Lorenzo pov
Chapter six
L O R E N Z O
Something about her is fundamentally different from every other girl I've ever met and for one suspended second, I can't really decide whether that fact irritates or relieves me.
Maybe it just intrigues me.
But one thing I know for sure: she is annoying as fuck.
I break eye contact first. Not because she unnerves me, but that gives me something more useful than a staring contest: distance enough to actually see her.
Her light blonde hair is pulled into a loose bun, the kind that isn't meant to last the day ,strands falling around her jaw, over her shoulders, in no particular order.
A simple white shirt, a little worn at the collar.
Shorts. And black flip-flops. A canvas bag with a cracked leather strap that has clearly seen too many semesters.
Nothing about her is dressed for an audience.
And then I see it above her right eyebrow, half-hidden by a fallen strand of hair. A bruise, faint but unmistakable. Pale yellow-blue at the edges, still tender-looking. I'd been wondering since last week whether she was the girl Theo had hit with the football or not .
Now I know.
She hadn't mentioned it. Hadn't reached up to cover it. Hadn't done anything with it at all, actually, which tells me more about her than the bruise itself does.
She is pretty in a Natural unbothered way. Full mouth pressed into a flat line, ocean-blue eyes currently doing something between a challenge and a verdict.
But pretty isn't what holds my attention.
What holds my attention is the expression underneath it.
"I don't think your girlfriend would be too happy if I worked here"she says challenging"Oh, sorry"A slight tilt of her head. "I meant girlfriends"
She lets the plural sit in the air between us. Not twisting anything. Not waiting to see if it lands. Just stating it.
My smile deepens despite myself.
She knows how to play.
Most people who try to needle me need the reaction, want the confirmation that the strike has connected. It always gives them away. She's delivered the line and is already elsewhere in her head, already done with it. That kind of composure is harder to come by than people think.
I close the distance between us. Just enough for the conversation to become private. Just enough that she'll register I've moved.
"Jealous, stalker? "
She laughs then her palm presses flat against my chest pushing me way enough to restore the exact distance I'd closed, enough to make the point cleanly. Like returning something to where it belongs.
And to my surprise I let her.
"I don't play with other people's feelings snob " she says bitterly.A pause, and something shifts beneath the surface of her expression , something quieter before she hiss "It's pathetic"
Causing my jaw to tighten just a little bit.
I am used to people choosing their words around me.
Too carefully, always rounding every sentence until it can't cut, softening the edges before delivery.
Even people who genuinely dislike me tend toward the performative version of it, the kind that is really just a request for attention dressed in sharper clothes.
She's handed me the bluntest version of the sentence and held eye contact while I take it.
And bevor I can decide what to say next a small voice interrupts this tention.
"Enzo"Mia stands in the doorway.
One hand on the frame on holding her Plushy.
She is wearing the yellow dress. The one with the tiny stitched sun over the pocket gold thread on yellow wool, barely visible unless you know to look.
She'd worn it for three straight weeks last spring, through two washes and a running argument with Rosa about whether fabric needed to breathe.
The left hem has a loose thread she always smooths down absently with her thumb when she is thinking.
Two braids, slightly uneven, done herself. She is, as always, entirely unbothered by that and completely proud of them.
She isn't looking at me.
She is looking at her.
And I move before I think about it. Half a step. I'd done it so many times it has stopped feeling like a decision.
I'd started doing it properly when she was four years old. At a Gala when a photographer had decided it was appropriate to crouch down to her level and ask questions about her health. About her condition. With that particular brand of prying sympathy that disguised itself as kindness.
She'd been old enough to understand the tone, even if not the words.
After that, I'd made sure word got around quietly, the way things got handled in families like mine ,that no one would think to cross that line again.
And in rooms outside our control, I stood between her and whatever was coming until I knew what it was.
She'd started asking questions this year. But I still don't know what to tell her .I don't have good answers yet. Maybe I never will.
So I do what I've always done.
Protect her.
"Hey, piccola" I crouch to her level, keep my voice easy"I thought you were with Rosa."
"Rosa is on the phone" she reports, with the gravity of someone officially documenting a small injustice.
Her eyes drift past my shoulder.
Back to Sophia.
"How is she? "
"She's nobody" I say quietly not turnig around. My full attention to my littel sister "I'm hungry"She says paling with her Plushy.
"Okay" I stand and without thinking, smooth down the loose thread on her hem the way she always does herself. "Two minutes"She accepts this without question and disappears down the hall
I watch until she turns the corner bevor I face Sophia again.
She isn't looking at me the way she had been.
The sharpness is still there. But something at the edges has shifted. Something quieter. Something she hasn't decided how to categorize and is actively trying not to let show.
Like she'd seen something she hadn't expected.
Like she is revising.
I don't like that look.
It is too close to understanding. Too close to seeing something I hadn't offered and have no interest in having examined.
I keep my expression where it is.
"That was rude im not a Nobody" she says.
Then She picks up the clipboard from the counter and presses it flat against my chest. Two fingers curl at the edge. Her eyes don't move from mine.
Not a shove. More precise than a shove. A point, made through contact.
"Listen" Each word placed deliberately. "I don't care what you are. Or how you are. Those aren't my problem" A pause. "But you don't get to treat people like they're nothing. "She holds my eyes for one more beat , making sure I've taken the full weight of it.
Before she changes the subject "Was that your sister? "A beat. The faintest softening at the corners of her mouth. "She's sweet. She has your..."
"That's none of your business"The words come out flat and sharp before she's finished the sentence. A line, not a suggestion.
She blinks once. Something moves across her face it was not hurt, not quite. More like recalibration.
"I wasn't going to write about her" she says.
Her voice has changed less careful now, more direct.
Quieter, and somehow sharper for it. "I don't know who you think I am, Mr. Calloway, but I have no interest in publishing anything about you, your house, or your family. None" She holds my gaze.
"I'm here because I was asked to be. That's all"She reaches into her bag and produces the measuring tape. Holds it out between us.
"I'm done here. If you're too busy collecting girlfriends to manage this yourself, ask one of them for the measurements. Bring me the numbers tomorrow at school"
A pause.
"Please"The word costs her something.
I look at her.
Not the slow, deliberate once-over I use when I want to make someone uncomfortable no that is a different tool and I know exactly when I reach for it. This is something else.
I just look.
At the jaw held in quiet determination. The shoulders squared and kept there. The fact that she hasn't moved the clipboard from my chest.
"You really are the first" I say amused.
She blinks. "What?"
"Girl who actually doesn't want to be here" I let my eyes move over her then challenging her, but to my surprise she doesn't look away.
Doesn't shift her weight. Only her jaw tightens, by the smallest possible fraction.
"Refreshing"She stares at me for exactly one more second before she rolls her eyes.
"Wow" Dry as concrete "Lucky me" And turns away. As if the conversation has been logged, assessed, closed.
"That must be very uncomfortable for you" she says walking to the door.
I stand there a moment.
The measuring tape in my hand.
I turn it over once, slowly, between my fingers.
The thing about someone who wants nothing from you, I am beginning to understand, is that they are significantly harder to read.
And considerably harder to stop thinking about.
"Let's see about that, Dolcezza."
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