“
I’ll have to throw these jeans away and get new ones,” Luca said. “Unless you want these to make a pair of cut-offs?”
“Your jeans would be way too big on me,” she said, not looking up from the bowl of ingredients she was mixing.
“But there’s something in them for you.”
She chuckled. “I bet there is.”
“Naughty girl,” he said. “I mean there’s something in the pocket for you. Do you want it?”
She walked over to him and held out her hand. “Sure. Whatever.”
He placed a tiny charm in the palm of her hand. A heart.
“It’s all yours now,” he said. “Even if you drop it, and step on it, and bend it out of shape, it’s still yours. I don’t want it back.”
“You had this in your pocket?”
“I’ve had it in my pocket every day for the last three months. Except one day when I thought I lost it in the washing machine, but then I found it in the filter. Don’t worry. It’s clean.”
She stared at the heart and thought about all the times she’d taken the alley to work, or ducked into a store to avoid seeing Luca on the street. All the times she’d missed her chance to get Luca’s heart back.
“I can understand if you don’t want my stupid heart,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t take me back either, because I’m not always a fan of Luca Lowell. He doesn’t always do the right thing.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. If I hadn’t gotten backed into by a truck last night and hadn’t gone to the hospital, I don’t know if you ever would have brought me back to your house. Back into your life.”
“My tiny house, and my tiny life.”
He shrugged. “It’s big enough for me.” He stretched out on the sectional. “You’ll have a hard time kicking me out again.”
“Luca, I can’t make you any promises.”
“Yes, you can. You can promise to give me a second chance the next time I screw up.”
“You didn’t screw up. I did. I’m the one who kicked you out.”
“Then I’ll give you a second chance. I won’t be a chicken and take the alley to work so I don’t run into you.”
“You did that?”
“Only for about a week, until your sister busted me sneaking through the alley like a burglar, and tore me a new one.” He rubbed his beard. “You know, now that I’m thinking over my conversations with her, it’s all making sense. She must have thought Chris’s wife was my girlfriend. The two of them stop by the garage a lot, but not always together. I thought your sister was being—well, you know how she is—but now I think I understand what was really going on.”
Tina looked down at the heart in her palm then at Luca. She closed her fingers around the charm.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to drop it again.”
There was a scratch at the door. Luca rolled himself along the couch, reached out with one long arm, and opened the door.
Muffins strolled in like he owned the place.
Luca exclaimed, “Kitty!”
Muffins jumped up on the couch and started sniffing Luca’s cast. Then he meowed about dinner.
Luca picked the cat up gently and held him like a baby. “You are a cutie patootie,” he said, then he cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Yes, uh. This is a healthy cat specimen. A strong hunter. I can tell by his, uh, ample midsection.”
Tina said, “That’s some pretty impressive baby talk for a big, tough guy like you.”
“Big, tough guys have feelings, too,” Luca said. “And they like cats.
”
”