#Chapter 25 - Dreamy

Luca and I chat the entire walk home. And though the walk takes us about five hours – the terrains rougher than a flat road, which slows us down – the time passes in what feels like a blink. The three ahead of us are relatively quiet, trudging along the miles and tripping on stones in the darkness, but Luca and I get lost in laughter. God – he’s funny, and he laughs at my jokes too, all of which just twists my heart a little because as each mile passes my crush on him grows bigger and bigger, inch by inch. He tells me all about his childhood, raised in a big family like mine. How he was so angry as a kid after his dad left, but how his mom’s brother took him into the gym and taught him to redirect that anger into solid blows at a punching bag, teaching him the art of boxing and keeping him out of trouble. And honestly, it should be a sad story, but the way he tells it – god, my cheeks ache for laughing so hard and smiling so much. “Honestly, Shrimp,” Luca says, smirking down at me