Page 11 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

LUCA

I seem to be faced with a lot of conversations I don’t want to have lately.

Some I’m putting off, still. The one with my dad for instance, about how Demi and I are finished, but that one can wait.

There aren’t any major holidays or birthdays immediately coming up that will necessitate our presence or involvement as a couple.

There’s Easter in April—a big to-do in our families, always—but I still have a couple months before then.

It’s going to be a big fucking mess, so I’m not touching it until absolutely necessary.

I wonder, in retrospect, how we even survived New Year’s intact with my family when the fractures were already so wide, both of us standing on either side of the precipice and Demi knowing she would be the one to jump first. Smiling through that knowledge and holding onto my arm, nodding along to everything my blowhard father says like she always does, like we all do, because that’s the safest thing to do.

To not disagree with him on any point, no matter how ludicrous.

So, I won’t avoid telling Demi that I’m moving. At the end of the day, she’s still a good friend—one of my only friends. Our failed marriage doesn’t mean we can’t still have that kind of relationship, I don’t think.

But I definitely do not want to tell her I’m going to be moving in with a twenty-something I just met. And had sex with.

I manage to put that one off for another week, though, because I haven’t told Noel yes just yet.

I have to at least pretend I’m not going to agree to it.

Have to pretend that I am examining my options for housing that doesn’t involve him.

Not that I’m pretending—I do look. I take a glance at apartments online and immediately become overwhelmed and then discouraged.

They’re either tiny or exorbitant or both, to say less of the ones that actually allow you to have a large dog.

None of them take into account the fact that Amelia is basically an especially lazy and oversized cat for all the trouble she is. It’s unfair.

The week wears on and Noel’s offer looks more and more attractive. It already did for the wrong reasons, but now it does for the right ones.

It’s absolutely insane. All of this, the pace frenetic, warp speed, and this is not what I pictured for myself going into my thirties.

Thirsting for someone a whole generation younger than me right as my marriage goes to pieces.

I never wanted to be that guy , dating someone so young.

Generally, I wasn’t attracted to people much younger than myself.

All of my partners have been within a couple of years of me; Demi is three years older.

It’s the way he’s driven me to utter distraction when I don’t even know him.

He occupies my thoughts almost twenty-four hours of the fucking day.

Whether I’m at work, walking the dog, eating Cup Noodles in my hotel room, trying and failing to fall asleep, or when I’m cranking one out in the shower—perfect fantasy fodder there, the feel of his lips and the taste of his skin, how fucking good he felt wrapped around me, his soft, ardent begging in my ear.

In the studio, shaking bottles of pigment as I wait for my next client, I find myself wondering what Noel would be like to tattoo.

How well does his skin take ink? How well behaved would he be during the process?

Would he be stiff, rigid with discomfort?

Squirming and sucking air between his teeth?

Quiet and languid, relaxed? Locked in? And then I have to dispel those thoughts too, because they verge too close on something dangerous.

Noel, for his part, doesn’t push. In fact he’s dead quiet until I, consumed and overthinking it all and feeling like I’m the one being ghosted after our encounter, text him on Friday night and ask if he wants to go get dinner with me.

Tired of microwave dinners. Meet me somewhere?

We can talk.

A tantalizing five minutes later his reply comes:

hmm. somewhere nice or somewhere cheap?

Nice, please. Before I give myself scurvy.

An hour later we are sitting down at an Italian restaurant on Salem Street of Noel’s choice.

It’s more upscale than I was picturing but I’m not complaining.

Between the moody lighting and the flickering candle atop the white tablecloth between us, it’s more romantic than I was picturing or intending, but I’m just happy to be eating something that’s not coming out of a plastic tray covered in film.

Noel looks good as hell of course, that dark hair of his artfully tousled around his face and his light brown eyes rimmed with smoky dark liner.

Beneath the sheepskin jacket he drapes across the back of his chair is a dark, long-sleeved V-neck that puts his sharp collarbone on display.

There are still faint bruises where my enthusiasm got the best of me last Sunday.

The memory makes me swallow, my throat suddenly dry and tight.

He gets a glass of cab sauv—a choice that surprises me, for some reason—so I go ahead and just order the bottle. He shoots me a look and a crooked smile as I pour it for us both. “Cheers,” he says.

