0004: MINI MELTDOWN

JUNE’S POV

The words knocked the air right out of me. Best friend? He is my son’s best friend? My stomach dropped to the floor, my hand clamping the railing before my knees betrayed me. Oh God. I had slept with my son’s best friend.

I was having a full blown mental meltdown but Luca on the other hand had recovered faster than I did, his voice calm and without the hint of recognition. “Hello, Mr. Wallace, Mrs. Wallace. I’m Luca Brooks. Nice to meet you.”

Brooks? Even his surname sounds like trouble.

“He is handsome, right Mom?” Marlene leaned close, whispering how handsome he was, and I nearly laughed, because she was not wrong. He looked even younger here against the glow of my porch light, and at the same time sharper than from nights ago.

I forced my mouth into a smile. “Welcome, Luca,” I managed, though my voice cracked like thin ice.

For the briefest second, our eyes caught. The recognition hit hard. The same shock, the same pull, the fire neither of us had managed to put out. His jaw tightened, throat working as he looked away.

Adrian was rambling about how good it felt to be home, how bad campus food was, and I tried to nod along. But every nerve in me was alert to Luca, his presence humming through the air like static.

The ghost of his hands still haunted my skin. His breath on my neck. Those sounds in the dark. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity, at the cruelty of it all, but instead a knot twisted in my stomach. This was not a small mistake. It was a fucking disaster.

And now he was brushing past me, close enough his arm skimmed mine, and the jolt was unmistakable. I swallowed hard, praying my hands were not shaking as I stepped aside. “Come in.”

Inside, dinner blurred. The scrape of cutlery and the faint murmur of voices filled the dining room soon after the children settled in, but to me I was barely paying attention to anything. The air was heavy, too heavy. I could barely breathe. My heart thudded against my ribs as I sat down across the table, directly facing him. Luca.

He did not look at me, not directly. His eyes stayed down, his fork moving lazily as Adrian chatted beside him, animatedly recounting something about their trip. Marlene was laughing too, wide-eyed and happy. And there was Franklin, right at the head of the table, smiling like the perfect father, the perfect husband.

Anyone who walked into that dining room would think we were the model family. Franklin was charming, full of stories, making the children laugh. His hand occasionally brushed mine in a show of affection, and I forced myself not to flinch. Every time his fingers touched me, I wanted to scrub my skin raw.

But what really made it unbearable was Luca. While everyone talked, I stared at him like a creep. I found myself ogling him rather than looking away. He was wearing a basketball shirt with his tattooed arm on full display. His arms looked even more attractive than they had a week ago. Luca looked so manly sitting here with my family.

I was trying my hardest not to show any sort of feeling toward Luca, but I did not think I was doing a good job. The only saving grace was that everyone else at the table was caught in conversation, too busy to notice I was having a mini meltdown over my son’s best friend. I mean, of all the people I could have slept with that night, it had to be him? It was like the universe was playing a cruel joke on me.

If anyone were to find out, I could only imagine the scandal it would cause. But for now, I needed to survive this dinner without any drama.

Luca’s jaw flexed ever so slightly when Franklin leaned over to kiss the top of my hand. He was silent, but I felt his presence like a storm pressing against my chest.

I tried to avoid his eyes, but the harder I tried, the more I caught them. The same eyes that had studied me in the dim glow of his apartment a few nights ago. Eyes that had seen me naked.

I swallowed hard, pushing the food around on my plate. I could not eat. My mind was trapped between two worlds, the illusion Franklin painted at this table and the truth that kept burning in my chest.

“June,” Franklin’s voice cut into my thoughts, smooth and commanding. “You should eat. You have hardly touched your food.”

I forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

“Nonsense,” he said lightly, as if correcting a child. “You will make our guest think you do not enjoy his company.” He gestured toward Luca with a flourish. “I hear he has been quite the brother to Adrian, keeping him out of trouble. We owe him our gratitude, don’t we, darling?”

The word darling scraped against my skin like sandpaper. I nodded, the taste of bile rising in my throat. “Yes. We do.”

Finally, Luca looked up at me. Just a flicker of a glance, brief but sharp, like a blade slicing through the pretense. For a heartbeat, the noise around us faded. I could almost hear my own whisper from that night echoing in my head, I can’t forget him. And I knew he remembered too.

When dinner ended and Franklin offered to show the children his new art collection, I seized the chance. My hand shot out, my feet carrying me to the kitchen as I grabbed the dishes and fled.

I needed space, and air. But space was the last thing I was going to get as soon as I slipped into the kitchen.

“Need some help?” Luca’s voice slipped in from the doorway just as I set the dishes in the sink with a little too much force.