10. Matteo
MATTEO
“You are making pasta.”
Luca says it from my kitchen doorway with the same tone he would use if he had discovered smoke coming from the walls.
“I am aware.”
“By hand.”
“Yes.”
He looks at the flour across the counter, the bowl of ricotta, the pot beginning to boil, and the recipe open on my phone.
“This is for Claire.”
It is not a question.
I dust flour from my fingers. Most of it lands on my trousers.
“Dinner is for Claire.”
“You invited her here?”
“Yes.”
“And you decided this was the night to become someone’s grandmother?”
“I can make ravioli.”
“You have not made ravioli.”
“I am making ravioli now.”
Luca picks up one of the uneven squares beside my elbow. It has opened along one edge and is leaking filling onto the board.
He holds it between two fingers.
“This one has died.”
“It tore.”
“It suffered.”
I take it from him and drop it into the discard bowl.
There are more in the discard bowl than I intended.
Luca opens the oven. “What is in here?”
“Tomatoes.”
He studies the tray.
I do the same.
They have collapsed into something darker than the photograph in the recipe and considerably less attractive.
“They are roasted,” I say.
“They are frightened.”
“Go away.”
Instead he reaches for the spoon beside the sauce and tastes it.
His expression changes.
“What?”
“You did not salt this.”
“I salted it.”
“You introduced it to salt. They are not the same thing.”
I take the spoon from him.
He is right.
This is becoming irritating.
Luca folds his arms. “I can cook and leave before she arrives.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Because I asked Claire to dinner at my house, not to watch Luca produce it while I accept credit.
“I want to do it.”
Luca’s mouth moves.
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are about to.”
“I was going to say this is very sweet.”
“I was correct to stop you.”
He laughs and heads for the door.
At the doorway, he turns.
“Salt. Lower the heat. Have bread.”
“Luca.”
“Bread has saved better men than you.”
He leaves.
I lower the heat.
Then I burn the bread.
Claire arrives while I am trying to decide whether one blackened edge qualifies as salvageable.
She knocks once on the open door and steps inside carrying a bottle of wine and her camera.
She takes in the counter, the stove, then me.
I know what she sees because I have already caught my reflection in the dark window over the sink.
Flour across one sleeve. Flour on my shirt.
A pale streak near my jaw I missed when I washed my hands.
The kitchen looks as though somebody attempted to stage a cooking demonstration and abandoned it during the emergency portion.
Claire puts the wine on the counter.
“Oh, this is wonderful.”
“It is not.”
“It really is.”
“You have been here four seconds.”
“I only needed two.”
I point at the camera. “No.”
“I have not touched it.”
“You are thinking about it.”
“That accusation from you is very rich.”
“Claire.”
She grins.
I turn back to the pot. “Dinner is almost ready.”
Something knocks against the lid hard enough to make it jump.
Claire comes closer. “Is dinner trying to escape?”
“No.”
The lid jumps again.
She leans around me, looks into the pot, and starts laughing.
Three ravioli have opened.
One is floating in pieces.
I shut my eyes for a moment.
“This is a bad system,” she says.
“It is not a system.”
“That may be the problem.”
I reach for the slotted spoon. She reaches for it at the same time, and our hands knock together.
“Move,” I say.
“You invited me to dinner. I assumed survival was included.”
“I have it.”
“You absolutely do not have it.”
She takes the spoon before I can stop her and starts lifting the intact ravioli onto a plate.
I should object.
Instead I hold the plate.
We save nine.
There were twenty-two.
Claire looks at the plate. “Excellent retention rate.”
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are about to.”
Her smile widens.
She has used Luca’s exact line. I start laughing before I can stop it.
Claire freezes.
“What?”
I am still holding the plate. “Nothing.”
Her hand moves toward the camera.
I stop laughing immediately.
“Claire.”
“Can I?”
She asks it without teasing.
I look at the flour on my shirt, the ruined pasta behind me, and the spoon in her hand. She is failing to keep a straight face.
“No.”
“Okay.”
She drops her hand.
Then the sauce spits from the pan and lands directly on the front of my shirt.
Claire makes a strangled sound.
I look down.
There is now a red mark beside the flour.
