Chapter 4: Sinner, Repent!
As soon as Luca closed the door behind him, he toed off his shoes and stood with bare feet on the soft, long-haired rug taking up a big part of the floor of his office at the café. The rug he didn’t allow anyone to step on unless they removed their shoes first. He buried his toes in the green shag and sighed as he tried to imagine tendrils of calmness worming their way from the rug, up through his body.
He adored that green rug. It was the exact color of grass in spring, and he stood on it whenever he needed to center himself. Gus teased him for being so afraid of bugs, he didn’t dare to be barefoot on real grass and called it Luca’s fake office lawn. Luca didn’t mind; he retaliated by sticking out his lower lip in an exaggerated pout, which always ended with G
