17. Claire
CLAIRE
At six thirty-two, Matteo slides a small glass of water toward my espresso without saying a word.
I have been sitting across from him for six minutes, and the only sound either of us has made is the click of my trackpad and the small ceramic tap when he set his cup down.
By six thirty-eight, I have discovered first coffee comes with a silence rule.
The terrace outside his house is cool enough that I have stolen one of his shirts again.
Technically, I borrowed it last night after spilling water down mine.
It is also still here because I forgot to take it home.
A paperback I started three days ago is face down on the chair beside me. My spare charger is plugged into the wall near Matteo’s desk. There is a hair tie around the base of the lamp that I do not remember leaving.
None of this has been discussed.
My laptop screen shows four versions of the same photograph of an old woman carrying basil through Ravello.
I move between them.
Matteo drinks coffee.
His phone is facedown.
At minute eight, I forget myself.
“Do you think the hand is distracting?”
Matteo lifts one finger.
“One?”
He takes another drink.
I check the clock on the wall inside.
“You have a silence rule.”
He finally looks at me.
Two minutes later, he sets the empty cup down.
“Good morning.”
I start laughing.
“That is deranged.”
“It is ten minutes.”
“You timed me.”
“I did not need to.”
“Worse.”
He reaches for the coffee pot and pours a second cup.
Only then does he turn his phone over.
Three messages appear before the screen fully wakes.
I point at it. “So what happens during the sacred ten?”
“Nothing.”
“You stare at the sea?”
“Sometimes.”
“You count boats?”
“No.”
“Stones?”
“Claire.”
I grin. “Why ten minutes?”
He studies his coffee before answering.
“Because after that, someone usually wants something.”
The answer is so simple I nearly miss it.
“A decision?”
“Usually.”
“A signature?”
“Often.”
“A hotel?”
“More often than should be possible.”
I glance at my laptop.
“And I’m allowed in the ten minutes?”
Matteo pours water into the small glass beside my espresso.
“You were not asking for anything.”
I was editing. He was drinking coffee. That is the entire qualification.
I take a sip.
“Very exclusive club.”
“Membership can be revoked.”
“For talking?”
“Yes.”
“Harsh.”
“You lasted eight minutes.”
“Personal record.”
His mouth lifts.
I turn back to the basil photograph.
Three minutes later, I switch to the next image and stop touching the trackpad.
Matteo says, “The second one.”
I turn slowly.
“You were looking.”
“You asked.”
“Before the ten minutes ended.”
“It was still the second one.”
I check the photograph again.
He is right.
I hate that.
“Inspector,” I say.
His eyes narrow. “No.”
“It suits you.”
“It does not.”
“You stopped sex to inspect a rusted cleat.”
“That was tetanus prevention.”
“You moved me away from a stove that had been cold for a day.”
“It had previously been hot.”
“You supervise dishwasher bowls.”
“You sabotage dishwasher bowls.”
“That is not a defense.”
“It is accurate.”
I save the second image.
The name stays.
When I reach for the charger, the cable catches around the leg of my chair.
Matteo’s hand moves.
“Do not organize my electrical system.”
“It is not a system.”
“Historical Claire says otherwise.”
“Historical Claire put a camera in grocery bags and took it into a pool.”
I look up. “You remembered that too?”
“You told me in the boathouse.”
“During a vulnerable moment.”
“You were wearing my shirt and insulting my shoes.”
“Exactly. Sacred.”
He sits back.
The cable remains tangled.
I leave the cable tangled and go back to the basil.
By nine, Matteo is answering email at the other end of the table and I am deep enough into editing that the world narrows to color, sequence, and one bad shadow I cannot make stop looking green.
He asks one question about breakfast.
I answer without looking up.
Ten minutes later, a plate appears beside my elbow.
Toast. Peach. Nothing touching the laptop.
I take a bite.
“Thank you.”
He does not answer.
I glance up.
He is on a call.
I have learned his calls too.
On easy calls, he leans back and says someone’s first name.
On this one, he sits forward before he answers.
Then he closes the laptop.
I put my headphones on without being asked.
For twelve minutes, I hear only my music.
This has happened often enough that I know he will tap the edge of my laptop if the house catches fire. Everything below that threshold can wait.
