Something was bothering Luca.

He kept jiggling his leg under the table all through dinner, his eyes darting somewhere to the back of the restaurant. He was breathing hard, brushing his fingers through his hair again and again, and hadn't looked at me for exactly three hundred and seventeen seconds.

We finished the rest of the dessert in silence, although Luca barely touched his panna cotta. The only thing he had eaten was the strawberries, which he had picked off. His jaw was set, his chest moving at a rate that went against his current state of rest.

I unlocked my phone under the table and went to the AI assistant.

'how to comfort someone who appears agitated?'

Try to talk to them.

If unwilling to talk, let them know your presence through comforting touch.

"Luca?" I said immediately, shoving my phone back into my pocket and reaching out to place a hand over his. As soon as I did, however, he jerked backward, his eyes wide and breathing ragged.

"Jesus, Hayes," he mumbled, withdrawing his hand from the table. "What... what are you doing?"

"You seem really stressed," I informed him.

"It's nothing," he answered at once, taking a large sip of his wine.

"Okay."

It wasn't nothing. Luca was stressed, and he wouldn't tell me why. Where we had been laughing giddily over green mush minutes ago, it suddenly felt like his nervous system was running completely haywire. He was refusing to meet my gaze, rejected my touch, and didn't wish to speak to me. Was it possible... that it was something I did?

"I am sorry about the cucumber soup," I said. "It was in... poor taste."

A half-smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. Another joke. The second of the evening.

Luca didn't seem to hear me; his head turned away as he kept staring at something... or perhaps, someone else? Perhaps a famous model or actress that had caught his fancy? The idea tasted like cold cucumber mush at the base of my tongue, even though I had cleansed my palate thoroughly with my poached pear and dark chocolate.

"What?" he asked as he finally turned to look at me, his eyes unfocused.

"Are you perhaps—" I began, "having an allergic reaction to the fish? Although that would be unlikely unless you consumed—"

"Elliot—" he said softly, massaging his temple. "Can we just leave? Please?"

"Of course," I nodded.

"I'm gonna make a call," he said simply, his chair scraping as he got to his feet.

"Let me drop you—"

"No," he answered simply. "Thanks. Sorry." He sighed, shuffling his feet and glancing behind him again. "Fuck—" he cursed under his breath, but I could make out the movement easily since I knew it so well. His eyes snapped back to me. "I'll... I'll see you around, Hayes."

He hurried out of the restaurant, not sparing a second glance at me or anything in his way. I had kept my dinner light, but a heavy weight seemed to be settling in my stomach nonetheless. I finished the rest of my dessert slowly, which tasted considerably less sweet without any significant food-related variables.

*

After ruminating on everything that night in bed, I had concluded that knowingly—but most likely unknowingly—I had done something that had upset Luca. So I made a list and went through it one by one. Sitting up in bed to lower the strain on my eyes.

Po stirred near my feet and shot me a disgruntled look.

"Sorry," I apologised, leaning over to stroke his head. He yawned, his little pink tongue lolling out before he rolled sideways and shut his eyes, his belly rising and falling as he went right back to sleep.

I was careful not to move too much as I leaned against the headboard, typing quickly into the AI assistant, explaining the situation and waiting for the response.

'A fun dinner and someone becoming upset afterward can happen for a lot of reasons. The dinner itself doesn't necessarily reflect how they felt once they had time to think, or what happened afterward. Some common possibilities are:

1. You unknowingly said or did something that didn't bother them in the moment but stuck with them later.'

This was, of course, the one I was most inclined to believe.

2. They misunderstood something you said and interpreted it differently after reflecting on it.'

The cucumber joke. I had apologised for it. Perhaps I should have apologised more profusely?

Or maybe I should have paused at one cucumber joke. Maybe two cucumber jokes within a span of seven point five minutes was too much? What was the acceptable time limit between two consecutive cucumber jokes?

But then again, he had already been visibly agitated by that point.

3. Something unrelated happened after dinner—a stressful phone call, family issue, work problem, or bad news—that affected their mood.'

Possible. Although, then again, that brought me to a different point: why had he not told me so?

4. Their expectations were different. They may have hoped for a different outcome, more communication afterward, or interpreted the interaction differently than you did.

Also possible. Perhaps the food was not up to his expectations, and he had been masking those feelings?

The next morning at training, I waited in the dressing room longer than the rest of the team, craning my neck beyond the locker when Luca finally arrived. He slammed his locker door with too much force, his jaw set, his eyebrows furrowed. Which, I had learned, were indications of being in a sour mood.

Santoro—whom I had realised over the past weeks of training with SS Ambrosiana seemed to be one of his closest friends—patted Luca on the back and grinned at him, his mouth moving in rapid, frustrating Italian I couldn't make out. Luca replied shortly and nodded before slumping onto the bench and pulling on a pair of boots.

