Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Matteo
I stand, staring at the door Iris just closed.
I lean forward and let my forehead fall against it.
Out loud, I ask one simple question. Aimed directly at myself. “ What are you doing?”
I wanted to kiss her. My desire for her was so overwhelming, I almost gave in. And it’s been years since that was a battle I had to fight.
This is why I stopped dating. This is why I don’t let myself get close to people. This is why I am better off alone.
Watching her at dinner, the way she slipped so seamlessly into my life, it changed something inside of me. Seeing the way my people gravitated to her. The way both Nic and Val found me after family dinner and gave me all the reasons I needed to make sure I didn’t screw this up. Two nosy sisters who swear they know what I need better than I do.
“She makes you happy.”
“You’re you again.”
“She’s just so fun. Like sunshine. Heck, I might be in love with her.”
“We’re all in love with her. ”
In love with her . The words feel strange as they pinball around my mind for the rest of the night. People use the word so casually, but love—real love, the kind I don’t believe in anymore—there’s nothing casual about it.
And on the day of Aria’s funeral, I promised myself . . . never again. I was content with that promise. I am content with that promise. Because if I ever have to go through that kind of pain again, I won’t survive.
Besides, Iris needs someone who likes to share emotions and feelings and all the crap I suck at. I don’t see that changing.
The next day, when she shows up after work and Val loops an arm through hers and insists she stay for family dinner, the attraction doesn’t wane.
If anything, it only grows.
And somehow, we get past the awkward near-kiss moment without ever addressing it, which is not very adult, but I’m not going to complain.
Days turn into weeks, and Iris and I settle into a strange new rhythm. I suppose most people call it “friendship,” but it feels slightly foreign to me.
She comes by after work, eats with us, charms everyone, then leaves. I find her waiting for me when I get home from work, usually with a new newspaper and five different theories about what it wants us to do next.
Us.
People say it takes twenty-one days to form a habit, and we’re well on our way.
Winter has lost its chilly grasp on the air outside, and things are starting to wake up. It’s been three weeks since I almost kissed Iris, and we keep getting closer.
And I still haven’t told her about Aria.
It’s a weight I need to unload, but I haven’t found the right time. I don’t want anything to change. The light feeling I only feel when she’s around. The way she doesn’t see me as broken. The quiet laughter she tends to coax out of me.
When she’s around, it’s like I’m collecting a list of things I like about her—the trail of freckles across her nose. How excited she was to give a wonky-looking crocheted jellyfish to one of my servers who is pregnant with her first baby. How she pulls a chair up to the opposite side of my counter and tells me stories about her day while I work. She’s so animated when she talks about her job, I feel like I know all of her students. And her co-workers, whom she’s brought to dinner several times.
Val and Nic take to them immediately, and twice I’ve let them go home early so they could all go out for “girls’ night,” which, I found out later, was just going back to Iris’s apartment to watch chick flicks and eat leftovers from the restaurant.
For whatever reason, Iris isn’t put off by my attitude or my tendency to hold myself out of conversations. She’s content to do most of the talking. She asks plenty of questions, but she spaces them out, probably worried I’ll shut down like I always do.
Her approach is working. Little by little, I’m opening up to her. I tell her stories about summers with my grandparents and the way I discovered how much I love to cook. I tell her about studying in Italy with a chef my grandma knew and about starting the restaurant.
Still, I do not tell her about Aria.
The newspapers seem to be on a fairly regular delivery schedule now, like we subscribed and whoever’s sending them wants a five-star review.
They’re still all addressed to me, still all delivered to her.
In the three years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had such frequent deliveries. And every time we solve a riddle or meet someone new or connect old friends, Iris is thrilled she gets to help another person.
I’ve started to appreciate something that used to be such a burden. And I know that’s because of her.
She beams as she plans a singles event in the courtyard to connect two young people over their incredibly specific and unique love of guacamole.
She giggles as an animal lover just so happens to be in the right place at the right time—standing next to Iris and me at the coffee shop—when she overhears us talking about a new dog park that’s opening and they’re looking to hire new people.
She shines as she gets permission to hang a community bulletin board by the mailboxes, where people can post when they have a need or can fill a need—just in time for an elderly woman to post about a faulty dishwasher and the middle-aged plumber to offer his services for free.
It turned out that the plumber and the woman’s son were best friends when they were ten, but because of a move, they lost touch. Magically reconnected and friendship rekindled.
She practically dances as she forces me back to Winnie’s on a Sunday afternoon for Jerry’s goulash, which he insists I’m going to want to put on my menu.
I don’t.
We work out the riddles and carry out the magic’s demands, and every single time we’re successful, it’s like she’s won gold at the Olympics. She’s so invested in every person, so committed to seeing it all through.
She’s so happy to help people she doesn’t even know .
And unlike me, once she’s helped, she doesn’t disappear. She stays in touch. She knows all their names.
I can practically see the ripple effect she’s having on this community.
Dante is now dating Iris’s co-worker, Brooke. I’m not convinced that was magic, but it was Iris.
I’m starting to think the two are the same thing.
Last Wednesday, after family dinner, my hostess, Jenna, got sick and had to go home. Iris jumped in without a beat of hesitation. She was so good at it that several of my customers tipped her. She filled in two more nights until Jenna came back, and while everyone loves Jenna, I got the sense that most of my staff was sad when Iris left right after we cleared the plates from family dinner.
When she’s not around, I think about her. Check in on her. I’ve started carrying my phone just in case she texts me.
And every day, it gets harder and harder to deny that my feelings for Iris aren’t going away. I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do.
I’m falling for her.
Guilt nips at my heels every time I’m with her. Every time I laugh. Because isn’t letting myself have feelings for Iris a betrayal to the woman I promised to love for the rest of my life?
Iris thinks I’m still anxious to be rid of the magic, but the truth is I’m dreading the day one of the newspapers shows up at her door with her name on it and not mine.