Page 40 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

NOEL

Whenever I think of the word “wife,” I picture someone frumpy and old.

I don’t know why the word evokes that particular imagery; I’m aware, of course, that women come in all shapes and sizes and most of them are generally attractive, whether they’re married or not.

And Luca is an attractive man. Gorgeous, even.

Why wouldn’t he have an equally gorgeous wife?

But for some reason I pictured his wife that way, anyway.

Someone ugly and nagging, and mysteriously twice his age, with a rat’s nest for hair and beady eyes in a doughy face.

Like some evil mom on a TV show. I did not expect Demi to be tall and glamorous and beautiful, with flawless olive skin, the cheekbones of a supermodel and makeup out of a catalogue.

I didn’t expect her to be seemingly as tattooed as he is—and I wonder, with an intense flare of unreasonable jealousy, if he did any of them. Or maybe even all of them.

Why did she show up at his work ?

And why was he so cold to me? Treating me like I’m nothing to him, like when his friends showed up at that stupid shitty nightclub. The same shit.

These are the thoughts that ruin me on the short ride home.

My driver tries to make conversation and gives up when I don’t reciprocate in any way, dropping me off in front of the apartment with a curt goodbye.

My thigh is on fucking fire and feels like it’s swelled to thrice its normal size and thank god for the plastic wrap because the thought of air or fabric or anything on my bare skin right now makes me want to scream.

The pain was fine before but now it’s not.

Now the shiny new tattoo feels foreign and awful and cancerous.

My whole body does; it is one giant, throbbing tumor that wants excising from itself.

But no, I can’t hurt myself. I’ve done so well these past few weeks. And I couldn’t explain it to Luca if I start again, if those bruises start showing up. That’s as good a motivator as any. Isn’t it?

It’ll pass. You’re upset right now, but it’ll pass.

Amelia greets me at the door and I suppose she can sense my testiness because she’s reserved, cautious almost as she noses my hand.

I go to the kitchen to measure out her food and hope Luca’s home in time to walk her, because it’s the last thing I want to do.

I’m not only physically miserable, but emotionally, too.

I throw myself on my bed—well, lower myself gingerly—and roll over to bury my face in the pillow.

I want some Tylenol but don’t feel like getting it for myself.

I hear the dog whine at the door. I don’t move. The key turns in the minutes later door and Luca comes in. He murmurs affectionately to Amelia before he calls to me, “Does she need to go out?”

“Probably,” I say into the pillow.

Clink of the leash clipping to her collar and then they’re gone.

The minutes roll by. I am trying to think of what to say to Luca, if I should say anything.

Or if I should leave it. Should I leave it?

The normal thing would be to leave it. Except it was weird and I feel weird, and he’s never been so—so repulsed by me.

Not even the night at Lock ’n Stock with Killian was he so cold.

I’ll just be casual about it when I ask. And then maybe we can finish what we started in the tattoo shop.

By the time Luca returns I have rearranged my features into something composed, unbothered. I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for him to come to me. And he does eventually, standing in the doorway asking me if I’ve eaten yet. I tell him I’m not hungry.

“You should eat,” he says, moving away. “I’ll warm up the chicken.”

“Wait, Luca. What about my tattoo?”

“Oh. Right.” Fuck, he’s forgotten ? How? Six fucking hours he labored over it and he’s forgotten. I’m immediately equal parts pissed and hurt. What’s consuming his brain so much now that he has fuck all left for me? “Come on. I’ll wash it and we’ll let it breathe for a bit.”

I check myself before I erupt at him like fucking Krakatoa, following him with a feigned placidity to the bathroom.

I remove my sweatpants and stand in the shower so he can take a pair of scissors to the wrap.

It’s swelled in the last hour, angry like one giant bee sting and it hurts like a motherfucker but I bite my lip and keep silent while he soaps it up once more.

Well, for a minute.

Then I ask, very casually, “Did you do Demi’s tattoos, too?”

Luca stops what he’s doing and looks up at me. His pale eyes are uncharacteristically clouded; angry, almost. “Really, Noel?”

“What? I’m just asking.” Innocent question, not loaded at all.

He gives me a wary stare. “Why?”

