As if on autopilot, my eyelids lifted.
And I… Oh God. I wished I never had. I wished I hadn’t opened my eyes to something like this.
Because whatever I had been feeling a few seconds, minutes, hours ago had been nothing, nothing, compared to what was flooding my chest now. My body. I felt so light, so elated and moved, that I could take flight and float into the dark, stormy night.
“Lucas,” I whispered.
His hands trailed up to my shoulders, his palms warm, so warm, against my skin and he said, “What do you think?”
We were on the rooftop of the building. Half of it was a greenhouse, flowers of all colors scattered around us, while the other half was open and exposed to the overcast November sky, that now seemed lit by strings of fairy lights that crisscrossed above us.
It was a beautiful place. Magical. Transcendent. It felt like a moment you know will become a memory before it’s even passed.
Dad’s words came back,Remember to pick the boy that will plant a garden for you instead of just getting you the flowers,Bean.
“I’m not sure if I did this right,” Lucas said. “This is my first grand gesture.”
Battling against the emotion clogging my voice, I shook my head.
“You did. It’s perfect, Lucas. This is all so beautiful, I…” God, I needed to keep it together. I couldn’t let him know howmuchI was feeling in that moment. “I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one.”
“You flatter me,ángel. But this is not all. This is not what I hoped I got right.”
He dipped his head and brushed his lips over my cheek very softly, surprising me at how different this felt compared to every other time he’d done that. Breaking my heart, too, because I wanted so much more than a simple kiss on the cheek.
Lucas grasped my hand, pulling me forward with him. We stopped only when we reached a bench where he had laid a blanket, a Bluetooth speaker, a bottle of wine, and a pink box with a ribbon.
He pulled his phone from the pocket of his suit and tapped on the screen. Music filled the space around us. “You said you wished we’d met at Aaron and Lina’s wedding,” he said, his expression turning grim. He took one determined step toward me. “I thought that tonight, for this one last date, we could pretend we were doing that. Meeting for the first time.”
The thrumming in my chest resumed. Louder. Bigger. Overcoming me with an emotion so powerful I found it hard to breathe.
Lucas smiled, and it was one of those rare bashful smiles. “What do you think? Is it… Is it grand enough?”
This selfless, considerate, good man, openly anxious over something like this. Over me liking his grand gesture. Me considering it grand enough.
I wanted to scream. At the world for being so unfair. At him, for going after my heart like this. For making it his in such a short amount of time.
Because he’d made it his, hadn’t he? He’d made me his without even trying. Not really. Without my knowing when exactly it had happened.
God, I loved him. I had fallen in love with Lucas Martín.
And I knew it with a certainty that made my chest tight.
I had never stood a chance, not really.
I stood there, breathless, motionless, the realization rocking my body, as I watched Lucas’s hands come to the front of his slacks and running his palms along the fabric covering his thighs.
He cleared his throat before speaking. “I know this is not even close to a garden with a view of the Bay of Biscay, so… I also have this.”
He knelt and fumbled with something below the bench. A beam of light appeared, illuminating the wall behind us. Photos of Lina and Aaron’s wedding flashed on the smooth surface. The venue, the ceremony, Aaron’s and Lina’s happy faces, Abuela, Lina’s parents, little snippets of that day played across that wall.
And I… I just… couldn’t do this.
With him. With the knowledge that his presence in my life had an expiration date.
A blanket was thrown over my shoulders, and it was only then that I noticed I was shivering. “Say something, Ro.”
Ro.