“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I answer, and his lips pull to one side of his mouth.
“What?” I protest, even though he hasn’t said anything—mirroring the movement of his mouth. “Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
Nero studies me for a few seconds, never breaking stride, before answering.
“No.”
My heart stumbles, losing what little progress it had made toward normalcy—but that makes no sense, because Nero couldn’t have meant what the muscle in my chest thinks he did.
“I can’t even imagine how much work it took to organize a party like this,” I say, filling the silence before I let it stretch infinitely while I spiral in my own head.
“A lot. But the community did most of it. The hardest part is organizing the auction.”
I can’t hold back a laugh as I remember the conversations I overheard in my mother’s shop earlier today. Nero raises a brow.
“I heard a few things about the auction,” I explain, but his eyebrow remains lifted. “Funny things.”
Now it’s his turn to laugh.
“Funny things?”
“You have no idea.” I laugh again, remembering the desserts no one ever buys. God, I’m a terrible person—but I can’t stop myself, even under his attentive, curious gaze.
“What kind of funny things?”
“If I tell you, I’ll be an even worse person than I already am for laughing.”
“Now you’ve only made me more curious. Come on. Tell me,” he urges, and I tuck my lips between my teeth before shaking my head.
“All right. I’ll tell you something that makesmea terrible person, and you tell me what you heard. Deal?”
My reaction is a laugh that forces me to lift a hand to cover my mouth.
“I seriously doubt you can tell me something that truly makes you a terrible person. I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” he replies, still trying to control his laughter.
“Very well. Last week, Apollo invented a last-minute trip,” Nero begins—and if he didn’t already have my full attention, he would now. “It was a terrible time to travel, but no matter how much I told him that, he refused to listen.”
I stop walking when we reach the side of the hall, too invested in where this story is going to keep moving without tripping.
“So I hid his passport. He missed the trip.”
I clamp my mouth shut, trying to contain the laugh, but it scratches my throat and bursts out of me, scandalous and loud.
“And that’s not the worst part,” he warns, his grin making it clear he doesn’t think any part of it is bad. “I don’t remember where I hid it. So now he’ll need to get a new passport.”
This time I let my laughter run free, not even trying to hide it. Nero watches me with a wide smile.
God, this man is beautiful.
“You don’t need to feel bad,” I manage to say after several attempts to steady my breathing. “From what I remember of your dynamic, Apollo would probably do the same thing.”
“I don’t feel bad,” he says. “I just know that doing this makes me a bad person. Your turn.”
“Now I think you’re a much worse person than I am.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he replies with a knowing smirk, and I bite down on my lower lip before finally looking around for the first time since we walked away from the Fantastic Trio—actually paying attention to the people around us.
Stolen glances and the impression of whispers make my smile fade as I frown.