When I take them off, Matteo is still speaking Italian, slower now. He has a pen in his hand and has stopped writing with it.
I know enough not to interrupt.
Five minutes later, he ends the call.
“Problem?”
“Opening inspection in Milan.”
“Bad?”
“Annoying.”
“That is not the same category.”
“No.”
I wait.
He rubs one thumb over the side of the pen.
“Potentially bad.”
“Do you need to go?”
“Not today.”
I nod and return to my screen.
He returns to his.
Knowing when to stop asking already feels normal.
At one, Luca sends a message to the group that says FOOD NOW, which seems to be the Bellamare equivalent of a calendar invitation.
I arrive twelve minutes later.
Nobody comments.
Nico is at the table with a bowl of olives in front of him. Sebastian is stealing them one at a time and pretending not to. Adrian is reading something on his phone. Luca is carrying a plate from the kitchen.
Matteo is already seated.
He looks at the chair beside him.
I take the one across from Nico instead.
Matteo says nothing.
Sebastian notices and smiles.
“Do not make that face.”
“What face?”
“The one that makes Nico tired.”
Nico says, “All of them.”
Luca puts down the plate. “Eat.”
“What is it?”
“Food.”
“Excellent detail.”
“You have been here almost a month and still ask questions before eating.”
“I value informed consent.”
Sebastian reaches for the bread.
Luca slaps his hand away.
“Not you.”
“This is discrimination.”
“You ate in the kitchen.”
“That was testing.”
“That was half the loaf.”
Adrian looks up. “It was more than half.”
Sebastian turns to him. “You saw that?”
“I was sitting there.”
I take a tomato before the argument becomes legal.
Adrian reaches behind me for the water bottle without asking me to pass it. I move my elbow. Nico shifts the bread basket away from Sebastian and toward me because he has chosen a side.
Nobody makes room for me anymore.
I already have room.
No one asks how things are going with Matteo.
No one calls me his girlfriend.
Nico asks whether I still have the photograph of the table.
Luca wants to know if Elena Serra emailed.
Sebastian tells me the blue ceramic dog from the wrong road has probably filed a missing-person report.
Matteo tells him the road was badly marked.
I say, “Inspector remains sensitive about this.”
Matteo raises an eyebrow.
Luca stops chewing.
“Inspector?” Sebastian asks.
“Nothing,” Matteo says.
That is enough to make all four of them interested.
Sebastian points between us. “No, there is clearly a story.”
“There are several,” I say.
Matteo’s expression goes flat.
I take another tomato.
Nico says, “Do not ask.”
“I was not asking you.”
“You were about to ask everyone.”
Luca grins. Adrian stays on his phone, which probably means he is listening harder than anyone.
Matteo says, “The subject is closed.”
I smile sweetly. “Very official, Inspector.”
Sebastian makes a wounded sound.
I take another tomato and refuse to explain.
My phone buzzes against the table.
Tessa.
I expect a contract question.
Instead I get an itinerary.
The file opens to three pages of dates, cities, hotel names, call times, train windows, and a first shoot day exactly five days after I hand back the keys to Casa Ginestra.
There is a gear allowance in kilograms.
A pickup window in Osaka.
A note about a market vendor who will only be photographed before six-thirty.
A hotel change on a day with two shoots, which I already hate.
Until now, Japan has mostly been a word in Tessa’s messages.
I stop eating.
Matteo notices.
Of course he does.
“Work?” he asks.
I nod.
“Tessa sent the logistics.”
“Good?”
“Mostly.”
Luca asks if I need more water, gets distracted by Sebastian taking bread again, and the table moves on without waiting for my answer.
I scroll.
Osaka first.
Kyoto after that.
Three hotel changes in the first nine days.
A market outside the city with a call time that suggests nobody involved respects sleep.
My flight leaves two days before the first shoot.
The dates sit beside each other on the screen whether I like them or not.
I scroll back to the first page.
There are twenty-nine mornings left at Ginestra.
I know because the rental dates are at the top of Tessa’s email.
I definitely did not calculate anything.
The number calculated itself.
I let the screen go dark.
Matteo does not ask.
That bothers me for no sensible reason.
Later, we walk back toward his side of Bellamare.