She presses her lips together.
It lasts three seconds.
I laugh again.
She points at the camera. “One?”
At this point, my dignity is gone.
“One.”
She lifts it.
“Wait.”
She lowers it immediately.
“What?”
“If you make me look competent, I revoke permission.”
“That seems unlikely.”
The shutter clicks while I am still smiling.
Once.
She lowers the camera.
“Done.”
“Let me see.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“You authorized a photograph. You did not negotiate review rights.”
“I know the photographer.”
“Tragic conflict of interest.”
“Show me.”
She backs away with the camera against her chest. “If you become insufferable, I am selling it.”
“To whom?”
“I will find a market.”
“No one wants a photograph of me covered in flour.”
She checks the screen, then me.
“You would be surprised.”
The sauce is still spitting, and burned bread is cooling near the sink.
Claire does not look away.
I turn off the burner.
“Dinner,” I say.
“Strong pivot.”
“It requires intervention.”
We eat outside because the kitchen smells faintly of burned bread.
The ravioli that survived are acceptable if I ignore the fact that the filling is too wet. The tomatoes are overcooked. The salad has almost no salt because apparently I overcorrected in the wrong direction.
Claire eats all of it.
“You do not have to finish that,” I tell her.
“I know.”
“That sounded defensive.”
“It was. I watched those ravioli fight for their lives.”
“Three opened.”
“Thirteen died before service.”
“You counted.”
“I learned from a professional.”
I drink my wine.
She smiles into hers.
The last light has gone from the terrace. The kitchen doors are open behind us, and every few minutes I can hear the refrigerator cycle on beneath the low music I put on before she arrived.
Claire has kicked off one sandal. The other is still on.
I have stopped pretending this surprises me.
“You cooked,” she says.
“I attempted to cook.”
“For me.”
I look at her.
There is no joke in her face now.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I wanted her here. Because Luca offered to do it better and I wanted the failure to belong to me.
“I wanted to.”
Claire reaches across the table and rubs her thumb along my jaw.
I go still.
She looks at her thumb.
“Flour.”
“I washed my face.”
“Not successfully.”
Her hand is still close.
I catch her wrist lightly before she pulls it away.
“Matteo.”
I let go.
She does not move back.
I stand.
When I come around the table, I stop in front of her.
“Can I kiss you?”
She tips her head. “You have before.”
“Not tonight.”
Her smile softens.
“Yes.”
I kiss her.
Claire rises so fast her knee catches the underside of the table. The glasses jump. She laughs against my mouth, one hand catching my shirt.
“Smooth,” I say.
“Your furniture attacked me.”
“You stood up.”
“Details.”
She kisses me again before I can answer.
Her hands skim my sides, then stop at my waist.
She smiles against my mouth.
“What?”
“I was expecting more layers.”
“It is summer.”
“I know. You just dress like paperwork.”
I put my hand at the back of her neck and kiss her until neither of us is laughing.
Her fingers close in my shirt. My other hand finds her waist. I have been thinking about touching her since a delivery van interrupted us on the path.
Claire pulls back first.
Her lips are swollen.
“Inside.”
It takes me a second.
“The kitchen?”
She stares at me.
I recover.
“My bedroom.”
“Excellent. We have restored competence.”
She takes my hand.
That ends the discussion.
Upstairs, I barely get the door closed before she turns and kisses me again.
I back her against it, then stop myself.
“Too much?”
“No.”
Her answer is immediate, but she catches my face between her hands anyway.
“Matteo.”
“Yes?”
“If I want you to stop, I will tell you.”
I nod.
“And if you keep asking me every twelve seconds, I am going to become violent.”
I laugh into her mouth.
“Understood.”
“Good.”
She pulls my shirt free of my trousers and starts undoing buttons.
I let her.
By the third, her patience fails and she pushes the shirt off my shoulders instead.
Her eyes move over me with no attempt to hide what she is doing.
I return the favor.
Claire’s thin black dress looked simple downstairs. Up here, with her hair falling loose and one strap slipping toward her shoulder, I lose every useful word in every language.
I touch the bare skin at her waist.
She shivers, catches my wrist, and presses my palm flatter against her.
