32. Matteo
MATTEO
Claire has packed one sandal.
The other is missing.
I know this because I have spent six minutes in Casa Ginestra looking at three open bags, two camera cases, a stack of books, four chargers, a shirt hanging from the back of a chair, and a half-finished coffee that has migrated to the windowsill.
The cottage looks almost exactly as it did when she arrived. Now I know what belongs where.
The small black charger belongs with the backup drive.
The gray cable is for the camera body she complains has an unnecessarily proprietary connection.
The paperback on the kitchen counter is Claire’s. I brought it back from my shelf this morning and asked where she wanted it.
The sandal is still a mystery.
Claire comes out of the guest room carrying a lens case.
“Why are you standing like that?”
“I am waiting for instructions.”
She stops.
I lift both hands slightly.
“You said not to turn packing into an annexation.”
“I said do not pack me like an evacuation.”
“Similar principle.”
Her mouth curves.
She puts the lens case beside the larger camera bag and looks around.
“Okay. You may put the gray cable in the side pocket of the hard case.”
“Thank you.”
“And the books can go in the blue bag.”
“Your books or all books?”
“Inspector.”
“I am clarifying.”
“All books currently on that chair.”
I do exactly that.
The paperback remains on the counter.
I point at it.
“That one?”
She looks over.
“Blue bag.”
“The receipt is still inside.”
“Good.”
“You are keeping a receipt?”
“It survived your house for weeks. It has earned international travel.”
I put the paperback in the blue bag.
The coffee on the windowsill is still half full. Her travel clothes are folded on the bed except for one white shirt she has apparently rejected and thrown over the lamp.
I know better than to touch the shirt.
Claire comes back with a toiletry bag and catches me looking at the lamp.
“Do not judge.”
“The lamp is not a wardrobe.”
“It is today.”
I nod.
She narrows her eyes.
“That was suspiciously easy.”
“I am trying something new.”
“What?”
“Letting you discover gravity independently.”
She laughs and throws the toiletry bag at me.
I catch it.
“That can go in the small suitcase,” she says.
I put it there.
For the next forty minutes, Claire decides where things go and I lift, zip, carry, or stay out of the way.
Twice I see a better arrangement. Once, I am certain I am right.
I keep both opinions to myself.
It is exhausting.
At nine thirty, she finds the missing sandal in the guest room under a folded reflector.
“At least it was indoors,” she says.
“That is an extremely low standard.”
“You are dating me.”
“I am aware.”
“Then adapt.”
I take the sandal only after she hands it to me.
It goes in the front pocket of the suitcase because apparently shoes no longer require symmetry.
When the last camera case is closed, Claire sits on the floor with her back against the bed.
“I hate this part.”
I sit beside her.
“Packing?”
“The point where a place stops being where you live and becomes a list of things you might have forgotten.”
I look around Casa Ginestra.
The worktable is bare except for a ring from a coffee cup. The guest room door is open. The shutters are pushed wide, and the morning light hits the floor where her cases used to be stacked.
Eight weeks ago, I wanted to know why one woman could make the quiet next door feel loud.
Now the cottage feels wrong without her equipment in the way.
I touch her knee.
“You forgot nothing important.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I checked the bathroom.”
Claire turns her head slowly.
“You checked the bathroom?”
“The door was open.”
“That is a dangerous defense.”
“You left your adapter beside the sink.”
Her eyebrows rise.
“I put it on the table.”
“When?”
“Before you told me not to touch anything else.”
“That feels legally strategic.”
“It was chronological.”
She leans over and kisses my shoulder.
“I love you.”
I still have to pause when she says it.
I turn my head and kiss her.
“I love you too.”
Her fingers hook into mine.
For a while we sit on the floor of the cottage she rented without knowing me, surrounded by luggage going somewhere I am not.
I hate the sight of it and leave every bag exactly where Claire put it.
Eventually Claire gets up.
“If we stay here, Luca is going to come looking for us.”
“He has already sent three messages.”
“Of course he has.”
“Two are about lunch.”
“And the third?”
“Also lunch, but angrier.”
She laughs.
We leave the bags by the door and walk instead of going straight to Casa Bellamare.
Claire chooses the path.
It is the narrow public path above the cottage along the eastern wall, the one I sent her toward on her first afternoon after she walked onto Bellamare property with a camera bag and no respect for signs.
“You were rude here,” she says.
“You were trespassing.”
“I was lost.”
“You were confidently lost.”
“That is different.”
“It was not.”
She takes my hand.
The path drops toward the water between warm stone and rosemary. The sea flashes through the trees in pieces. Somewhere farther down, someone is arguing in Italian about a scooter.
Claire steps around a broken place in the path without looking down.
I remember telling her where to put her feet the first time we walked anywhere together and keep my mouth closed this time.
She looks at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You are doing the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you have information and are suffering because nobody requested it.”
“I have several faces.”
“You have four.”
“That is inaccurate.”
“Five, then.”
I pull her closer by the hand.
She bumps my shoulder.
We walk until the path opens at a low stone ledge above the water.
The ledge is empty except for us and the sun-warmed stone.
Claire sits on the wall and tips her face toward the sun.
I stand between her knees.
“This is good,” she says.
“Yes.”
“You did not plan it.”
“You chose the path.”
“Very good.”
“I am not seeking evaluation.”
“Liar.”
I put my hands on her waist.
