“Dante? Over the top?” I arch one eyebrow. “Never.”
“Point taken.” She laughs, and her posture relaxes slightly.
“I brought food.” I hold up the bags. I’m gonna need a moment to process the fact that she’s Dante’s family, more or less, but that can wait. “Want to join me for lunch? Unless you ate already…”
“Oh.” Minerva presses a hand to her core. “No, I completely forgot.” She stands up, then reaches for her mug of tea. “Oops, it’s cold. I wonder how long I was sitting there.”
Of course, she forgot. She gets swallowed by her brain and forgets to tend to her body, and something warm and stupidly protective lights under my ribs.
I glance down at her papers as I follow her into the kitchen. Kepler’s napping on the couch, belly-up and legs contorted in such a way that I have to wonder if the little guy really has bones or if he’s a non-Newtonian fluid.
Lying next to him on the sofa is a folder. One of the papers is loose, sticking out the top, and has a caption that reads,Con List for Luca Bianchi.
Luca. She’s said that name before.
Which means I fucking hate him.
“Did you check the mail, by the way?” Minerva asks. “Your ring should be here.”
“My ring? For the door?” I stop prying into her personal business and beeline it to the kitchen. “I already have one. Did you order another?”
“No, I got you an Aura. I ordered one for you, remember? If I’m going to be an assistant, I’m going to be the best.”
“Okay, but how does a ring help me?” I set the bag of food on the table and dump the mail beside it. Sure enough, there’s a package in the mix.
Minerva scoops it up and tears it open. “It’s a fitness ring. Here, take this, and give me your phone.”
I take the ring and pass my phone over to her without question. She already knows my passcode, and she starts tapping away on the screen while I stare at the plain metal band lying in my palm. It doesn’t look like much, but when I turn it around a few times, I can see the little… nodes or whatever on the inside of the band.
“Put it on,” she urges.
“Right.” This time, I don’t follow her orders. Which finger, exactly, am I supposed to use?
“Index,” she says, like she’s reading my mind. Her cheeks are pink.
“Well, I don’t have beautiful women buying me rings every day, so I wasn’t sure what this was all about,” I joke. Ugh, that sounded sleazy as hell. I’m so fucking bad at this. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable living here.
“Technically, you bought it.” Minerva’s whole face is red now. “Put it on yourindexfinger, and we’ll get started.”
I slip the ring on. “There you go. Do you mind if I start eating?”
“Oh.” Minerva goes rigid. “Sorry, I just got caught up in it. I’m excited to see how this works.”
“It’s okay. If you want to keep doing what you’re doing, I don’t mind, but I’m starving.” My stomach drops. I hate that I can’t always see the landmines before I step on them. I hate even more that she thinks she needs to shrink because of something I said.
“No, it’s fine. It was thoughtful of you to bring me food.” She pokes my phone back toward me. “I should eat it while it’s hot.”
I don’t understand what just happened. Ten seconds ago, she was buzzing with excitement, and now she looks like I kicked her ferret.
Minerva hasn’t told me much about her family, and my grip on the details is hazy at best, but I know that her family did a real number on her before they kicked her out. She was literally living inside a rust bucket in Dante’s parking lot. I may not know what I said wrong, but I have a good idea of where her trauma’s coming from.
After a prolonged awkward silence, I ask, “Want to take this out to the balcony?”
Minerva responds with a mute nod and sweeps her unopened box off the table. At the sound of the balcony door opening, Kepler comes running.
“Is he allowed out? Are you worried about him escaping?”
Minerva shakes her head. “He’s good.”
