11. Claire
CLAIRE
The next morning, I stand outside Matteo’s house holding his shirt like evidence and waiting for the part where he becomes weird.
This is unfair.
For one thing, he is not even outside yet.
I am also the one who folded his shirt, put it in my camera bag, carried it home, slept for six hours, and found it wedged between a battery case and my notebook when I went looking for a clean memory card.
Matteo has done absolutely nothing to earn the expectation.
Which does not stop me from having it.
There are versions of mornings after sex I know too well. The overbright message. The careful distance. The sudden change in tone that says last night was fun and now everyone should behave as if fun requires a strategic retreat.
I am annoyed that some part of me is already braced for one.
The door opens.
Matteo takes in my shorts, camera bag, and the pale shirt hanging over my arm.
“You stole my shirt.”
I hold it up. “I prefer accidental acquisition.”
“You folded it.”
“Apparently I steal responsibly.”
He almost smiles.
That is it.
There is no strange pause or inventory of last night. He does not try to kiss me before hello, either.
He steps aside. “Coffee?”
I hate the small amount of relief that word produces.
“Are you trying to distract me from the criminal accusation?”
“Yes.”
“Effective.”
I follow him inside.
The kitchen is improved, which is generous phrasing.
The burned bread is gone. The flour has been wiped from most of the counter, although one white streak remains near the stove like forensic evidence.
A pan is soaking in the sink. The ruined ravioli pot is still on the back burner, and two dish towels are draped over chairs because apparently even Matteo Bellandi can run out of clean surfaces.
Matteo crosses to the espresso machine while I set my camera bag beside the door.
He makes a double espresso, sets a small glass of water beside it, and carries both to the far end of the counter near the open doors.
He puts them where I keep sitting, in the strip of morning light that misses my laptop screen.
I do not comment.
This feels like cowardice.
Matteo takes the shirt from me and drops it over the back of a chair.
“Did you sleep?”
“Eventually.”
“Music suggests otherwise.”
I narrow my eyes. “Were you listening?”
“The windows were open.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is adjacent to one.”
He picks up his coffee.
Using my own material against me before nine in the morning should be illegal.
“Did you?” I ask.
“Sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Some.”
I wait for awkwardness to arrive.
It does not.
Matteo asks, “What are you shooting today?”
When he passes behind me for a spoon, he says, “Behind you,” the same way he would have yesterday.
The morning remains stubbornly normal.
I take a sip of espresso. “A family in Ravello that has kept the same tiny stationery shop for three generations. The granddaughter wants to renovate it. Her grandmother thinks renovation is a personal insult.”
“That sounds difficult to photograph.”
“That is why I’m going.”
“What are you looking for?”
I lean against the counter. “The argument without photographing the argument.”
“That sounds impossible.”
“Not impossible. Just annoying.”
“Difference?”
“An enormous one.”
He nods as if this is a serious technical distinction.
I should be relieved.
Instead I keep checking for evidence that something changed. He asks about work, makes coffee, warns me before passing behind me with a spoon. So far, nothing.
“You’re being normal,” I say.
Matteo lowers his cup.
“That sounded accusatory.”
“It might be.”
“What did you expect?”
Every useful answer reveals more than I want.
“Nothing.”
“Claire.”
I inspect the flour streak near the stove.
“Maybe a slight personality collapse.”
“After sex.”
He says the word I keep avoiding.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I hate that he asks the question like he actually wants the answer.
“Because people get strange.”
“That is not specific.”
“You cannot demand specificity every time my point is inconvenient.”
“I can ask.”
I turn the warm espresso cup between my hands.
“Sometimes effort drops after the interesting part,” I say. “People decide they have reached the section where everybody can relax.”
The humor leaves Matteo’s face.
“You think last night was the interesting part.”
“I think it was an interesting part.”
“Good correction.”
“Thank you.”
“And now?”
I look around the kitchen.
The soaking pan. His shirt on the chair. My camera bag by the door. My coffee where I like it.