I walked up to him. Santoro peered at me and then at Luca before turning away to bury his head in his locker.

"Hello," I said.

Luca glanced up, his chest falling softly before he gave me a curt nod.

"Very nice weather," I remarked. "Moisture has dropped down to thirty percent."

He leaned back against the locker, and I was almost sure he was smiling. But it was that thing he did where his lips didn't move, just the light in his eyes got imperceptibly softer— so I wasn't sure.

I decided to just study him that morning to try and get a better idea of what it was that was bothering him. However, he seemed normal during training. Same energy, same speed (with a negligible 0.2% drop according to my calculations). The only thing that seemed different—and more suited to my hypothesis—was his interaction, or lack thereof, with me. Other than the brief small talk in the dressing room.

I reasoned that I hadn't spoken to him myself at all. 'Hello' and 'very nice weather' were not terms that elicited a response other than a nod of the head as acknowledgment. Which, I assured myself, he had provided.

Or maybe he was clearly upset with me. So he hadn't initiated any other communication. Of course he hadn't. So our exchanged words were minimal during the training sessions.

He left earlier that day, before I was even out of the showers.

So in the car, I texted him.

'Hello, Luca.'

He didn't respond to me.

"Mum," I asked my mum that evening, leaning my face against the cold countertop in the kitchen as I slumped my arms across it. "What do you do if someone is upset with you?"

I looked up, resting my chin instead as she took a spot across from me, pulling a bowl of custard toward her. "It depends on a lot of factors," she stated, taking a small bite of the dessert. "Say, for example, who are they to you? Because that can affect how you should approach them."

That question caught me by surprise. I had not considered that at all.

I supposed the closest word to what Luca Moretti was to me would be a professional rival, but a friend. A... frenemy, perhaps?

"I am not quite sure about that," I admitted. "But they are around my age."

"Okay, so a teammate, I'm guessing?" she said, taking a sip from a water bottle and pursing her lips. "Well, again, why are they upset with you? If it's something you said—something wrong—of course the best thing to do would be to take accountability, apologise, admit that you hurt them, and promise you'll never repeat it."

"What if it is something I have done?" I asked, sitting up straight.

"What did you do?" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"I do not know." I shook my head.

"Well, love," she sighed softly. "Then it is indeed very difficult. Was it something you said? Something offensive that you perhaps didn't realize?"

"I fed them cucumber mush."

She laughed, her shoulders shaking. "Well then, maybe compensate for that?"

"How?"

She shrugged. "If you know what they like to eat, maybe give them that instead?"

I nodded. "That does make sense."

"Maybe avoid more cucumber dishes, though," she smiled over her custard.

And so, after making a pitstop at a health bar called Pure Fuel—where I purchased a high-antioxidant, dragonfruit and wild berry açai bowl topped with almond butter, dark chocolate shavings, and zero green vegetables—I was back in the dressing room. I had insisted that the health bar provide fresh strawberries, since he did still have a preference towards them. He had not eaten his dessert save for the berries.

I had intended to wait until lunch that day; however, Luca not speaking to me or acknowledging me beyond a curt nod was making worms I did not remember eating for breakfast writhe in my belly.

So before training started that day, while he was sitting on the bench with a number of his friends who seemed completely oblivious to his change of behaviour—I walked over to him.

"Hello," I said, and he looked up, which somehow made his jaw clench further. "I got you a beneficial beverage."

I thrust the smoothie in front of his face. The rest of the team exchanged glances with each other. Someone let out a low whistle, which felt like a tremor in my chest.

Luca remained quiet for a few seconds before he sat up straight, his eyes traveling from the untouched cup of smoothie in my hand to my face. "Sorry. I'm cutting—" he made a scissors-snapping motion with two fingers, "—sugars."

"It only has natural sugar," I clicked my tongue. "And fiber. It will help you—" I shook it harder in front of his face, leading to Pippo beside him having a fit of laughter that I couldn't place. Luca glared at him, which made his smile falter, and he raised his hands in surrender.

"Okay." Luca reached out a hand to grab it.

I nodded, placing both of my open hands, palms inward, in front of my chest, bending my fingers gently at the knuckles in a short, repeated movement, signing 'you're welcome.'

I went back to my locker and peered behind it, watching as Luca placed the smoothie carefully in his bag and rose to his feet. His team left the locker room soon after, already engaged in some other topic, I presumed, since none of them were chuckling or looking at me anymore.

At the door, Luca turned to look at me again, an expression I couldn't read on his face. He placed his open palm against his chin, thrusting his hand slightly forward and down towards me in a gesture of 'thank you' in ASL, which I had catalogued as his preferred method of communication. Hence, I had taken the liberty of learning a few common ASL signs.

He gave me a small nod before he left the room, leaving it slightly warmer than it had been.