For the first time in forever, things felt right. Not dream-right or fairy-tale-right. Just us. Real and messy and a little reckless, like trying to keep a lit match from burning your fingers. We were still figuring it out, but at least we were figuring it out together.
Luca didn’t hide anymore. He walked me to class. Sat beside me in the cafeteria. Laughed too loud on purpose, like he wanted people to hear he was happy. Every touch—shoulder brushes, thigh bumps, fingers lacing with mine—felt like a revolution. One we won every time he kissed me.
“Almost perfect,” Ezra said one afternoon, plopping beside me on the library steps. “Just waiting for the shoe to drop.”
I raised a brow. “Can you not jinx it?”
He held up his hands. “Sorry. I just know how this school works. Someone always has a problem with happy.”
Someone did.
And of course, it had to be the person Luca had spent his whole life trying not to disappoint.
It started small. A cold silence after practice. A phone call Luca wouldn’t talk about. Then a weekend we were supposed to spend together got mysteriously “busy.” I didn’t say anything. I gave him space. But it felt like watching a door slowly close.
Monday, he showed up late to lunch. Eyes tight. Jaw tense. I nudged his leg under the table. “You okay?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then, “Yeah. Just tired.”
A lie so thin I could see the crack.
We lasted three more days before he finally cracked too.
“I need to talk to you,” he said after school, dragging me into the empty gym. His voice was sharp around the edges. Not angry. Just scared.
“Okay,” I said carefully. “Talk.”
He paced. Hands raking through his hair. “It’s my dad.”
My stomach dropped. “What about him?”
“He knows,” Luca muttered. “About us. About the assembly. About everything.”
That wasn’t news. Everyone knew.
But the way he said it? That was new.
“What did he say?”
Luca stopped pacing. His face twisted like he couldn’t even believe the words himself. “He said it’s a bad look. That I’m a ‘public figure now,’ whatever that means. And if I don’t fix it…”
He didn’t finish.
I did. “He’s threatening to cut your scholarship, isn’t he?”
Luca’s silence was answer enough.
The gym felt colder. Bigger. Like the walls had suddenly stretched miles apart.
“He said he talked to Coach,” Luca continued, voice low. “Said if I don’t clean it up, keep a low profile, stop the—his words, not mine—‘embarrassment,’ then Yale’s off the table.”
I swallowed hard. “And what does ‘clean it up’ mean, exactly?”
He looked at me. Finally. Really looked.
“You know what it means.”
“So what,” I said, forcing the words past my throat, “he wants you to ditch me like I’m some PR nightmare?”
Luca flinched.
“Are you actually considering it?” I asked.
“No!” he said too quickly, then quieter, “I don’t know. I don’t want to.”
“But?”
“But it’s everything I’ve worked for,” he said. “My whole life. Football, the scholarship, getting out of this town—”
I held up a hand. “Got it. And I’m… what? The thing holding you back from freedom?”
“No,” he said again, softer this time. “You’re the only thing that’s ever made me feel free.”
That should’ve made it better. It didn’t.
“Then why does this feel like the beginning of the end?” I asked.
He stepped forward. “Because I don’t know how to fix this.”
“I’m not asking you to throw away your future,” I said, voice shaking. “But I’m not going back into the closet so your dad sleeps better at night.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Then what are you asking?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked at me like I was already slipping through his hands.
I shook my head, laughing bitterly. “God. This was always going to happen, wasn’t it?”
“Noah—”
“People like me don’t get to keep people like you. That’s the rule, right? We’re the experiment. The lesson. The soft boy phase before the real life starts.”
“Don’t say that,” he whispered.
“Why not? It’s true.”
“It’s not,” he said, eyes fierce now. “You’re not some phase. You’re—God, you’re everything.”
“Then tell your dad that.”
He blinked.
“Tell him you’re not walking away,” I said. “Tell him I’m not the problem.”
Luca looked down. Then back up. “What if it’s not enough?”
“Then maybe he doesn’t deserve to have that kind of power over you.”
Silence stretched between us, tight and unforgiving.
Finally, he said, “I have to go home. He wants to talk again.”
I nodded. “Let me guess—without me this time.”
He winced. “I’ll call you after.”
“Sure.”