With a sigh, he says, “Come on. Lie down.”

I can’t contain myself and run and jump on the bed. I can’t imagine how I look to him right now, probably like a small child, and in some ways, I feel like one. I feel fragile and like I’m wearing a sweater with lots of room to grow, but the sweater is suffocating me because I don’t know how to wear it.

Rolling onto my side, I grab the blankets and pull them up and over my body. Lucca seems frozen for an instant until the light flicks off. All over again, the room is dark, and when I close my eyes, I see Lucca with the gun in his hand.

Pulling my back to his front, he spoons me. The warmth of his body and his scent flush away the nightmare before it can take root and the loneliness in my heart disappears. As we lie there in the dark with sleep close to the surface, I can’t help but play Lucca’s words back in my mind. “If I hurt you, I would’ve… It would’ve killed me.

It reminds me that while everyone else in my life, including my father, had let me down, Lucca, even when breaking my heart, was still there.

He still cares for me, and suddenly, I’m reminded I’m not alone. I have Lucca, really have him, and I have to find a way to keep him by my side. At all costs.