He sets the tray on the small table by the window and turns to look at me, his gaze traveling over the gray dress jaw shifting. Not quite displeasure. Not quite amusement.
“Gray today,” he says it like a statement.
“Gray today,” I confirm, my chin held high.
He doesn’t comment further as he settles into his chair and begins preparing my coffee.
“When I was a child,” he says, stirring, “I was obsessed with Giuseppe Arcimboldo.”
I blink at the non sequitur. “The guy who painted faces out of fruit?”
A flash of surprise crosses his features. “You know him.”
“Art history classes.” I accept the cup he offers, careful not to let our fingers brush. “Though I always thought his stuff was more weird than beautiful.”
“That’s because you’re looking at it wrong.” He picks up an orange from the tray, and I watch his hands as he begins to peel it in swift, efficient movements. A thin spiral of rind unfurling. “Arcimboldo understood that beauty is assembled. Constructed from pieces that mean nothing on their own.”
His thumb digs into the flesh, separating a segment. Those same hands caught my tear yesterday. Brought it to his mouth.
Stop.
“He painted the Holy Roman Emperor as a pile of vegetables,” I say flatly. “That’s not beauty. That’s a Renaissance shitpost.”
Elio’s mouth twitches in almost a smile. Not quite. But god help me, I want to see what it would look like if he actually let it happen.
He extends the orange segment toward me. “Try this.”
I should refuse. I should?—
My mouth opens. His fingers brush my lips as he places the fruit on my tongue. Citrus explodes across my taste buds,sweet and sharp, flooding my sense. And for one insane second I imagine what his skin would taste like if I caught his finger between my teeth.
What the fuck is wrong with you, Violet?
I chew. Swallow. Look anywhere but at him.
“You didn’t shave this morning,” I hear myself say.
Where the hell did that come from?
But it’s true. Dark stubble shadows his jaw, softening the sharp edges of his face. Making him look less like a marble statue and more like?—
More like a man.
The scar through his left eyebrow catches the light as he tilts his head, studying me. I’ve never asked how he got it. Never wanted to know anything personal about him.
Liar.
“I had other priorities this morning.” His voice is low, rough.
“What priorities?”
He doesn’t answer. Just watches me with those dark, fathomless eyes.
“Violet?”
I startle. “What?”
“I asked how you slept.”
