Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Iris
Could he be more obvious?
Yeah, buddy, just try and duck out of dinner.
As if I’m going to let him go without explaining to me what is happening. Because he obviously knows, and he obviously lied to me.
Maybe not specifically a lie, but definitely an omission. He has answers. And I’m going to figure out how to get them.
Did I love helping Winnie? Actually, yes. It was really nice to meet someone new. And to help her. Plus, I like her.
Did I love getting to stuff my face with that insanely delicious homemade pasta? Also yes.
But I really need to understand how and why this is all happening.
He has the answers. And if the way Matteo cleans a kitchen is any indication, he leans toward practical. And practical is what I need right now.
Not that I need him . I only need to figure out what he knows .
If there’s one thing I need to guard against, it’s myself. I’m self-aware enough to know that even a year ago, in the same situation, I would’ve fallen head over heels by now.
The last thing I need is to develop a crush on this guy. The second we’re in the hallway, I rush around in front of him. “Hey. You need to tell me what’s going on.”
He takes a step back, but not before I inhale the scent of pine mingled with garlic and note the flash of something unrecognizable in his dark eyes.
Man, he’s handsome. Like, unfairly handsome. I feel like I’m at a disadvantage here—while I need answers, getting them is going to be challenging, mostly because I’m not sure I can form complete sentences if he’s going to keep looking at me.
“You obviously read the same article I did, and you obviously came here to help Winnie, same as me.”
He sighs again, looking caught, and says, “I don’t know what to tell you. Like Winnie said, we ran into each other downstairs. I actually sort of know of her because of my grandparents.”
“She said she never met your grandparents.”
He pauses.
Caught ya.
“Right. She’s . . . uh . . . kind of a legend around here. Must know her from that.”
I narrow my eyes, then finally say, “You’re a horrible liar.”
He shakes his head at me. “I don’t know what you’re?—”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Did you know that, or did the newspaper tell you that?”
He quirks a brow.
“I really do have to get to work.” His voice is a low rumble, like a storm brewing just beyond the horizon.
“Are you serious?”
He can’t expect me to just walk away when I obviously know something—maybe mystical, definitely weird—is happening here.
“Oh, of course. You have to work. Sure, sure.” I say, not meeting his eyes. “Big fancy chef who cooks amazing pasta he made with his hands . But this is my life! And it’s being invaded, by . . . by magic !” My voice climbs an octave when I say this, and I know I’m being dramatic.
He whips his head around at me. “Will you keep it down?” he snaps.
I point. “ Aha !”
He shushes me.
I whisper-yell, “I knew it!”
He tries to walk down the hallway, but I follow him.
“I knew you knew something! Why won’t you just tell me what the heck is going on?”
He takes a breath, looking around the hallway as if to make sure no one is listening or watching, and just shakes his head, still moving down the corridor.
“Look. I don’t want to be bothering you with this anymore than you want me to be bothering you, but . . .” I don’t know what else to say to stop him but— “Matteo!”
He stops, and I see his shoulders sink.
“Please.” I walk to the side of him, talking with my hands. “Please—I feel like I’m going insane. I don’t know if I’m seeing things or losing it.” I let out a heavy sigh. “And there’s literally nobody else who can help me.”
He stiffens, but he doesn’t move, which I take as permission to continue.
I lay it out.
“For the past several days, I’ve been getting bombarded by these . . . newspapers. All with your name on them. I tried to return them to you, but it didn’t work. Like, this newspaper keeps coming back. At first, I thought it was just a fluke, then maybe a weird sort of prank, but now, I don’t know what to think. Plus, they show up everywhere . On my couch, in my chandelier. Stacks of them. They move by themselves. They even multiply.” I’m starting to feel panicked, knowing how this sounds when I say it out loud. “One of them even floated up in the air, and flipped around, and then . . .”
Simultaneously we say, “. . . smacked you/me in the head.”
He glances my way but doesn’t exactly make eye contact.
Something inside me settles. “What is going on?”
He looks past me, again, making sure—what, that we aren’t being followed?—and then motions to the stairwell.
