Page 45 of Sucker Love (Sugar Pill Duet #1)

NOEL

I wake up with sunlight filtering through the blinds and Luca in my bed, still.

Gingerly I sit up. I am sore all over, in ways both good and bad.

My leg is a sticky mess beneath the plastic wrap and the tattoo itself almost looks like melted frosting.

I am eager to unwrap it and wash it, but first thing’s first. I have to make sure last night was real. That all of that really did happen.

And there’s a sort of seizing in my chest, a panic unrealized that it might’ve not been.

Either a dream that was half-nightmare in quality or some elaborate joke that Luca was playing on me, placating me in the moment.

Maybe it would shatter like glass the moment he woke up and realize what he said and did and then it would be gone, ruined, all of my happiness vanishing in an instant.

I watch Luca as he sleeps. He is a peaceful sleeper, not so restless like me.

The morning doesn’t arrive with the sheets tangled and damp around him.

He’s about where I left him last night—on his side, one arm beneath the pillow, his face looking younger almost, guileless and soft.

The usual faint lines between his brows are smoothed out.

He frowns too much, I guess, or must’ve once.

I don’t notice him frown all that much around me.

Very carefully I move a lock of his bleached hair out of his face, noting that he really does need to touch up his roots, they’ve grown out so much.

And from there my fingers slide through his hair, stroking it back.

He sighs but doesn’t stir otherwise. I trail my fingertips down his cheek until I hit stubble that badly wants shaving—I have proof of that, beard burn in the crook of my neck where he dug his chin in as he came inside me last night—and I pet that, too.

It makes a pleasant scratchy-bristly sound against my palm.

I’m scared to wake him, in case the cold morning’s reality is so very different from last night’s, but also I want so badly for him to be awake because I miss him.

And I want to hear him say it again, that he loves me.

In the event I am not delusional. In the event it did happen, exactly the way I remember it.

I slip out of bed and go out to the kitchen as quietly as I can manage, shutting the door behind me.

Amelia is on the couch, waiting, and her tail beats the cushions at my arrival.

I pour a cup of kibble into her dish, and while she eats I turn on the coffee machine.

I froth the milk, add some chocolate powder—my homemade bullshit mocha, not nearly as good as something you could get in a cafe and I know Luca’s bullshitting me when he says it’s fantastic, but any coffee’s better than no coffee and I want to do something nice for him.

He deserves to wake up to something nicer than my smelly and disheveled self.

When it’s finished, I bring the mug back to the bedroom and he’s still asleep—he sleeps so heavily—and it’s only when I pad over and set the mug loudly on the nightstand beside him that he stirs at all.

I crawl back into bed and wriggle under his arm.

He blinks and grunts as I jam my head beneath his chin, kissing the underside of his jaw.

There’s a rough laugh before his arm comes around my waist and squeezes me tight.

“Good morning, stunt girl,” he whispers. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”

I can’t help but smile, because he’s so fucking cute when he’s being lame and sappy. I eat it right up. “Hi,” I whisper back. “I made you coffee.”

“You did?” He nuzzles my face. “You really are the best.”

My heart pounds and I flush with pleasure. “I just wanted to check something really quick.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re still my boyfriend.”

“Hmm.” He scrunches his face in mock thought. “You know, I think I just might be.”

“Just might ?”

“I don’t know. Are you still my boyfriend?”

“Yes.” I’m kissing his throat, over and over, decorating it with kisses. “I better be, anyway.”

“Then I guess we must be boyfriends,” he tells me with mock solemnity.

And I’m cheesing harder than ever as I kiss him and he kisses me back, morning breath be damned, who fucking cares , my tongue’s in his mouth and his arms are around my waist and this is it.

This is fucking it. He’s it. I’m his, he’s mine, and this isn’t going away.

It’s real now. I haven’t got a single thing left to worry about now.

There is something here that is finally mine.

“I love you, Luca,” I keep saying, because I can’t wait any longer to hear him say it. “I love, love, l ove you.”

“I love, love, love you too,” he tells me back, gratifyingly. “Baby.”

