I haven’t done anything either. Nothing but sleeping with a Conti…
He nods as if we’ve concluded a deal. Then he steps aside, inviting me to go first.
I slip my feet into the nearest pair of shoes.
“I need my phone,” I push.
“You won’t need it.” He gestures again, courtly as a host.
The night air hits my face like a wake-up slap as we step outside. A dark sedan idles at the curb. He opens the rear door.
I look back once, into the house, at the slice of kitchen I can see from here, the stupid lemon bowl with one fruit off-center. Then I get in.
My last thought as we pull away from the curb is: Gio.
I wish you were here.
Chapter Thirty Four
Giovanni
I wake before the alarm, the room still dark. Habit drags my eyes to the ceiling. The city beyond the glass is just starting to wake up. Unlike Italy, New Jersey never pretends to be romantic. It just is what it is at 5:00 a.m.
I lie there for half a minute and let the first thought pass through me.
Bianca.
She insisted on going to her place when we got back yesterday. She was polite about it and firm in the way that means no argument will change the answer.
Time alone, she said. A shower in her own bathroom. Clothes that were hers. I gave her that space like a civilized man. I stood at the curb, put her in the sedan, told the driver 6:00, and watched the street swallow them.
It was a mistake to let her go.
But I let her have the night, and the logic for doing it still holds: she’s not property, she’s not on a leash, she asked for time and space, and I gave it to her.
It doesn’t stop the irritation at myself that sits just below my ribs. I throw back the sheet, stand, and the floor greets me with the faint chill it gathers through the night. I stretch. Vertebrae check in. A knot in my right shoulder whines; I make a note to punish the knot at the gym.
The mirror over the dresser throws me a half-lit version of my face—jaw shadowed, hair not yet civilized. I pull on the track pants I leave folded on the chair and a t-shirt that has seen better mornings. The apartment yawns to life when I step into the hall: motion sensor lights, the quiet hum of the HVAC.
I step into the shower and let the hot water come, hands braced on tile, head bowed as if there’s something to confess. The spray hammers the back of my neck, and I think about how Bianca stood under a different shower, eyes dark and bright, mouth rawfrom choices she asked me to make for her and then thanked me for making.
I close my eyes and let the heat of the memory move through me. Then I turn the water colder until discipline takes control again.
By the time I’m dry and dressed, the sky has found a color. I move through the kitchen without turning on any lights. The glass wall gives me enough light through the rise of the buildings on either side. I open the refrigerator, look at nothing, take out nothing, close it again.
No need to make breakfast. Bianca is being picked up at 6:00. I wish I’d insisted on 5:30.
I can put a cup of coffee in her hand when she walks through the door and decide whether I want to draw it out over breakfast or if I want to kiss her brainless first. That is the kind of problem I enjoy.
I check my watch. Fifteen minutes.
The phone on the counter sits silent and dark. I reach for it anyway, thumb waking the screen out of habit. Nothing yet. I set it down, force myself to step away from the counter, and make a circuit of the apartment instead.
It’s mindless and useful: a quick eye across the table where I left the file for a 10:00 a.m. meeting, a glance toward the gym bag near the door, a check that the envelope for the courier is stillwhere it belongs. Everything is where it belongs. I live alone. Everything is always exactly in place.
At 6:00 on the dot, I call the driver.
“She hasn’t come out yet, sir,” he says, the engine noise soft in the background. “I’m giving it a few more minutes.”
