3. Casey #3
Something in me tightens, but this time it doesn’t feel entirely like hurt. There’s a brutal fairness to the answer that I almost respect. “Fair enough.”
His attention sharpens slightly, as if that wasn’t the response he expected.
“I expect direct communication,” he continues. “If there’s a possible problem, I want to know before it becomes one.”
“So do I.”
That earns another pause.
This one feels different.
“I don’t make a habit of hiding issues,” I add, because I cannot stop myself, because the words come too close to the wound and brush against it.
His gaze stays on mine. “No,” he says quietly. “I don’t imagine you do.”
The room seems to narrow around that.
Not because he says it warmly.
He doesn’t.
But because it sounds like he heard more than I meant to say.
I look down at the folder. “What about discipline?”
“No yelling. No threats. No empty consequences.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“She responds better when choices are limited. Two options, not open-ended questions.”
“She likes control.”
“She likes knowing where the edges are.”
I look up before I can stop myself.
There is something in that sentence that feels less about a child than it should. He looks back at me, his expression unreadable. I wonder, suddenly and inconveniently, what his edges are.
Then I hate myself a little for wondering. “Understood,” I say.
He closes the folder, though his hand remains resting on top of it. “Your space is yours. No one will enter without permission. Letty has been told to knock.”
That catches me off guard.
I blink once. “Thank you.”
“She forgets when she’s excited.”
“Most children do.”
“I don’t want you to feel crowded.”
The words are practical.
The impact is not.
For a moment, I’m back in a different life, remembering all the places where my privacy had become negotiable without anyone asking me first. Friends who knew things about my relationship before I did.
Employers who smiled across tables while keeping his secrets for him.
Rooms I’d entered believing one thing, while everyone else knew another.
I breathe in.
Slowly.
“That won’t be a problem,” I say.
His gaze doesn’t leave my face, and I have the uncomfortable sense that he sees the breath I had to take.
“I also ask,” he continues, “that any visitors be cleared with me first.”
“I don’t have visitors.”
It comes out too quickly.
His eyes narrow a fraction.
Not suspicion.
Attention.
“I mean,” I correct, smoothing the edge from my voice, “that won’t be an issue.”
He nods once, accepting the revision even if he doesn’t believe it.
Silence stretches, not awkward exactly, but weighted. The kind of silence that asks what you’ll do with it. The old version of me would have filled it. Teased him. Made some remark about the folder, the schedule, the way he looks like he was born knowing how to intimidate paper.
I don’t.
I let the silence sit between us until it becomes his problem too.
He breaks it first.
“Do you have questions?”
I do. Too many, probably, but none of them are appropriate.
What happened to Letty’s mother? Does the whole house always feel like it is holding its breath? Are you always this controlled because you like it, or because something made you this way?
I choose the safe one. “What does Letty call me tomorrow?”
He looks at me like he is recalibrating again. “Whatever you prefer.”
“It matters what she’s comfortable with.”
“She’ll call you Casey.”
The certainty in his voice should annoy me. Instead, I find myself believing him.
“Then Casey is fine.”
He nods.
Professional. Clean. Finished.
And yet neither of us moves.
I should stand first. I know that. I should thank him, take the folder, leave the room, close myself back into the quiet annex where nothing about him needs to matter.
Instead, I sit there for one breath too long, aware of the low light over the table, the faint scent of his aftershave beneath the lingering basil, the way his rolled sleeves reveal strong forearms and capable hands resting still against the folder.
He notices me noticing.
I know he does because something in his expression goes even quieter. So I stand. “Thank you for going through this with me,” I say. “I’ll review everything tonight.”
He rises too. “Good.”
“I’ll be ready at seven in the morning.”
“I expect so.”
There’s no warmth in it, but there’s no doubt either.
For some reason, that feels better than praise.
I take the folder and turn toward the corridor.
I expect him to dismiss me.
He doesn’t.
When I glance back, he’s still standing at the table, one hand resting on the back of his chair, attention fixed on me with the same controlled precision as before. Only now it feels less like assessment and more like something has failed to settle where he put it.
Not enough to name.
Not enough to trust.
Enough to make me look away first.
“Good night, Mr. Mancini.”
A beat.
“Adriano,” he says.
I stop. The correction is quiet, but it moves through the room anyway.
I turn my head slightly, not all the way. “Good night, Adriano.”
His name feels dangerous in my mouth.
I leave before either of us can notice that too much.