“Are you gonna tell your friends?” I implore. “That we’re a couple? That I’m not just your friend ?”

“Is that what you want me to do?” One side of Luca’s mouth quirks as he reaches over me and takes his phone off the nightstand. “At—” He checks. “Eight in the morning, you want me to announce it to the world?”

“When else?” I say, pragmatically. “It’s never too soon. ”

“Can’t argue with that.”

And he actually is doing it, as I watch, taking his coffee in one hand and opening a group chat he’s in with the other, where I can see they’ve been talking about things as mundane as fucking property taxes and he types.

As I watch his fingers skim the keyboard on the screen, another frisson of panic goes through me—but this time it’s at the fact that it is real, confirmed, locked down.

There’s that urge to pick at things and poke holes at them.

Picking up rocks and looking at all the bugs under them.

Grabbing a loose thread and unraveling it more and more and more.

Oh my god, why? You wanted this. You want this. Just let it be for once.

Well, it’s only fair to warn him. It’s being honest .

“Wait,” I say, putting my hand on Luca’s wrist, and he looks at me. “I have to tell you something.”

He raises his eyebrows. “What?”

“About me. You know, about what you’re getting into. In case you don’t want to get into it at all.”

He clicks his phone screen off and lays it on his bare chest. He looks more amused than anything, watching me with those pale green eyes I could just fall into if I looked long enough. “Uh huh?”

“Well—” And I’m suddenly nervous, tongue-tied and stomach twisted because what if this shit is a deal-breaker for him? What if I’m about to sabotage our relationship when it has finally manifested? I forge on ahead anyway. “You know I’m crazy, right?”

“I am pretty aware of your mental state, yes,” he says, dry but affectionate. “At all times, nearly. It’s kind of hard not to be. But for the record, you’re not crazy.”

“I am, though,” I insist despite myself. “Really crazy. Do you know why Jordan dumped me in the first place?”

“Because he’s a piece of shit?”

“The last big fight we had I took his headphones and smashed them against the wall. And then I broke a bunch of other shit besides. And I was just screaming and crying like a banshee until he grabbed me and basically shook me to shut me up, you know.”

Luca tilts his head, first one way and then the other. “Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why did you break his headphones?”

“Because I asked to borrow his car and he said no.” He’s still looking at me, waiting for more, so I give it to him.

“Well, I needed to see my mom, give her some money. Like last night. But he said no and called her a junkie whore and all this other shit, and I just saw red and lost it, and after that he said I was crazy just like her.” There are tears gathering in my eyes, I’m surprised to realize.

This incident still affects me, somehow, and I don’t know why.

The last domino to fall in a series of them; little incidents, comments he would make that would either incense me or destroy me.

No, I hadn’t behaved very well but neither had he.

He’d always wanted to break me down that way.

“Noel.” Luca’s voice is gentle. “If someone called my mother any kind of whore, I would do much worse than just break their headphones. I’d probably break their neck.”

I close my mouth and swallow. I don’t know what to say to that.

He tucks my hair behind my ears, and one thumb brushes away a stray tear that has managed to escape my eye despite my rapid blinking to staunch its fall.

“I’m not saying I think the way you react to things is right.

Like breaking those records, or screaming and slamming shit or hurting yourself.

I actually really, really dislike when you do that shit.

But I don’t think it makes you crazy. It’s just something you need to work on.

Emotional regulation and all that.” He studies my face for what feels like a long time.

“It’s okay, you know.” He’s quiet. “That you love your mom. That’s not wrong. ”

And there is some sort of rage and despair knotting in my throat now, making it hard to speak and easy to cry and it fucking hurts.

Just like that. To breathe, to exist. Oh, I do I hate it.

The way that I am, the way that it comes on so quickly.

A violent storm that vanishes and leaves me with fucking nothing.

I try to shake my head and Luca catches my face in his hands.

There is a strangled sort of whimper caught in the back of my mouth, an ugly sound.

It’s like a sob but it’s not. Not quite. “She fucking sucks, ” I choke out.

Luca doesn’t say anything. Still watching me, holding me.