“Because they looked like your work. That’s all.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just takes down the shower head and turns it on, facing it to the wall so it doesn’t spray either of us as he waits for the water to warm up. He’s not looking at me, either, and that’s answer enough. He did do them. Or some of them, at least. Enough of them.

And I hate it.

Just as I hate the rage and jealousy surging just beneath the surface, hot and painful as the throbbing tattoo—no, worse, much worse.

I’m being scalded, I’m being boiled alive from the inside, I am drowning in a vat of something molten.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I take several of them.

Trying to ground myself in the moment, to tell myself all the things that I need to hear.

That I’m safe, that I’m okay, that this will pass if I let it, but that fails because they are not the things I want to hear.

Feel the wet tile beneath your feet. Note the damp air as you breathe it in. Taste the blood as you bite down, very hard, on the insides of your cheeks .

My fingers furl in my shirt as warm water sluices down my hip and leg, just long enough to rinse the soap, before it shuts off.

My eyes pop open as Luca reaches above me to replace the shower head.

I try to snag his gaze but he’s avoiding it, me, grabbing one of the towels and carefully patting the tattoo dry.

All obligation and no affection, just like Saturday night.

Whatever we shared earlier, brief truce that it was, has all but vanished.

Because every fucking time some ghost from his past shows up, he turns into another person.

One I don’t recognize and who doesn’t recognize me.

We step onto the bath mat. Luca has a container of some kind of lotion or another in his hands, dabbing a thin layer onto my skin with his fingertips. “There. Wrap it again before you go to bed so you don’t mess up your sheets. It’ll ooze a lot of ink the first night.”

I drop the hem of my shirt and grab my pants, stepping into them. He’s already vanished from the bathroom, conversation over—if this could even be considered one since he’s icing me out. Off to go warm up his shitty leftovers.

I can’t swallow it. I follow him into the kitchen. “Why was she there?” I say. “Your wife.”

Luca’s shoulders go rigid where he faces the counter. “Noel, please. I’m not doing this again with you tonight.”

“Doing what?” I’m aware of the way my voice is going all high and strident but I can’t seem to help it. “Just answer the fucking question. It’s not like it’s hard .”

He spins to face me, grabbing my arm before I can touch him, which was all I was going to do, just touch.

Yet we’re still close, close enough I could’ve leaned up and kissed him or bit him or spit in his face.

“Stop it.” The muscle in his jaw is twitching.

“I’m not in the mood for your shit tonight. I’m really, really not.”

“Just tell me.” I don’t want to beg but I am. “Tell me why, Luca. I want to know why.”

“And I want to know why you felt like you needed to involve yourself in that conversation if you knew it was my wife,” he snaps. “Because I can assure you that it concerns you not at all, not even a little.”

“Getting back with her would concern me!” I cry. “It would concern me a whole fucking lot, you asshole.”

He drops my arm and backs off from me until he hits the edge of the counter.

He drags one hand down his face. “That’s what you’re worried about?

You think I’m going to—what, leave you high and dry so you can’t pay rent?

We’re getting a divorce, Noel. That’s all we were talking about. That’s all you need to know.”

That’s not even it. That’s not even why I’d care if he got back with her and it’s insane that he doesn’t see that.

It’s not about the fucking rent , it’s about him .

It’s about us. It’s about what I thought we had or were having or were making, building, something, whatever.

I’m not crazy—I know it’s there. I know it’s real. I’m not imagining it.

I can’t make myself admit any of that, though.

I’m too dumbstruck, standing there too close to him in the too-small kitchen staring at him.

Watching him rub his wrists, and I know they must ache.

The way that mine do, sometimes, after hours of painting.

I want to massage them for him, the way he has done for me .

I want to go back in time and undo this horrible feeling.

Go back to not even an hour ago when he was on his knees with his mouth on my hip.

Back to Killington, when he showed me the things he loved and gave me, for a fleeting moment, everything I’d ever fucking wanted.

Or maybe even further, back to the day he let me sketch him, telling me things far more vulnerable than his nudity.

To the night we lay together on the couch, our legs entwined as he traced patterns on my skin— where do you want your tattoo?

Here? Or maybe here?— before we cuddled and kissed like?—

Like we were in love.

Oh my god, I am in love with him. I really went and fucking fell in love with him like a fucking idiot.