“Cheers,” I echo, faintly, and I turn my wine glass in my fingers by the stem before I take a sip.

“I was surprised you texted me. I was starting to think I’d never hear from you again, Mr. I’ll Call You .”

“It’s only been a week,” I object. “Not even. Five days. ”

He shrugs one shoulder as he studies the menu, careless.

His dark hair’s in his face again and I want to reach across the table and brush it away.

I like the way the candlelight ignites his amber eyes and plays across his features, turns them soft and effeminate.

He’s not exactly androgynous, not quite , but in this light he’s toeing the line and I’m into it.

“Still. I’ve got bills to pay, you know. ”

“I told you I had to think about it.” Like I didn’t have my own bills to worry about, including a mortgage on a house that wouldn’t wind up being mine by next year.

I don’t one-up him on this, though. He is a college student and probably works at Dunkin's for all I know.

Maybe he has student loans that will haunt him for the rest of his life. I drink my wine.

“Have your thoughts led you to a meaningful conclusion?” Noel stares at me over the top of the menu, tapping it against his chin.

“Maybe.”

I’m prolonging the moment of acquiescence, torturing him for no reason.

And it’s getting the reaction I’m subconsciously seeking.

He’s definitely sulking a little; a pout plays on his lips as he tosses his menu on the table and folds his arms. He’s a brat for sure, but I already knew that.

It’s one thing about him I’m pretty sure of.

He shovels his hair out of his face, and his earrings wink in the low light; two in each lobe, and more along the top rim of his left ear.

“Know what you want?” I say with a smile. I’m still trying to figure it out myself, too distracted by him to focus on the offerings .

He lifts his chin in an almost defiant gesture. “You order for me.”

This leaves me blinking at him. For a moment I don’t speak as I process his request; nay, demand . “What?”

“You heard me.” He’s watching me now, his tawny eyes fixed on mine and a small smile lifts his plump lips, lips that I can still remember the ghost of against mine quite distinctly. He crosses his legs beneath the table, and his knee bumps mine, briefly, as he does.

I still don’t know how to react to this. I lick my lips. “But I don’t...know what you like to eat,” I say lamely, because I fucking don’t. This is the third total time I’ve ever met up with him, and we haven’t exactly gotten into the nitty gritty of likes and dislikes.

“Doesn’t matter.” His stare is unwavering. “Some people like being told what to do, Luca.”

His words provoke a strange sort of ire in me.

I actually really fucking hate being told what to do.

I have lived my whole life being domineered and engineered into this and that, forced to rebel in my small and meaningless ways.

I’m sitting here now and realizing just now how done with it I am.

“ I don’t,” I say, and it comes out more sharply than I intend.

Noel’s shin presses very firmly against mine. “What if I did?” His voice is low, and the two words are suggestive.

Oh.

Oh.

I get it, I think.

This is part and parcel of what he mentioned after our tryst, wanting to explore kink. Except I haven’t even gotten a chance to feel that out with him in the bedroom yet, and now he’s trying to push the envelope right outside of it.

He sets his hand on his chin and his gaze flickers downwards as the server approaches us and asks what we both want.

I don’t even know what I want, let alone him, but I’m starving, and being put on the spot like this feels like a test I don’t want to fail.

Scratch that: I can’t fail. He has to eat whatever I get for him, isn’t that the point?

“Two plates of the black truffle risotto,” I say, and hand the server the menus. “Thanks.”

Noel’s smirking at me as she walks away. He is a wretched thing, and I want to wipe the look off of his face—in the best way, of course. “Well done,” he says snidely.

I lean forward. “You are a freak .”

“So what? It’s fun.” He reaches out, his finger snaking in the collar of my sweater and catching the gold chain around my neck. He tugs at it leisurely, drawing my face closer to his. The candle flickers between us. “Isn’t it?”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer one way or another. “Brat.” I codify this.

“You’re not gonna believe this, but I get that a lot .”

He’s fingering the links in the chain, squeezing each one in succession and the metal scrapes uncomfortably along my skin. I catch his wrist and set his hand firmly back onto the table. “Cut it out.”

Noel raises his eyebrows at me. “Is that an order? Are you making me?”