I bring up Japan before he can.
“There are three hotel changes in nine days.”
Matteo glances at me. “That is inefficient.”
I laugh once. “Thank you.”
“Do you have a local producer?”
“Yes.”
“Same person for Osaka and Kyoto?”
“No.”
“What about the market outside Kyoto?”
“There is a fixer for that day.”
“Gear transport?”
I stop walking.
Matteo takes another step before he notices.
He turns.
“What?”
“I was not asking you to solve it.”
“I did not solve anything.”
“You are building a spreadsheet in your head.”
“I asked four questions.”
“Exactly.”
His eyebrows draw together.
“You told me the travel was complicated.”
“I was telling you about my day.”
“I know.”
“You sound like you are auditing it.”
“I am interested.”
“That is not how it sounds.”
A couple comes up the path behind us. We move aside without speaking until they pass.
Matteo glances toward the sea, then back at me.
“What did you want me to ask?”
I hate the question immediately.
“I do not know.”
“Then I am working with limited information.”
“That is exactly the answer I expected.”
His face closes a little.
Good job, Claire.
I cross my arms.
“I know how to travel.”
“I know you do.”
“Then stop making it sound like the itinerary needs approval.”
“I did not say that.”
“No. You asked enough questions that I could hear the checklist forming.”
He is quiet.
Then, “I asked because you brought it up.”
The answer is reasonable.
I dislike it anyway.
“Fine.”
“That does not sound fine.”
“It is the word I have.”
Matteo’s mouth flattens.
“Then keep it.”
We walk the rest of the path without touching.
At my gate, he hands me the paperback I left at his house.
I stare at it.
“You brought my book.”
“You said you wanted to finish it.”
“Very efficient.”
The second I say it, I want it back.
Matteo looks at the cover instead of me.
“Good night, Claire.”
“It is six-thirty.”
“Yes.”
He turns toward Bellamare and walks away.
Very mature.
Two adults being technically reasonable until one of them wants to throw a paperback into a lemon tree.
I do not throw the book.
I make dinner.
I edit badly.
At ten forty, I discover my laptop is at eleven percent and my spare charger is still plugged into the wall at Matteo’s house.
I stare at the battery icon.
“Of course.”
Casa Ginestra owns one charger that works only if the cord is bent at an angle requiring spiritual commitment.
I try it.
The battery drops to ten.
Fine.
I walk back.
Matteo opens the door wearing gray trousers and a T-shirt, barefoot, glasses low on his nose.
He looks tired enough that the fight loses some of its structure in my head.
“I need my charger.”
He steps aside.
“It is on the desk.”
I go in.
My charger is coiled neatly beside the lamp.
“Of course you coiled it.”
“It was on the floor.”
“You coiled it.”
“It was going to trip someone.”
We stare at each other.
For a second neither of us smiles.
Then mine happens first.
His follows more slowly.
I pick up the charger.
“I was annoying,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Do not enjoy that.”
“I am too tired.”
“You were annoying too.”
“Yes.”
That helps.
I lean my hip against the desk.
Matteo takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.
“I was not trying to plan Japan.”
“I know.”
“I did want to understand what you meant by complicated.”
“I know that now.”
He nods once.
I step closer and put my forehead against his shoulder.
His hand comes to the back of my neck and stays there.
After a minute, he says, “Your battery is at ten percent.”
I start laughing into his shirt.
“Romance is alive.”
“Barely.”
I lift my head.
“Coffee tomorrow?”
His eyebrows lift.
“First one?”
“Yes.”
“You know the rule.”
“Silence.”
“Ten minutes.”
“I can do nine.”
“Go home, Claire.”
I kiss his cheek and take my charger.
At six twelve the next morning, I am back on his terrace with my laptop, my double espresso, and the charger in my bag.
Matteo checks the clock.
“You are early.”
“I have work.”
“Naturally.”
He nudges the glass toward me.
Then he returns to his coffee.
We work without talking.
I open the basil photographs.
My shoot does not start until ten.
I know because I checked before setting the alarm last night.
The alarm was for this: ten quiet minutes before the rest of Matteo’s day starts wanting things.
I take a sip of espresso and leave the alarm exactly where it is.