Chapter 39 No answer

Chapter 39 No answer
Mia's POV

I did not answer.

I should have answered. That was the part I would replay later.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Zack had handed me a cup. I was gripping it with both hands because if I let go I would have to figure out what to do next.

So I let go. I put it on the island and walked past him.

He did not move out of my way.

He did not move toward me.

He stood there with his hand on the counter, eyes still on the spot where I had been standing when he asked.

I got to the front of the kitchen.

"I have practice."

"Mia."

"I have practice, Luca."

"That's not what I asked you."

"I know what you asked me." I pulled my hoodie sleeves over my hands. "And I'm telling you I have practice."

His jaw tightened. He dropped his hand from the counter.

"Then answer me first."

"I can't be late."

"You're not going to be late. It's six-fifteen."

"And I need every minute of that drive to not think about this conversation."

He didn't laugh. He didn't smile. But something shifted behind his eyes, the way it did when I said something honest by accident.

"You're going to have to think about it eventually."

"Eventually is not right now."

"When is it?"

"When I say it is."

I turned and went into the hallway. My bag was by the front door. I had put it there last night before Luca came home, before any of this.

I picked it up.

I had my hand on the door handle when I stopped.

I should not have stopped. But he was still in the kitchen doorway behind me. I could feel him there. His weight on the floor. The fact that he hadn't moved. The fact that he was waiting the way he always waited, like patience was something he had been born with too much of.

I did not turn around.

"Stop trying to make me say things I haven't decided yet."

"So you haven't decided."

His voice was low. Not soft. The kind of low that sits in your chest whether you want it there or not.

"Luca."

"I'm not pushing you. I asked you once."

"You're still asking. You're standing there and that's still asking."

He was quiet for a second. Then: "Yeah. I guess it is."

Neither of us moved. Two, three seconds. Long enough for me to hear the fridge humming behind him. Long enough to know that if I turned around, I would not leave.

I opened the door.

The cold hit my face. I walked out.

The steps. The wet leaves on the driveway. I walked past all of it without looking down.

I got to the car.

Zack was already in the passenger seat with his phone in his hand. He looked up when I opened the driver's door. His eyes went over my face once. He saw whatever was on it. He looked back at his phone.

I got in.

I threw my bag on the back seat. Key in the ignition. The heater kicked on slow, pushing air barely warmer than outside. I gripped the wheel. My fingers wrapped around it tight, like I was bracing for something. I put it in reverse.

In the rearview mirror, Luca was in the doorway. Both hands at his sides. Jacket on. Not coming after me. Just standing there like he could do it all morning.

I hated that about him.

I hated that he could look like he had all the time in the world while I sat in a running car with my jaw locked and my pulse hammering.

I backed out.

I did not look at him again.

Zack waited until we were a block away.

"He was waiting for an answer."

"I noticed."

"You didn't give him one."

"I noticed that too."

"You going to?"

I turned onto Elm. The light was green. I did not slow down.

"Not right now."

"Not right now as in not in this car, or not right now as in not this year?"

"Zack."

"Fair enough."

He looked out the window. Lights coming on in kitchens. A woman dragging a trash bin to the curb. A man walking a dog that did not want to walk.

I waited for him to say something else. To tell me I was being stupid or stubborn or both.

He didn't.

"Good," he said. Quiet. Like he meant it.

He did not say anything else. Neither did I.

The rink lot was half empty. I parked where I always parked, second row, third from the left, next to the light post with the dent from Caleb Rourke's truck. Zack got out. I got out. He grabbed his bag. I grabbed mine. We walked to the doors because that was where we were both going.

He held the door for me.

I went in.

The lobby was warm. The vending machine hummed against the far wall. The smell of the rink hit me first. Cold air and rubber and something metallic underneath. It was the only part of the morning that still felt like it belonged to me.

I pulled my hair back and tied it. My fingers were still stiff from gripping the wheel.

Zack dropped his bag on the bench by the lockers and stretched his neck. "You good?"

"I'm fine."

"You're doing the thing with your jaw."

"I'm fine, Zack."

"Okay." He held up both hands. "You're fine."

Then I saw her.

Jade was at the front desk, leaning on both elbows, holding two paper coffee cups, one in each hand. She turned her head when we came in and her whole face shifted. Not a smile. Something sharper than that. Something that already knew what she was about to say.

She straightened up.

She held one of the cups out toward Zack.

"I brought one for Zack," she said. "We need to talk."