Page 65 of All at Once

“I guess that’s one of our biggest flaws,” Luca says, his eye contact starting to fade away.

“What is?” I ask, intrigued and a little confused.

A trace of sadness appears in his eyes. “Knowing what our problems are but not doing anything to fix them.”

“Even worse when you’re really trying to fix them, but no one seems to notice the effort,” I add.

His voice grows quiet. “Yeah.”

The expression he makes, makes me want to cry. It feltpersonal. Like I wasn’t supposed to see it.

When we finally break eye contact, I spot Sofia and decide to take the opportunity to go thank her. It seems like the perfect timing to do so considering how she’s not busy at the moment, but more importantly, this is the second time tonight where I can’t really read Luca as well. He seems lost in his own thoughts, and I don’t want to ruin the nice moment we had.

Sofia’s smiling so wide when I approach her that I’m fairly certain she’s pretty tipsy. “Hey,” I say. “I wanted to thank you for what you did yesterday at the hike.”

“Of course!” she shrieks before crinkling her brows. “What did I do again?”

“How you told Enrique and me that you and Luca were going to go on another hiking trail.” Judging by the look on her face, maybe it was just a coincidence. “Wait. I think I misinterpreted that. I thought you were giving us room to be alone. I didn’t think you actually went to another trail.”

She shakes her head casually. “Oh we didn’t go to another trail. But it wasn’t my idea though.”

“It wasn’t?” I ask, confused.

“No. It was Luca’s.”

It was?

Growing more curious, I say, “Did he tell you that during the walk?”

“No,” she explains, “I called him the night before to ask him if I would just meet you all there, and at the end he suggested for us to leave for a bit during the hike.”

Her lack of specifics is only making me want to know more. “Did he say why?”

“Something about how you thought that you would be going on a date?”

Before I can ask her any more questions, a woman approaches us, stealing Sofia’s attention. Suddenly, I’m left scratching my head around the notion of whether the motive behind his gesture was just as simple as it seems.

_________

Luca and Enrique manage to talk the entire time while we walk back to our rooms, letting my mind race.

When we reach Enrique’s room first, he looks at Luca and says, “We haven’t had a movie night in ages. This is gonna be fun.” Then redirects his attention to both of us. “See you guys tomorrow.”

I’m so in my head that I don’t expect him to kiss me in front of Luca. At least not on thelips.

The attraction hasn’t faded. So kissing him back is my reflex. But it’s the first kiss we share that feels tense and not in a good way.

When Enrique’s lips leave mine, I look at Luca to see if I can read his expression.

He looks indifferent. Not annoyed. Not happy.Nothing.

For a moment, I was wondering if Luca was uncomfortable. But then again, why would he be? Anything I might be thinking of right now must be just in my head. The waymostthings usually are.

As Luca and I start walking back to our suites, he receives a phone call.

This is good. This gives me more time to gather my thoughts. But it also lasts a few seconds, when his voice now distracts me from my inner dialogue once I hear him start speaking in Spanish.

He already has a nice voice. Slightly deep. Hearing it in Spanish though, is an entirely other magical experience. It soundspoeticalmost, each word feeling like the personification of cursive through verbal speech.

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