Wish I Were Here

Chapter 23

I just can’t believe it,” I say as I settle into the soft velvet of my couch cushions. “I can’t believe she’s…”

An ER doctor.

Smart and efficient and organized.

“Everything you imagined when you were a kid?” Luca fills in the silence with exactly what I’m thinking.

My head jerks up. “Well… yes.”

“She’s definitely saving lives, just like you thought she’d be.” He gives me a sideways grin as he crosses my living room. “For example, I will never eat gas station sushi, or any sushi, ever again.”

I can’t help but smile.

After the nurse discharged Luca with a printout about the horrors of food poisoning and detailed instructions to never eat sushi from the Sunoco again, we headed back to the DeGreco building. Luca walked me to my apartment, and I invited him in to drink that bottle of red. He took charge of opening it, and now he hands me a glass of wine and sets the bottle on the coffee table without a coaster or a place mat underneath. But at this point, I’m too keyed up to care. Luca takes a small sip from his glass, and I gulp mine down and dump in another splash from the bottle.

“She seemed interested in my career, didn’t she?” Her reaction reminds me of something else I longed for in childhood. Someone who cared about my work and encouraged me to be successful. Dad was always proud no matter what I did, but he was much more likely to celebrate if I landed a six-ball juggling trick than he was if I got straight As. Even now, I flush when I remember his algae-bra joke to Dr. Gupta.

I pull Melanie’s card from my pocket and stare at the neat script on the back. “She wants me to come over. If it was just to give me the birth certificate, she would have asked me to meet her somewhere. But she said she wants to talk . That’s promising, isn’t it?”

“Definitely promising,” Luca agrees, his face softening. “You’ve been imagining this moment for a long time, haven’t you?”

I set the card on the coffee table and take another sip of my wine. “When I was a kid, my dad used to take me out of school so we could go to festivals—Burning Man, the Ren Faire—anywhere that he could perform and connect with the circus crowd. I hated it. It wasn’t the juggling and circus tricks—for a kid, that stuff was fun—it was the complete chaos.” I remember the desert dust getting into everything, the pushing and shoving as I waded through crowds, the anxiety about what I was missing in school.

“I never knew where we’d end up sleeping that night. And then, back at home, I’d discover that Dad forgot to buy groceries or worse—pay the bills—so it got to where I didn’t really know where I’d end up sleeping, ever .” I look up to find Luca watching me over his glass of wine.

“Dad could completely go with the flow. He said it didn’t matter if I missed tests; life experience was more important than rote memorization. And he wasn’t attached to material possessions—like our apartment, for example—so if we had to move out, we’d just find another.

“So, sitting there in the desert, I’d build this whole fantasy about my mom. Not only would she have some sort of really important job, but she’d have her life together. She’d be organized, responsible, and always pay her bills on time. And someday we’d meet, and she’d see how well I turned out. She’d see that I had my life together, and that I was good enough.”

Luca sets his glass on the table—no coaster, not that I’m paying attention—and slides closer to me. “Catherine, whatever the reason your mom left, it had nothing to do with whether you were good enough . I hope you know that.”

“Mmmm,” I say faintly. If I was good enough, then why did she leave me? If I was good enough, then how did she live down the road for thirty years and never reach out?

But maybe Sal was right when he talked about opportunities. Maybe this identity crisis is an opportunity, and I just need to grab it. Now that I’ve found my mom, maybe I have the chance for a relationship with a parent who understands my need for stability, a career, success. Who understands me . A tiny thrill runs through me.

“I’m really glad that this all seems to be working out the way you wanted it to,” Luca’s voice cuts in. “I just—” He hesitates like he wants to say something but isn’t sure if he should.

“What is it?”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I hope you’ll be cautious tomorrow.”

I laugh, reaching over to feign checking his forehead for a fever. “Are you feeling okay, Elbow? After leading me astray with breaking and entering and mail theft and threats of dismemberment, you’re the one lecturing me about being cautious?”

Luca chuckles, pulling my hand from his face. But instead of letting go, he tugs me closer. “I guess you’re rubbing off on me, Catherine Moonstone Lipton.” His smile fades, and his dark eyes search mine.

My gaze drops to the kaleidoscope of color covering his forearms. And then I reach out to do the thing I’ve been wanting to since I first spotted those delicate lines disappearing beneath the folds of his uniform. I trace a finger along a sparrow’s outstretched wing, over his bicep to a cluster of butterflies, and then to the soft petals of a trumpet vine curling around his shoulder.

Luca raises his hand to my cheek, and his lips find mine. I lean in to press against him, opening my mouth and sliding my tongue against his. His hand snakes around my waist, pulling me closer as he tips back against the arm of the couch. I fall on top of him, our legs tangling together.

My gaze drifts toward the neckline of his shirt. The hint of something blue peeks out from near his collarbone. A bird? A flower? Suddenly, I have to know. I have to explore every inch of the colorful canvas that is this charming, infuriating, irresistible man. I tug his shirt over his head, and my breath catches at the sight of the most beautiful artwork I’ve ever seen: those delicate illustrations, his hard chest, and those strong arms reaching for me.

And then it hits me with the same intensity as the first day I met him, right here in this apartment, when I threw myself into his embrace. That feeling that I’ve solved the most impossible equation, that the numbers have finally added up, that I am exactly who and where I am supposed to be.