“Now you have a destroyed kitchen.”
“That was true before sex.”
That gets a laugh out of me.
“Excellent point.”
He reaches for the dish towel hanging from the chair.
I catch the other end.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping.”
“You have a shoot.”
“In two hours.”
“I can clean a kitchen.”
“History argues otherwise.”
“That is cooking.”
“Shared ecosystem.”
“That is not how categories work.”
“It is now.”
I pull the towel out of his hand.
Matteo gives me the look of a man discovering that legal ownership has limited value inside his own kitchen.
I rinse the plates while he attacks the stove.
For ten minutes, the morning becomes aggressively ordinary.
We argue about whether the pan needs to soak longer. Matteo says no. The pan disagrees by refusing to release a strip of burned sauce. I find flour beneath the fruit bowl. He claims that cannot be his fault because the bowl was nowhere near the pasta. I tell him flour is migratory.
He loads the dishwasher with more care than the ravioli ever received.
I move one bowl.
Matteo moves it back.
I move it again.
He turns toward me. “Why?”
“Because now it is bothering you.”
“It blocks the water.”
“You knew that without testing?”
“Yes.”
“That is disappointing.”
“You are sabotaging the dishwasher.”
“I am introducing uncertainty.”
“You are moving a bowl.”
“Growth can be small.”
He leaves the bowl where I put it.
I am so surprised I almost reward him for it.
At some point he hands me a clean dish without looking.
I dry it.
Then another.
My camera bag stays by the door while we dry dishes and argue about the dishwasher.
I keep forgetting to check the time.
There is music playing quietly from a speaker on the shelf, something old and Italian with too much confidence in the chorus. I recognize the style from the songs that drift over the boundary at night.
I point the towel toward the speaker.
“This is you.”
Matteo pauses with the sponge. “What does that mean?”
“This music.”
“Yes.”
“You voluntarily listen to this.”
“It is good.”
“It sounds like a man making several promises he cannot keep.”
“You do not understand the lyrics.”
“I understand tone.”
“The tone is excellent.”
“The tone owns a white suit.”
Matteo laughs.
The song changes into something faster, brass and piano pushing against each other.
I put the plate down.
“Do you dance?”
His face suggests I have asked whether he understands gravity.
“Yes.”
“That answer was too quick.”
“I know how to dance.”
“You know how to stand correctly near music.”
“That is not dancing.”
“I agree.”
He sets the sponge beside the sink. “You are confusing me with Adrian.”
“Adrian looks like he would disappear before anyone could ask.”
“He does.”
“And Sebastian?”
“Sebastian believes enthusiasm replaces rhythm.”
“That also feels correct.”
I fold the dish towel over the counter.
“What about you?”
“I just answered.”
“No. You issued a statement.”
“It was accurate.”
I hold out my hand.
Matteo studies my hand, then me.
“What?”
“Evidence.”
“Claire.”
“Dance with me.”
His eyebrows rise.
I wiggle my fingers. “Unless this is another category where you have theoretical competence.”
He takes my hand.
“Move away from the stove.”
“You are already managing the dance.”
“There is hot metal behind you.”
“It is not hot.”
“It was.”
“Yesterday.”
He pulls me one step farther from it anyway.
I am smiling before we begin.
Matteo’s hand settles at my waist. Mine rests on his shoulder. He waits for the beat, which is suspicious enough.
Then he leads.
For approximately twelve seconds, he is annoyingly good.
“Absolutely not.”
He almost misses a step. “What?”
“You can actually dance.”
“I said that.”
“I assumed you were lying from arrogance.”
“I do not lie from arrogance.”
“That is reassuringly specific.”
“It is also true.”
“See, now I am suspicious again.”
“Of course you are.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“You photograph walls.”
“Walls keep secrets.”
“That explains a lot.”
I grin. “Keep dancing.”
We turn once between the counter and the table.
Then Matteo corrects my hand position.
I stop dancing.
“What?”
“You moved too far.”
“You corrected my hand.”