I follow him into the dimly lit space and blindly think that under different circumstances, it would be pretty hot to escape into a dark stairwell with a very good-looking man who knows how to cook.
When he turns back and looks at me, I feel my knees wobble because, holy heck, those eyes .
I want to look away. Looking away could be considered self-preservation. But it’s like when someone tells you not to stare directly at the sun during a solar eclipse. Knowing you shouldn’t do something sometimes makes it harder to do.
“You’re not . . . seeing things,” he finally admits. “Weird things happen. Sometimes. It’s just part of living in this building.”
I frown. Okay. A mention of the building. This is progress. “Is this place, like, haunted?”
“No, I don’t think so. It’s not . . . like that, exactly.”
I pause. Am I really going to ask this aloud? Yes. Because I really want to know.
“Is it . . . magic?” My words echo in the cathedral-like acoustics of the stairwell, and I swear I hear the distant tinkle of chimes. Asking the question out loud makes me feel ridiculous, which is probably why I whispered it, even though we’re standing here, just the two of us .
Just the two of us.
My brain makes more of that than it should.
“Do you believe in magic?” Matteo asks.
“Do you?” I counter.
He pulls a face. “I didn’t used to.”
“But now?”
He shrugs.
“Then explain the newspapers,” I say, a little more forcefully than I mean to. “Because it doesn’t make sense.”
He squints at me, as if trying to place my face after having only met me once. “And you’re uncomfortable when things don’t make sense?”
“No, I’m perfectly comfortable when things don’t make sense. Algebra makes no sense, and I survived high school,” I say. “This mustache trend on guys in their twenties makes no sense, but that’s never bothered me enough to make me lose sleep.” I sigh. “ This is making me lose sleep.”
“I wish I could help more. I really do. I just don’t fully understand it myself.”
“But you read the paper! You showed up at Winnie’s with Italian food!”
“And you brought a cat.”
“Because of the newspaper.”
He shifts, as if he’s only now realizing he might’ve just proved my point. “Why a cat?”
“I thought she needed one,” I say. “It’s what the article talked about. I searched all over God’s green earth to find a cat that matched the exact color as the one she had before, but I had no luck. And then, out of nowhere, this random black kitten with white feet was sitting in my parking space right before I was headed upstairs to knock on her door.”
He looks antsy.
“Do you really have to get to work? ”
“I do.”
“Can you walk and talk at the same time?”
He pulls open the front door of the building and motions for me to walk through. As soon as I’m out the door, he breezes past me, walking at what feels like an Olympic clip.
I jog to catch up to him. His legs are longer, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he doesn’t really care if I keep up with him. I zip my coat to keep out the winter chill, then reach out for his arm in an attempt to stop him.
“Look, I know we don’t know each other at all, but for some reason, we both seem to be the target of some sort of strange . . .” My voice trails off because I have no idea what this is. A joke? A cosmic event? A dual mental breakdown? “I was just hoping you might be able to help me make some sense of it.”
His eyes ping my hand, still on his arm, and I quickly pull it away, then stuff it inside my coat pocket. I’m just short of begging him for answers, which I’m not above doing.
He looks away, and I can practically hear his wheels turning. The only thing I don’t know is if he’s trying to decide how to explain this, or if he’s trying to decide how not to.
“I get it,” he says. “It’s . . . odd.”
“Odd.” I huff out a laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
“And I’d really love to help you?—”
I cross my arms and fix him with what I hope is an epic glare.
“Aaaand I will. But . . .” He pauses, then turns and looks behind him.
I lean to the side, peering in the direction he’s looking, but I don’t see anything.
“But what?”
“I have to get ready for the dinner service,” he says, exasperated. “With any luck, the, um . . . newspaper delivery . . . person won’t get our apartments mixed up again.” He starts walking again, like the conversation is over.
“The delivery person?” I stand there for a second before realizing that no, I don’t want the conversation to be over. Because I’ve gotten zero answers to my ten thousand questions. “There is no delivery person. My co-workers think it’s magic. They’re convinced. Like our building has a personality or something.”
