Mafia

Moving forward

I could hear them in the kitchen, talking about me, worrying about me, or at least my mom was. My father was subdued about it, but it was obvious he wasn't all that broken up that I'd decided to calm things down with Luca.

And I didn't regret making that decision, because whether he wanted to admit it or not, both Luca and I needed it.

Surprisingly, Luca hadn't made any grand gestures or anything like that in order to change my mind, so I was thinking that maybe he'd actually taken my words to heart and was giving me some time. I missed him though, missed him like crazy, even having stayed with my parents for the past two days and being with my family, I still felt like something was missing without Luca there. 

Since we got back together again we hadn't spent a night apart, and I was having difficulty sleeping without feeling his heat at my back, his arms wrapped around me, my body curled into his. I listened to my parents talk about me, but I wasn't really paying attention, too busy wondering if Luca felt the same way as me. 

Tomorrow was saturday, and all of a sudden I remembered I'd made plans with Elena to come to her where she was staying with Dmitri Volkov, all so we could take his brand new horses out on a ride. Of course it was then it occured to me that I could do no such thing without actually finishing that discussion with Luca first. Dmitri was his ally and in some part Lucas friend, but in their world, a friend could become an enemy in a heartbeat and engaged or not, I was still Lucas girlfriend (or at least I hoped I was) and I couldn't waltz in behind frenemy lines without talking to him about it first. 

Biting my lip I lifted my phone from where it was sitting on the bed beside me and pulled up Lucas name on my phone, shooting him a quick text, because frankly I was too much of a chicken to call him. 

His reply was instant and I jumped as my phone buzzed in my head, quickly pulling up the text and reading what he'd said with my heart pounding inside my chest. It didn't make any sense, I was the one who'd said we needed to slow things down and now that it seemed he was actually giving me what I wanted, I didn't really feel like I wanted that anymore. 

No. That wasn't true. 

The truth was, I still wanted to slow things down and take it easy, but I also needed him to show me some indication that he still wanted to be with me and didn't use my mental breakdown as a way to escape our relationship. 

I'm taking you to and from and I'm staying with you the entire time. I've talked with Dmitri, he's agreed to this. No discussion. 

I couldn't help it, the small smile that shaped itself on my lips as I read his text. Even through a text-message he could be unbelievably bossy, but the best part and what calmed my heart was how just from reading his text I knew he hadn't decided to end things with me. I was a pain in his ass, a big one, but he loved me anyway and he was putting his own wants and desires aside to give me what I needed to move on from something that had haunted me for years. Because of that, because he was willing to do that for me, I loved him even more and I figured that just because we weren't face to face, he should still know that. 

Thank you for being so patient and accepting that I need time and space to sort my head out. And I'm sorry that I'm such a pain in your ass, but I promise I'll behave myself tomorrow and not complicate things any more for you.  Ti amo Luca. 

Once again his reply was instant. 

Love you too, angel.

Grinning at the text, I put my phone down, got my ass off my bed and moved downstairs to the kitchen to spend the rest of the day with my family. It was only later that night that I remembered what I'd told Lena about the Villanuevas possibly being involved in her parents murder and realized that was probably something I should mention to Luca before he took me to see my friend so we could ride horses together. I wasn't exactly looking forward to that conversation, but it was something he should know so he wasn't blindsided with it in case Lena had said something to Dmitri, because that would definetely not be good.