Page 53 of Matteo

His clothes look slightly rumpled, and he has this just-out-of-bed look about him, even though, I'm guessing he's been here working for hours.

“What were you doing?” he asks, his question confusing me.

“When?”

“When I called you.”

I drop my bag onto the floor. “Helping out.”

He watches me, bemused. “Someone said their teeth fell out.”

I giggle. “I was at the senior center, the place I told you all about.” I say.

“You didn't tell me.”

I blink, trying to remember if Matteo was there when I told the others. I guess he wasn't. “I help out at a drop-in center for seniors.”

He's staring at me like I've completely confounded him. “You volunteer there?”

“Yeah. I bake muffins, and cookies, and things, and take them in. Arthur and Irene go there. It's a nice place for them to spend some time out of the house.”

“Arthur and Irene?”

“My neighbors. They live in the apartment across from me.” I smile just thinking about them.

“Old people?” he asks, like he doesn't understand why I’d want to hang around them.

“Elderly people. They just need somewhere to go and hang out,” I say, softer now. “People to talk to, things to do. Life seems to get lonelier the older you get.”

He cocks his head, like he's studying me again. I wonder what he's thinking.

“It’s good of you to volunteer at a place like that,” he says, after a while.

“A place like what?” I ask, curious to see where this is going.

“Where … old people hang out.” His tone shifts, like he’s mildly irritated, like he doesn’t understand what would possess me to do something like that.

“Why’s it weird?”

“I never said it was weird.” He rubs the back of his neck, before folding his arms, showing off his biceps and his tattoos. My heart begins to beat faster again. Always the same reaction around him. Always.

“It's not a big deal,” I manage to say, though my voice sounds shaky.

“It is.”

I wish he didn’t have this effect on me. It would make doing my job so much easier. The work itself is easy. It’s the emotional side that’s becoming a problem. The feelings I have all tied up around this man. The way I’ve started looking forward to seeing him. The way my stomach flips when I realize that he’s in his office each morning.

“Helping out?” I shrug. “I love Arthur and Irene. They're like ... they're like family to me.”

Family.

For a second I can’t speak, because it’s true. They are. Not by blood, or obligation, just by showing up week after week, until they became part of my life.

I blink hard and look away. When I turn back, Matteo is watching me with an intensity that makes my heart ache. He nods, like something has just clicked into place.

I clear my throat, desperate to get us back onto safer ground. “You said we had another discrepancy.”

He pulls up the system logs. “Here. This is where it starts.” He sounds normal, in control. Completely oblivious to the meltdown I’m having. The irrational thoughts hovering in my head. It’s just me and him, alone in the server room, the only ones in the tech lab. The thought alone gives me goosebumps.