Page 8 of Pretend You Love Me

I stare at my coffee, unable to look at Luca’s face, suddenly aware that my cheeks are wet. I haven’t cried yet, not really, and now, in the middle of our café, with the espresso machine ticking quietly and the day not quite started, it finally hits me.

Luca is silent for a long moment, which is so unlike him that I actually notice it through the fog of my own mind. When he finally speaks, his voice is carefully measured.

“I need you to know,” he says calmly, “that I could absolutely destroy this man for sport.”

It’s said so perfectly, just what I need to hear that I laugh, a short, startled sound that catches in my throat, and then I’m crying, really crying, the kind that escapes while you’re trying to actively prevent it. Not the pretty kind from movies with single tears tracking down perfect cheekbones, but the messy, ugly kind that involves snot and red eyes and hiccupping sobs that make your whole body shake.

“I’m sorry,” I say, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes. “God, I’m sorry, this is so…I didn’t mean to…“

Luca is around the counter in a heartbeat, his arms around me before I can finish the sentence. “Do not,” he says, his voice firm, “apologize to me. Not for this.”

He holds me while I cry, just being a steady and strong presence holding me together. After a few minutes, or maybe longer, the tears slow, then stop. I pull back, wiping my face with the back of my hand, and Luca reaches for a stack of napkins, handing them to me without comment.

“I must look like I’ve been waterboarded,” I say, dabbing carefully at my eyes.

“You look like someone who’s having a completely appropriate response to discovering her husband is a spectacular asshole,” Luca corrects, handing me a glass of water. “Drink. You’re dehydrated from all that high-quality leaking.”

I take a sip, the water cool against my raw throat. “I’ve been avoiding the group chat,” I admit. “I can’t…I can’t survive Harper looking at me with pity right now. Or Liv trying to emotionally support me through insults. I can’t pretend I’m fine for one more conversation.”

“Nobody’s upset with you,” Luca says, leaning against the counter beside me. “Harper’s been quietly worried. Liv’s been loudly pretending not to be. And nobody’s forcing you to talk before you’re ready.”

I nod, not quite trusting my voice.

“I’m going to call Adrian,” Luca says, the statement so matter of fact that it takes me a second to process what he’s saying. “He’s not just a lawyer, he’s the best lawyer I know, and he’s on our side. There has to be perks to being married to someone who has to do 60 hour weeks at work.”

“Luca… “

“This isn’t an overreaction,” he interrupts, his voice completely calm. “It’s practical. You need information, and Adrian has it. That’s all.”

I take another sip of water, considering that. Adrian is Luca’s husband, calm, measured Adrian, who speaks in complete sentences even at 6:00 AM and who once talked a police officer out of giving Luca a ticket for public intoxication by explaining, with perfect sincerity, that his husband was “having a religious experience with a fire hydrant.” He’s also a corporate lawyer with a specialty in contracts and, apparently, a sideline in helping friends navigate the specific hell of discovering their spouses are cheating.

“Okay,” I say finally. “Yes. Please.”

Luca nods, pulling out his phone. “I’ll call him now. Go fix your face. There’s concealer in the bathroom drawer.”

In the small bathroom behind the counter, I run cold water over my wrists and stare at my reflection with the expression of someone who has recently survived something and isn’t sure yet what to do with that. My eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, my cheeks blotchy with the particular uneven flush that comes after real crying. There’s a smudge of mascara under my left eye that looks like someone punched me, and my hair is doing that thing where it sticks up on one side and lies flat on the other, like it can’t decide whether to commit to the disaster or pretend it’s fine.

I splash cold water on my face, pat it dry with a paper towel, and apply Luca’s concealer with careful, practiced movements. It doesn’t fix everything, nothing could, but it helps. By the time I’ve run a comb through my hair and reapplied my lip balm, I look almost like myself again. Or at least like someone who might be able to get through the next hour without collapsing.

When I step back into the café, Luca is off the phone, wiping down the counter with more attention than it actually needs.

“Adrian wants to come by,” he says without looking up. “If you’re comfortable with that. Entirely your choice.”

I nod, wrapping both hands around my coffee mug. The ceramic is warm against my palms, solid in a way that helps anchor me to the moment. “Yes,” I say. “That would be good.”

Luca looks up then, his expression careful. “He’ll be here in twenty,” he says. “I told him to bring his own coffee so I wouldn’t have to make it.”

It’s such a perfectly Luca thing to say, practical and slightly ridiculous all at once, that I feel the corner of my mouth lift in what might, with enough effort, become a smile.

“Thank you,” I say, the words inadequate for what I’m trying to express.

Luca nods once, sharply, like he’s accepting a challenge. “That’s what I’m here for,” he says, and turns back to the espresso machine. “Now drink your coffee before it gets cold. I didn’t make it with love and care just for you to ignore it.”

I take a sip, the coffee just right, strong enough to stand up on its own but not so bitter it makes me wince, and for the first time since Sunday, I feel like I might actually survive this.

Adrian arrives nineteen minutes later, which is what I’d expect from someone who schedules his dental cleanings six months in advance and alphabetizes the spices in his kitchen. He’s carrying his own coffee in a travel mug I recognize as Luca’s, the blue one with “I’M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT BUT I’M NEVER WRONG” printed in small letters around the base, and his phone in his other hand. He’s wearing a button-down with the sleeves rolled precisely to the elbow and a pair of dark jeans that look both casual and deliberate, like he put the right amount of thought into not looking like he was trying. Nothing about him announces that he’s walking into a difficult room, which is somehow what makes it clear he knows what kind of room this is.

“Elsie,” he says, his voice steady. “I’m sorry we’re catching up under these circumstances.”