Page 89 of Scorpio Season

Her voice is a thready thing as she says, “You came.”

“Of course I came,” Luca says quietly. Her attention snags on the blanket on the sofa, the empty teacups scattered on the coffee table. “Jesus, Flo. You slept here?”

“I wanted to give Miray some space.” With her hands laced together in front of her, Florence gets to her feet. She looks . . . smaller, somehow. On stage, her presence takes up so much space that Luca forgets, sometimes, that she only just scratches five six. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s late and you were probably—”

“Miray isn’t angry at you,” Luca cuts her off. “I texted her earlier. I think mostly she’s worried.”

“Oh. I thought . . . it would be fine if she was. Angry, I mean. If all of you were. Lord knows I would be angry if one of you went behind my back to speak to a label. Not that any of you would, of course, I just—”

“Florence.” Luca takes a small step closer. “Why did you ask me to come here?”

Florence breaks off. One of her hands comes up to rake through her hair. Some of her curls catch on her rings, but she barely seems to notice. Luca is wearing her glasses, so she can see that Florence is shaking, her breaths coming fast and shallow. “I know I messed up,” she says, and the words sound like she has to wrest each one from someplace deep inside. “I betrayed your trust. I kept secrets from you. I wasn’t honest with you, or with myself.”

Her next breath hitches audibly. “I tried to convince you that there was nothing between us. That I don’t care . . .” Another breath, this one almost like a sob. “That I don’t care about you. That the band is more important to me than you.”

Luca can’t help it: She takes another step, and another, until she’s close enough to Florence to count her lashes. “Hey,” she says helplessly. “It’s all right.”

Despite the tears glistening in her eyes, Florence gives a firm shake of her head. “No, it’s not. You were so brave, and I just threw it all in your face. I hurt you.”

At that, Luca’s own throat threatens to close up. Her hand comes up to cup Florence’s cheek. Thought doesn’t factor into the action; the impulse bypasses her executive functions completely, driven by nothing but the needy, frightened want that’s been simmering under Luca’s skin ever since Florence texted. “You did,” she says quietly, tracing her thumb over Florence’s brow.

“It wasn’t true,” Florence whispers. “I think about you all the time. I dream of what I want to do to you. When you’re not around, I think about what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, who you’re with. You’ve been in every song I’ve written since we met.” Her next breath shudders out of her as she leans into Luca’s touch. “I care about you more than I care about the music, which is terrifying because for my whole life the music has been all that ever mattered. I don’t think I know who I am outside of it, but I want to find out. So . . . that’s why I asked you to come here. Because I wanted you to see me.”

And, fuck. Luca does. Standing there, barefoot and trembling in the half-light, there’s not a trace of pretense about Florence. Luca feels like she sees more of her than she ever has—more, perhaps, than she did when she saw Florence naked all those weeks ago.

A tear clings to Florence’s lashes and falls, streaking down her cheek and then Luca’s wrist. “I feel like I’ve spent the entire summer trying to keep my distance from you,” Florence says wretchedly, “but it’s just made me want you more. I don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m so tired of it.”

“Then don’t,” Luca says. Florence’s pulse beats hummingbird-quick where Luca’s palm is cupping the side of her neck. “Don’t stay away. We’ll figure it out—the band and the future, all of it. But don’t hide yourself from me. Don’t stay away.”

The look on Florence’s face teeters somewhere between disbelief and cautious hope. Like maybe she expected to have to do more groveling. Like she doesn’t know that Luca has been dreaming of this for weeks. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“But—” Florence begins, and Luca truly can’t listen to her trying to come up with any more stupid reasons why they shouldn’t be together.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” she cuts her off.

Florence blinks up at her, puffy-eyed and caught off guard. “Oh,” she says. “Okay.”

Luca takes her face in both hands and leans in.

At the first brush of their lips, Florence makes a quiet, hurt noise. A heartbeat later, her arms wind around Luca’s neck, and there’s a hand in Luca’s hair, tugging, and it’s like something inside of Luca gives way. Every time she’s wanted to kiss Florence while they were on tour—every brush of their thighs in the van, every charged glance on a stage, every minute they spent sharing a bed—suddenly crashes into her with all the force of a double-decker bus. She doesn’t know how she managed to go without this until now. She doesn’t know how she’s ever supposed to do anything else, not when Florence is finally kissing her like she means it, hungry and demanding, biting at Luca’s lower lip until it stings.

There you are, Luca thinks fondly. Out loud she says, “I missed you.”

“Me too,” Florence pants. She tastes almost like she did when they kissed in the hostel in Vienna, like salty tears and lingering peppermint tea.

Luca presses closer, a hand slipping under Florence’s jumper to rest on her lower back. The skin there is soft and overheated, and Luca is dizzy with the idea that she gets to do this—touch her, unhurried, on purpose. Her palm fits perfectly against the curve of Florence’s spine as Florence arches against her.

“Luca,” Florence murmurs.

“I know,” Luca returns, dazed.

“We could have had this all summer.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Luca says, because it doesn’t. She’s going to make up for every single missed opportunity, now that she’s allowed. The thought makes her laugh, giddy with the realization that there’ll be a next time, and another and another and another.

“What is it?” Florence pulls back to look at her, cheeks flushed and pupils swallowing her irises. She’s a mess. Luca can’t stop grinning.