But the visual? Lord have mercy. The visual is objectively, scientifically good.
"Hey." His voice drops a little, playful. "You alive in there?" I blink hard. "I… yeah, just trying not to go blind from the visual assault you’ve got going on."
He raises an eyebrow, smiling, cocky as ever. "Yeah?"
"Obviously."
"Right," he says, grinning. "So what, you break into my porch just to insult my superior form?"
"I came for the presentation," I mutter, stepping back a little. "Can’t work at my place. It’s chaos."
His whole posture shifts then, like someone flipped a switch. He straightens up, stops smirking quite as much. "Alright, come in then," he says, stepping aside with a low laugh. "If you’d be so kind as to let me finish the damn shower I’ve been waiting for all day, until you showed up banging like a maniac. My room’s upstairs, first door on the left. Try not to get lost."
I walk in, the air inside cooler than I expected. Everything smells like something musky, expensive.
I try not to stare again as I pass him, but my eyes still catch the edge of the towel. And then I’m alone.
The house is actually beautiful. Not magazine-perfect. It’s lived-in but intentional. The floor is clean, the wood dark and glossy. The walls have paintings, probably from his trips or something, and the furniture looks like it was picked by someone with taste.
Not Gio. His mom, maybe.
Or maybe hedoeshave taste. Who knows.
I climb the stairs and find his door. I hesitate for a full second because it feels like I’m about to step into the heart of hell.
I have no idea what to expect. Drugs? Handcuffs? More sex toys? Maybe a whole corpse in the corner?
I finally step inside.
Okay, wow. It’s actually normal. Suspiciously normal.
Not a single illegal object in sight. I mentally apologize to myself for all the dramatic assumptions I prepared.
Me and my negative expectations.
His room is big. Way bigger than mine. It smells like Gio. There’s a king-sized bed with charcoal gray sheets, a messy pile of black clothes on a chair, and a heavy wooden desk under the window.
There are books scattered everywhere, some on architecture, some on cars. Photos on the wall, not framed, just pinned.
Him as a kid. Him with friends. Him kissing his Ducati. Him with his dad. That one makes me stop.
Gio is probably around ten.
He has the same smile he still wears, just smaller, more innocent. His dad has one hand on his shoulder. Same hair, same eyes. That hits different.
I remember him a little.
Mr. Antonio.
He picked me up from school once when my parents were both working late. Maybe in some parallel universe, where Gio and I were actually friends instead of whatever the hell we are, I would’ve asked him.
What happened.
How it happened.
Why it happened.
Because the truth is, no one ever told me. I just heard he was gone, and Gio disappeared, and that was that. I swallow, suddenly feeling like I’m somewhere too private.
