Finding The One Box Set

Chapter 6: Is It Supposed to Be This Easy?-1

Chapter 6: Is It Supposed to Be This Easy?

The walk back to the hotel was vastly different from the mad sprint away from it. This time, Luca held hands with his fiancé, walking toward their future together as husbands. Gus’s mere presence had given him distance to his mother’s hateful words. The moment he’d felt Gus’s arms around him back at the office, he’d vowed to not let her get to him again.

None of his mother’s predictions had come true. Gus had taken one look at him in the veil and hadn’t been ashamed of him. Instead, he’d seen that Luca was upset, and his immediate instinct had been to comfort. Not until he was sure Luca felt better had Gus paid attention to the veil, and his reaction had been what Luca had expected.

“Is it supposed to be this easy?” Luca hadn’t meant to ask, but the words just slipped out of his mouth as always.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Luca hesitated, unsure how to explain his thoughts to Gus. “I mean, I run out on you minutes before we’re supposed to get married. But instead of getting angry, you chase after me, comfort me, and sweep me off my feet. You don’t demand answers or even ask me why I did it.”

“I swept you off your feet years ago.” Gus grinned like the cat who got the cream and winked at him.

“Hah, if I recall correctly, I was the one doing the sweeping.” Luca elbowed Gus in the ribs.

“Ouch!” Gus whined and rubbed his side and stuck out his lower lip in the saddest attempt at pouting Luca had ever seen.

“Don’t even try. You know I’m the pouting champion in our relationship.”

“Oh, I know.” Gus leaned in as if he wanted to kiss Luca, but wrinkled his nose and straightened. “On second thought, I don’t like the veil,” he muttered.

Luca’s heart skipped a beat. He froze in the middle of a step and stared at Gus with his mouth hanging open. “What…?”

“No, no, I don’t mean like that,” Gus hurried to explain. “It’s covering your face, making it impossible to kiss you.”

Gus sounded genuinely bummed, and Luca burst out laughing. It bubbled out of him, and he couldn’t stop. He gasped for air and clutched his stomach.

When the laughter finally died down, he took a step closer to his fiancé, lifted the veil, and smacked a loud kiss on Gus’s lips. Before he could withdraw, Gus let go of his hand and cupped his face and kissed him, careful not to smudge the gloss. When they broke apart, they smiled at each other.

Gus brushed away a strand of hair from Luca’s face and looked at him with such warmth radiating from his eyes, Luca’s knees turned to jelly. “Yes, it’s supposed to be this easy. Just trust that I love you, no matter what.”

“Okay.” Any lingering doubt Luca had vanished just like that.

Gus let go of Luca’s face and helped him smooth out the veil again, but a buzz coming from his jacket pocket interrupted them. Gus groaned.

“How much do you wanna bet that’s my mom?” He pulled out his phone, glanced at it, and turned the display so Luca could see who was calling.

“I would never have taken that bet. I know her.”

They started walking again as Gus answered the call. “Mom, we’re on our way…”