Luke gave me a peck on my cheek. “Yes, we are planning right now, and I will buy you the tickets.”
“I can pay for my own tickets,” I argued.
“I’m sure you can, but I will buy them anyway. So, the entire summer?”
I gaped at him for a heartbeat, then forced my mouth to close and nodded awkwardly. “Um... July and August. I can ask about June, but I don’t think they’d mind. It’s always quieter in June anyway.”
Luke smiled as he entered the dates into the website. “Perfect.”
I stared at the prices in mild bewilderment as Luke picked the quickest trip across the ocean and added it to the cart.
I swallowed as he didn’t even hesitate writing my name in the passenger information. “Wait, we are buying it now? Don’t I need to apply for a visa first?”
“You’ll get a visa, no problem.” Luke grinned at my gobsmacked expression. “Now, your date of birth, Miss Haylee Walker?”
I blushed. “Can I at least confirm with the studio that I can have the entire summer off?”
“Only if you get the answer in the next ten minutes.”
An incredulous laugh bubbled up in my throat. “You are joking.”
Luke pointed at the timer ticking away on the website, letting you know how long you had to complete the order. Of plane tickets to the USA, no less. Oh my God!
“Okay, okay. I just need a minute.”
“While you’re at it, I need your ID to fill in the details,” he said with a smirk.
My heart pounded away as I handed Luke the card I carried in my phone case while dialing the dance studio.
“This is crazy,” I muttered under my breath. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this.”
“Call it reassurance. A promise.”
I liked the sound of that. A much stronger promise than his phone number saved to my contacts. Much, much stronger than that.
Twenty minutes later we had bought the plane tickets and filled in an application for a visa. Now, Luke leaving didn’t feel all that sorrowful anymore but more like the start to a new adventure. True, summer was still several months away, but we’d made a promise. A promise that cost Luke one thousand and four hundred pounds!
“I’m excited now,” Luke admitted once he’d set the tablet aside. “I can’t wait to spend those three months with the woman I love. There’s so much I want to show you.Nonniwill love you. So will my dad. Haylee... I really love you.”
I swallowed at the sincerity in Luke’s voice. At the intensity in his eyes when he looked at me. My heartbeat picked up, and my mouth felt too dry all of a sudden. We bought a plane ticket for me. We bought a freaking plane ticket for me! Holy gobsmacking shit!
“Luke—Luca.” My heart was fighting its imprisonment in my chest, and I was almost certain it would spring free with the next pounding beat and join his. It was already beating for him, anyway. I took a deep breath to calm myself, but it wasn’t working. My hands shook. Hell, my voice shook, too, but at least, I got the words out. “I love you, too.”
The smile lighting up his face was priceless. It was gorgeous beyond words, and it was all for me. Those same smiling lips kissed me tenderly a moment after, and all my breath whooshed out of my lungs.
“Good, because I’ve planned my future around you,” Luke murmured against my lips. “I’m in way over my head for you.”
Then he kissed me more firmly. For a long, breathless moment, we were attached to each other as if air meant nothing; when I was in Luke’s arms, oxygen became meaningless. He was all I needed, andhe was in way over his head for me. He was mine. How did I get this lucky?
Once we did come up for air, my eyes fell on the box with my name on it again. “I’ve got to ask, what’s in the box?”
Luke grinned. “Everything I can’t take with me. My heart.”
I did my awkward non-eyebrow raise, making his grin even bigger.
“The kitchen aid, pans, some other cooking supplies.”
“You’re leaving these for me?”