“You told your co-workers?” He shoots me a look.
“Is that against the unwritten rules?” My tone drips sarcasm. “Because nobody included an instruction manual.” I hug my coat tighter around me. “Also, why are you walking to work in this weather?”
He turns around and keeps walking.
I realize that I’m standing on a corner about a block from The Serendipity. If we make a right turn, we’ll be in a small shopping area that looks like something out of a movie. The brick buildings are old with colorful awnings and faded murals painted on several of their walls. It’s the kind of charm that makes a perfect backdrop for a photo shoot or a proposal.
I pause for a second and take it in. I’ve absently driven past here hundreds of times but never really looked . The school is in the opposite direction, and I haven’t taken time to explore my new town yet. It’s like my plan to overhaul my personality feels daunting outside of my apartment. It’s easier to hold back when there’s no one to hold myself back from.
My eyes settle on a hardware store across the street. Not a big chain store, a little mom and pop shop, and I suddenly want to go buy a screwdriver just to do what I can to keep them in business. “This block really is cool,” I say, forgetting for a minute that I’m mad at him.
He’s still walking and is now a good half a block away.
I huff and puff, then decide to run and catch up. “Hey, wait up. ”
When I reach him, he barely glances at me and asks, “What are you doing?”
I’m a little out of breath, and the cold has my lungs extra wheezy. “I just realized I’ve never seen this part of town.”
He tosses a glance down the street behind him. “You haven’t?”
I shake my head, stopping short of admitting that I have no social life. It’s not like me, really. I’ve always been a social person. I’ve always liked meeting people and hearing their stories. I’m just trying not to share all of mine. In my experience, oversharing is a turn-off.
I draw in a breath, and that’s when I see a sign coming up on our left. Aria . “Wait. Is that your restaurant?”
He keeps walking and nods, like he knows which sign I’ve seen without even looking up. “Yes. And they’re probably wondering where I am, so, can we finish this conversation later?”
“What about Winnie?”
“What about her?”
“Are we going to keep up with her? I mean, one meal and a cat aren’t going to solve her loneliness. What do we do next?”
“We?” he asks plainly.
I’ve had about enough of this. And him. “Look, you can be all ‘ I don’t know what’s going on, I’m going to be closed off and brooding ’ or whatever, but this is serious. You might know what’s going on—heck, you might even have been reading this newspaper for who knows how long, but I haven’t. This is new and exciting and scary, all at once.”
He makes a face.
“Please. Whatever wall is stopping you from helping me, just . . . peek around it for a second.”
He softens. He takes a long, deep breath, then lets it out.
“I told her I’d be back,” he says, simply .
“And you meant that?”
He frowns, as if he doesn’t understand the question. “Well, yeah. Why would you think?—”
“Because people don’t always do what they say they’re going to do.”
“Well, I’m not one of those people. I’m a man of my word.”
He meets my eyes, and all my internal organs rearrange themselves. Because I believe him. Or I want to.
It’s just . . . in my experience, there’s no such thing.
People always leave.
“I just don’t want to let her down,” I say. I might be working on putting some distance between my big feelings and everyone else, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to become the kind of person I’m actively trying to avoid.
A person who can’t be trusted.
“I’m not planning on letting her down,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He looks like he wants to go inside with every atom of his being.
I nod. “Okay.”
He spins and grabs the door as I blurt out, “But . . .” and stop him one more time.
He heaves another big sigh and slowly turns around. Again.
Might’ve done that one on purpose. Just to get a rise. Which is why there’s a three-count pause before I come up with a new question. “Do you want to let me know when you have time to finish our conversation?”
“Sure,” he says, lifting a hand in a wave.
“Should I give you my number, or . . .?”
“I know where you live,” he calls over his shoulder, turning away and entering the restaurant .
The door closes on me.
“Right.”
Apparently, that’s that.
I’m getting used to this view. The outside of Matteo’s door.
Maybe if I knock long enough, he’ll let me in.