Page 176 of All at Once

“I wasn’t thinking of anything specific,” I reply, while putting on my lemon yellow apron. “Maybe the chocolate cake we made last year? Do you remember the recipe?”

“I think I have it somewhere. Let me check.” He walks over to a drawer by the refrigerator and starts rummaging through it. “Do you remember it?”

“Not at all. Sorry. I was alittledistracted by you that night…”

His cheeks flush. “You thinkyouwere distracted? You should’ve seen how I felt.”

Reliving the memory in my head again, I say, “I still get chills every time I remember how your neck felt tickled against mine the next morning.”

Luca stops what he’s doing and walks toward me in a way where every inch he moves closer only adds to the pressure growing down my body. “Like this?” he teases so facetiously as he lifts my damp hair to the side, making me scream when all he does is nuzzle his neck along my shoulder before lowering his lips onto my exposed collarbone. Just to kiss it once and innocently at best.

Wanting much more than that even though we’re supposed to be crafting a dessert right now, I express coyly, “I could hardly tell. Maybe you need to try again?”

His thumb slowly brushes along my collarbone. “Maybe I’ll show you something else later tonight if you stay on your best behavior.”

Tracing his bottom lip with my index finger, I taunt back, “No promises.”

Instead of replying, he just gives me my favorite smug grin of his as he places a piece of folded paper into my palm.

When I open it up, my eyes glimmer. “Wait. You kept this?” Thinking he simply rewrote the recipe just to have for his own reference leaves me a bit stunned when I realize that he kept the original one. Especially given how heavily annotated it is to the point where it mainly now looks like a scribbled mess.

“It was something to remember you by,” Luca reveals timidly as his eyes glance into mine.

I bite down on my lip. “If you want me to be on my best behavior you’re not helping with that…”

His smirk only confirms to me that he knows exactly what he’s started. Again.

And so he gives me a knowing smile while walking over toward the speaker by our toaster. “I know theperfect distraction.”

When the familiar melody of Dean Martin’s “On an Evening in Roma”fills the room, I don’t even bother concealing my excitement. “I see someone’s been influenced by my music taste?”

He raises his brows, pretending to look a bit scared. “Trust me. No one’s more shocked than I am.” But then his expression softens as his eyes turn vulnerable. “I listened to it while cooking the same way you do. It made time move faster when I’d miss you.”

If a certain set of words could make you fall in love with someone all over again, this is the closest it would get for me. And after doing the same for him but with things he likes, I cannot even imagine Luca missing me more than I missed him when we were apart.

A year ago, I didn’t think I’d ever move somewhere an hour away let alone to another country. But when I found an editorial position at a Spanish publishing company in Madrid, I decided that even being a thousand miles closer to Luca was worth it. Liking the job as much as I do now was a nice surprise, making it the first one I look forward to waking up for, considering how it’s given me an outlet to channel my imagination through the world of storytelling. This alone made the time move just that much faster. But luckily I didn’t have to wait any longer when Luca finally moved into my apartment a few weeks ago.

When I offered to move back to Marbella, Luca insisted he’d come to Madrid instead, convincing me that since my job didn’t have the same flexibility that he’d figure out a way to make his work remotely. Especially since he’s started painting a lot more extensively now, even entering the art festival this year and getting the highest award, as I knew he would.

It never left my attention how Luca knew how happy this job made me and the words he said to me mentioning that I sacrificed a lot to move this far away from home. And so he decided to meet me halfway. A concept I had never experienced before and amstillgetting used to.

Another thing I’ll never get used to is how he makes me feel, likeright now.

And so I take the opportunity to tease him about our cooking song to see justhowmuch he missed me. “So how many times did you listen to it?”

Luca grins. “It ended up on my Spotify Wrapped last year if that should tell you anything.”

I roll my eyes, laughing at the reminder of one of our first conversations about the streaming service, never dreaming that I’d know him the way that I do now.

“Spotify, huh?” I mock.

“Premium,” he corrects as he bites down on his bottom lip.

“Oh, of course.” I shake my head. “You’re so dumb.”

“Not dumb enough to keep using Apple Music.” He raises his brows. “By the way, we could make the key lime pie instead if you wanted to.”

“That would be amazing,” I admit. “But I don’t think we have most of the ingredients.”

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