The American Roommate Experiment (Spanish Love Deception #2)(91)

I let out a breath, the sound rocky, unsteady. “Thank you.”

Lucas’s head reared back slowly. “Thank you?”

I averted my eyes, and as much as I didn’t want to stop looking at him, I did. “Yeah. That was very deserving of a grand gesture kind of night.”

Because that was what tonight was about. Phase four, the grand gesture.

Usually, in novels, it came after a black moment, after feelings are put to the test. But in this case—being this was nothing but an experiment—that hadn’t made sense. So, we’d jumped ahead.

Lucas didn’t answer, not for a while. He just looked at me, his lips curled into the smallest smile he’d ever given me.

Reaching for my glass of wine, I mused over what to say, finally settling for something that had crossed my mind, but I had never asked. “Can I ask you something, Lucas?”

“You know you can ask me anything.”

“You never talk about Spain.” I was trying my luck here. He didn’t want to talk about his injury, or whatever had happened to him, I knew that much. But I couldn’t stop thinking about him going back. “You’ve only talked about Abuela. Or Taco.” I paused. “You know, the plan had been to fly your grandma here. With Taco. But she said she’d had enough of New York when she visited Lina a couple of years ago. She said everything’s so big here it gives her chicken skin? Charo wasn’t able to translate that.”

“Piel de gallina. Goosebumps. That just means that it gives her goosebumps.” Lucas let out a chuckle, but his heart wasn’t in it. Then, he said, “What do you want to know, beautiful Rosie?”

Everything. “Do you miss home?”

“Yes and no.”

I shifted to the edge of the stool, my knees moving into the space between his. “What do you miss about it?”

He seemed to deflate at the question, so I placed a hand on his knee. Encouraging him. He pressed his thigh against mine in response. “I miss… my life. How my life was before. Some days I wake up thinking I’m back in time, and my head starts pondering what beach I can drive to before the crowd gets in. Then I remember.”

“You remember what?”

His gaze zeroed in on my fingers as they rested on his knee. “That I’m not there anymore. That I’m no longer myself.”

“Lucas?” I said, and whatever he heard in my voice made him retrieve my hand from his knee and take it in his. “Why come here? Are you running from something? From whatever happened?”

He brought our hands to his mouth and placed his lips on my wrist. “I’m not running, ángel. Some days I’m not even moving.”

ángel. My heart pounded. “What do you need?” I asked, because whatever that was, I wanted to get it for him. “To feel like you’re moving forward again.”

His gaze searched my face. “I don’t know, Rosie. And that’s what scares me the most.”

Something in my chest broke for him. The need to make it better growing by the minute. “I’ll take your hand,” I told him, tightening my grip around his fingers. “And keep you moving. Until you figure it out.”

And I’ll take that ángel, too. And keep it.

Keep it for when he left, and I had these memories instead of him.

He didn’t speak, not right away. Then, he said, “I hope you’re ready for your grand gesture.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


Rosie


“I have no idea if I got this right,” he said from behind me, his hands covering my eyes.

After leaving the restaurant, Lucas had ushered me into the elevator—the one inside the building where Zarato was located—and took us up to the top floor.

Before the doors opened, he told me to close my eyes and laid both hands over them, saying, “For good measure.”

We walked very slowly now, Lucas guiding me forward. His legs tangled with mine, and I grasped both his wrists to keep myself from falling.

“Is this really necessary?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, bringing me to a stop. “Cosmo said that the element of surprise was very important.”

“Cosmo?” A bark of laughter left me. “As in Cosmopolitan, the magazine?”

“What’s so funny?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Nothing.” I let my hands fall from his wrists. “Just that you sound like a guy from a chick flick from the noughties.”

His hands shifted so only one palm was covering my eyes. Then when I felt his other one at my waist, tickling my side.

“Hey!” I squealed, breaking into a fit of giggles. “What was that for? That’s a compliment. It doesn’t get better than 2000s Matthew McConaughey.” I waited for his laughter, but it didn’t come. “It was all innocent teasing.”

“Nothing innocent about it, Rosie. You know how much I like it,” he said. And before I could utter a word, his arm wrapped around me, the tips of his fingers making contact with the bare skin of my back. “Careful with the step,” he added before lifting me up in the air.

And just as swiftly, I was placed back on the floor. And I… was too stunned, distracted, to even say thanks.

Lucas chuckled darkly as he guided us forward again. “Just so you know, I used other sources that weren’t magazines.” We turned to the right, and then stopped again. “Hold on one sec. Keep your eyes closed. I’ll be right back.”