“It changes the frame.”
“This is not a board meeting.”
“It is also not random.”
“Are you counting?”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I am not.”
His thumb taps once against my side.
One.
I wait.
Another tap.
Two.
I start laughing.
Matteo’s mouth tightens.
“You are counting.”
“I am keeping time.”
“That is counting with better branding.”
“You are early.”
“On what?”
“The turn.”
“I reject the turn.”
“You cannot reject a turn after beginning it.”
“Watch me.”
I deliberately go the wrong way.
He catches me at the waist before I collide with the table.
The song keeps going.
For a second we are both off rhythm.
Then Matteo laughs properly, misses the next beat, and gives up trying to fix the dance.
“Again,” I say.
“This is sabotage.”
“Adapt.”
I pull him back into the music.
The next turn is worse.
Better.
His hand slides down my back when I nearly step on his foot. I tell him that was his fault. He tells me I changed direction in the middle of a step. I tell him people contain multitudes.
He laughs into my hair.
My hand tightens at his shoulder.
The kitchen is still a mess around us. One pan remains in the sink. My coffee is going cold on the counter. Matteo is barefoot because he took off his shoes somewhere between cleaning and arguing with me, and I have no idea when.
We are alone.
The thought arrives late.
Nobody watching.
I miss half a step.
Matteo steadies me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was something.”
“Your timing finally improved.”
“That is obviously not what happened.”
I lift my chin. “Do you want to keep dancing or conduct an investigation?”
He considers me.
“Dancing.”
“Excellent answer.”
I do not tell him.
The song ends before I decide what to do with that.
We stay where we are as the next song starts softer, his hand at my waist, mine against his shoulder.
He kisses me before I can make a joke.
Or maybe I kiss him.
I am not sure because the distance disappears from both directions.
His mouth is warm, familiar enough now that I know the small turn of his head before the kiss deepens. I know it, and I want it again. My fingers slide into his hair. Matteo backs me one step toward the counter, then stops before I touch it.
I feel him smile.
“What?”
“The stove is behind you.”
I start laughing into his mouth.
“You are unbelievable.”
“It is a safety issue.”
“It is eight-thirty in the morning.”
“That does not alter metal.”
I kiss him again to stop the sentence.
It works.
For a minute.
His hands settle at my waist and stay there. Mine are inside the open collar of his shirt. The kiss deepens enough that the kitchen, the shoot, and every other responsible adult decision become temporarily theoretical.
Then his phone rings on the counter.
We both ignore it.
It stops.
Mine buzzes inside the camera bag.
I close my eyes.
“No.”
Matteo’s mouth touches the corner of mine. “You have a shoot.”
“You have a call.”
“Yes.”
“I dislike ordinary life.”
“You were defending it ten minutes ago.”
“I have changed.”
His phone rings again.
I step back before his phone can ring a third time.
Matteo exhales and picks it up.
He checks the screen.
“I have to take this.”
“I know.”
He does not apologize for having a call.
Weirdly, that helps.
I shoulder my camera bag.
“Are you passing Bellamare again today?” he asks.
“You left your battery case on my table.”
I look toward the table.
My battery case is, in fact, sitting beside the bowl of peaches.
I laugh.
“Four, maybe five.”
“I will put it at the gate if I am out.”
“Perfect.”
It is about the battery case. I can work with that.
Matteo answers the call in Italian as I collect the battery case. His voice changes into the clean, clipped version I have heard from across terraces. Before I reach the door, he covers the phone with one hand.
“Claire.”
I turn.
He points toward the counter.
My coffee cup is still there beside the little glass of water, exactly where he put both when I came in.
“What?”
“You forgot your coffee.”
“It’s cold.”
“You usually finish it anyway.”
I almost ask how he knows that too.
He is already listening to whoever is speaking on the phone again.
I pick up the cup.
Cold espresso is terrible.
I drink it anyway.
By the time I reach the gate, I am smiling at a coffee cup.
This is getting embarrassing.