Page 17 of Wish I Were Here
I’m not sure how he’d know. There’s no way Luca underwent any sort of training whatsoever for this job. “No, I didnotforget something.” I can feel that familiar panic pooling in my chest. “I submitted everything I needed to submit on the day I received the email.”
Luca nods. “I wouldn’t expect any less of you.” He pulls out a rag and starts cleaning the counter in front of him. Except I suspect it’s a gesture for my benefit—to make it look like he’s working—because he just keeps swiping at the same two-square-foot area. “So did you ace the orientation and they sent you home early?”
I press the elevator button again and then give up. “I can’t talk now. I have to climb eight flights of stairs to myapartment.” And with that, I slip out of my high-heeled shoes and make a run for the stairwell. Once inside, I shuffle up each stair as fast as I can in my fitted pencil skirt, cursing my choice of clothing today. I’d kill for Mrs. Goodwin’s black trousers right now.
I manage to keep up a swift, steady pace until I get to the fourth floor, and then my thighs start burning and my steps begin to slow. By the fifth floor, I’m holding on to the railing and starting to breathe hard. Around the seventh floor, I’m panting and cursing. How hard is it to fix an elevator? Maybe Dante should be fired. “Maybe Luca should be fired, too,” I mutter.
And then, from behind me on the stairs, I hear the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard in my life ring out. “You called?”
I spin around as elegantly as I can muster in this cursed skirt while clutching the railing for dear life and find Luca casually ascending the stairs, half a flight behind me, breathing normally, not a hair out of place. “Why are you following me?” I demand.
“I’m not following you. I simply came to ask if you wanted to take the elevator.”
I grip the railing harder. “I thought the elevator was broken.”
“Oh, it is.” Luca nods. “The passenger elevator, anyway. But we could have taken the freight elevator.”
I gape at him. “Are you kidding? Why didn’t you tell me there was a freight elevator?”
“Maybe I like seeing your nose all scrunched up like that when you’re out of breath.”
If I had the energy right now, I would push him down these stairs. Instead, I swing around and start my slow shuffle back up.
Luca takes the steps two at a time, and in less than three seconds he’s standing on the step above me, looking down. “Actually, I didn’t tell you there was a freight elevator because you ran out too quickly and didn’t give me a chance.”
On equal footing, he’s a good eight inches taller than me, so I have to tilt my head back to look at him on the upper stair. “Are you saying I could have been riding the freight elevator all along?”
Luca shakes his head. “It’s in the back of the building, and you have to go through the storage closet to get to it. You can’t go on your own. I’d have to take you, because you need a key to access it.”
My gaze slides past Luca to the door on the landing behind him, lingering on the large number eight painted there. “Well, I guess it’s too late now. This is my floor.”
I haul myself up the last few steps and push through the door into my hallway. Luca trails after me to my apartment. I consider telling him to go away, but at this point, it would be more trouble to argue with him than to just let him tag along. I do my best to ignore him as I pull out my key, unlock the door, and push it open. It doesn’t really surprise me that Luca follows me into my apartment, too. He’s never struck me as someone who waits for an invitation. I head directly to the built-in cabinets on the far wall, while Luca stands in the middle of the living room, spinning in a slow circle.
“I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“Thanks.” I fling open a cabinet door and pull out a file box full of papers, tossing the lid to the side and kneeling next to it. Inside, I find all my personal paperwork tucked into color-coded files, the contents of each listed on a tab I made with my label maker. The sight of those uniform cardboard shapes lined up in a neat row slows my heart rate a smidge.
Somewhere to my right, Luca is still checking out my apartment. “It doesn’t really surprise me that your place is so clean.” He takes another turn. “But I admit I didn’t expect all this. You’ve done an amazing job with the decorating.” His eyebrows rise, and he sounds impressed. I look up from my box of files and take a second to look around, trying to view my new apartment through Luca’s eyes.
I’ve never had a home, a real home and not just a cheap month-to-month rental that we were in danger of getting kicked out of at any moment. One where Dad’s unicycle and stilts leaned against the worn living room couch and his juggling clubs blocked the hallway. So, when I moved into this place, I didn’t have a lot of money to spend on furnishings, but I dipped into my savings and splurged on the emerald-green velvet sofa, the cream-colored rug that’s as soft as clouds under my feet, and the botanical block prints handmade by a local artist.
I stare at those prints on the wall. The artist carved the delicate lines of each petal and stem into a block of wood that she printed onto a canvas in layers of color. My eyes shift to the vines peeking out of Luca’s rolled-up sleeves. Funny that I would choose to decorate my most cherished space, and he would choose to decorate his body, so similarly. My gaze drifts up his shoulder and down to the buttonson his shirt. I’ve only ever seen the ink on his arms, but he’s wearing a V-neck T-shirt under his doorman uniform today and, given the hints of color climbing above the open collar, I’m assuming the tattoos extend down his chest. And maybe… lower? I flush the color of the crimson poppy near Luca’s elbow and yank my eyes from his trim thighs. They snap to Luca’s, which I now realize have been trained on me this entire time.
I look away. “You expected my apartment to be stark and cold, right? All clean lines and beige surfaces?” From our limited interactions, I imagine how he must think I’m stuffy and uptight, how my desire for rules and order must seem like a curse for someone as carefree as Luca. We’ve been like positive and negative numbers since we met, always on completely opposite sides of the line.
Luca slips his hands into his pockets. “I never know what to expect with you, honestly. Butstarkandcoldaren’t quite the words that come to mind.”
“What words come to mind?” I ask before I can stop myself. Something thrums across the small space between us. I’m reminded that we haven’talwaysbeen like positive and negative numbers.
It was that first day we met. Right here in this apartment, actually. I’d been so thrilled to be moving out on my own, so happy to find this quiet building full of older people and this sunlit apartment full of character. For the first time in my life, I hadn’t cared about rules or regulations or what it said in a manual. I’d wanted the apartment, and when Luca said I could have it—I—
Well.
I don’t know what came over me.
I kissed him.
My face flushes just thinking about it. I basically threw myself in his direction, and he pulled me against him, mouth meeting mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if I belonged in his arms. It was just a brief brush of lips, but it was like I’d somehow worked out the most complex mathematical equation in my head. The pieces fell into place, and everything added up like I was exactly who and where I was supposed to be.
