Riley POV
After Luca asked about my mother, I became careful around him again.
It was not something I planned. I did not wake up the next morning and decide to avoid him, but every time he entered a room, I remembered the garage and the calm way he had asked me to explain something I had spent years refusing to explain even to myself. Luca had spoken about his father with more honesty than I expected, and I knew he deserved the same honesty in return. That was what made it worse. If he had demanded answers, judged me, or treated my pain like a problem he needed to solve, I could have become angry and walked away without guilt. Instead, he had simply listened, then stopped when I asked him to stop.
His patience frightened me more than his questions.
At breakfast, I focused on Sophie’s h