Then she reaches behind herself, pulls the zipper down, and lets the dress fall.
She steps out of it.
“Your turn.”
I obey.
We make it to the bed with less grace than I would prefer. Claire’s heel catches the edge of the rug. I catch her before she falls.
She looks down.
Then up at me.
“Do not say anything.”
“I was not going to.”
“You were about to make a floor-safety observation.”
“I was thinking one.”
“I knew it.”
She is laughing when I kiss her again.
The laughter disappears when my hand slides over her stomach and lower.
Her fingers tighten against my shoulder.
I slow down.
“Tell me.”
“There.”
One word is enough.
Her head drops back against the pillow. She reaches for me, impatient now. Claire Bennett argues with nearly every instruction I give. Now she is pulling me closer without hesitation, and the last useful thought in my head disappears.
I kiss her neck, then the inside of her wrist when she pushes my hair back.
A small sound slips out when I do that.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“You are very intense for a man who murdered dinner.”
I bite lightly at her shoulder.
The sound breaks.
“That,” she says, “was unfair.”
“I am adapting.”
“Dangerous.”
She pulls me over her.
I reach for the bedside drawer.
Claire watches me open it.
“Please tell me the organization in there is accidental.”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
I take out a condom.
The teasing leaves her face.
“Come here.”
I do.
I stop just short of her.
Claire pulls me closer.
Her hand closes around my wrist, then slides up my arm as I move into her slowly.
Claire’s eyes close for a second.
I stop.
She opens them.
“Do not stop.”
I do not.
I try to keep the first few movements controlled.
Then she pulls me down and kisses me, hard.
That lasts perhaps another thirty seconds.
She moves with me, meets me, tells me what she wants without turning it into a conversation. When I lose the rhythm once because she says my name into my mouth, she smiles like she notices.
I do not give her time to comment.
She makes a breathless sound that might have been a laugh before I kiss it away.
By the time she comes apart under me, I am already too close.
I follow her a few moments later with my face against her neck and absolutely no interest in pretending I handled any of this with dignity.
Her hand stays on my back.
The room smells faintly of flour because apparently I brought the kitchen upstairs on my clothes.
Then Claire says, “Well.”
I lift my head.
She is looking at me with the smallest smile.
“That is what you said after the first kiss.”
“I like consistency.”
I start laughing.
She does too.
It takes several minutes before either of us moves.
I bring her water. She drinks half the glass without stopping, then points toward the door.
“Food.”
“You ate.”
“I survived your dinner. Different category.”
Downstairs, I cut peaches and cheese because neither requires heat.
Claire sits on the counter wearing my shirt and nothing on her feet.
She takes one bite of peach.
“This is the best thing you made tonight.”
“I cut it.”
“Exactly.”
“That is insulting.”
“It is accurate.”
I lean against the opposite counter, drinking water.
She looks at the kitchen disaster.
“We should clean this.”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lift.
“Tomorrow.”
“Who are you?”
“I have had a difficult evening.”
“You got lost two days ago and destroyed ravioli tonight. The decline is alarming.”
That gets a smile out of me.
She finishes the peach, then slides off the counter.
“I’m going back to Ginestra.”
I set down my glass.
“Okay.”
She waits.
I have several.
Do you regret it.
Are we doing this again.
What does this mean.
I keep them to myself.
“I can walk you,” I say.
“I know the path.”
“Yes.”
She smiles a little. “Look at you.”
“What?”
“Accepting information.”
“I do that frequently.”
“Sure.”
She changes in the bedroom and comes back carrying the camera, the photograph of my failure still inside it.
At the door, she turns.
“Good night, Matteo.”
“Good night, Claire.”
She kisses me once, short and deliberate.
Then she leaves.
I do not follow.
I clean enough that Luca will not declare an emergency in the morning, leave the rest, and go upstairs.
Sometime later, I wake in the dark.
For a few seconds I do not know why.
The windows are open.
The night is warm.
Bellamare is quiet.
I lie there listening.
Nothing comes from Casa Ginestra.
Then music starts next door, low through the trees.
A woman singing in Italian. Claire singing over her, badly and without shame.
Only then do I turn over and close my eyes.