She looks up at me.
“What time is our first call after you land?” I ask.
Claire thinks.
“The next evening. Ten for me?”
I convert it in my head.
“Three for me.”
“Can you do three?”
“Yes.”
“Then three. Unless I am asleep with my face in room-service noodles.”
“If you are asleep, you tell me when you wake up.”
“If your work explodes?”
“I tell you before three.”
“Look at that. International diplomacy.”
“We are very advanced.”
“Almost suspiciously.”
“And Saturday after Kyoto.”
“Still Saturday after Kyoto.”
“Afternoon.”
“You remember.”
“I am capable of growth and memory simultaneously.”
Claire slides her hands around my neck.
“Show-off.”
I kiss her.
The kiss is slow. Nothing is chasing us except lunch and Luca, both survivable.
When we pull apart, Claire rests her forehead against mine.
“My travel is still not negotiable.”
“I know.”
“I might take something after Japan before we have time to see each other again.”
“I know.”
“You are allowed to hate that.”
“I expect to.”
She smiles.
“You are also allowed to tell me.”
“I expect to do that too.”
“Look at us.”
“Alarmingly functional.”
“That is not sexy.”
“You said practical.”
“I did not say spreadsheets.”
“I have not mentioned a spreadsheet.”
“You thought about one.”
I kiss her again before I have to answer.
At Casa Bellamare, lunch is already on the table.
Luca sees Claire first.
“You are late.”
“It is twelve twelve,” I say.
“I was speaking to Claire.”
Claire puts a hand over her heart.
“Finally, someone here understands who matters.”
Luca kisses her cheek and points toward a chair.
“Sit. Eat.”
“I am leaving in three hours. I need to be able to bend enough to get into the car.”
“That is not my problem.”
Sebastian appears from the terrace with sunglasses on his head.
“Bennett.”
“Ryder.”
“Before you leave, I need one thing.”
“No.”
“You do not know what it is.”
“I have learned.”
He puts his phone on the table and opens a photograph of himself on the beach.
“Which side is better?”
Claire looks at the photograph.
“Neither.”
Nico laughs into his water.
Sebastian looks injured.
“You are a professional.”
“That is my professional assessment.”
Adrian comes in carrying the book he has been reading for most of the summer.
He puts it beside Claire’s plate.
“You left this in the library.”
Claire looks at the cover.
“That is not mine.”
“You moved it.”
“I moved it because you left it on my contact sheets.”
Adrian picks it up again.
“Then I withdraw the accusation.”
“Thank you.”
He sits.
Luca asks Claire whether Osaka has good peaches.
Claire tells him she is going to Japan to work, not conduct produce research.
Nico asks whether her gear survived the summer.
She says, “Mostly.”
Sebastian says, “Matteo did not.”
I tell him to eat.
Claire steals food from my plate.
Luca notices and looks far too satisfied. I leave him to it.
Halfway through lunch, Claire tells Adrian she finally used the photograph of the empty chair.
He asks which one.
She explains.
Nico disagrees with her crop without seeing the image.
Sebastian offers to improve the composition by being in it.
Claire tells him this is why she does not photograph him.
Claire steals another piece of food from my plate while Sebastian is still defending the beach photograph.
When lunch ends, Luca tries to send a container of food with her.
Claire negotiates him down from four containers to one.
Sebastian hugs her dramatically enough to earn an elbow in the ribs.
Nico gives her a brief hug and says, “Send the sink photograph if Matteo is right.”
“I am always right about the sink.”
“You have never seen the sink,” Claire says.
“I have seen the specification.”
“That is worse.”
Adrian waits until the others move away.
“Good trip,” he says.
“Read a different book.”
“No.”
Claire smiles.
“Fair.”
Eventually it is only us again.
Back at Casa Ginestra, the bags are where we left them.
Claire checks the bathroom, then under the bed.
I keep quiet.
She opens the refrigerator and removes a bottle of water.
“That is all?”
“There is mustard.”
“You are not taking mustard.”
“It feels wasteful.”
“It belongs to the next renter now.”
Claire closes the refrigerator.
“You are very controlling about condiments.”
“I have limits.”
She laughs.
I carry the large hard camera case to the car because she asks me to.
She carries the smaller bags herself.
The blue bag goes on the back seat and the suitcase in the trunk.
Before I close it, I reach into the side pocket of the hard case.
Then I stop.
Claire is beside me.
“What?”
“I have something. Do you want it?”
Her eyes narrow.
“How expensive?”
“Twenty-eight euros.”
“That was very specific.”
“It was on the receipt.”
“What is it?”
I hold up a small zip case.
Claire takes it and opens the zipper.
Inside is a compact collapsible travel kettle made for international use, with the correct adapter clipped beside it.
She stares at me.
I wait.
“You bought me a kettle.”
“You said you hate hotel kettles.”
“That was in bed.”
“Yes.”
“After sex.”
“Yes.”
“And this is what you retained.”
“There were other things.”
Her mouth opens.
I keep my face neutral.
Claire starts laughing.
“This is possibly the least glamorous billionaire gift ever.”
“It is not a gift. It is equipment.”
“It has an adapter.”
“Japan uses different outlets.”
“I know.”
“You also said the hotel change was designed by someone who hates luggage. It folds.”
She looks at the kettle again.
Then she looks at me.
“This is absurdly romantic.”
“It cost twenty-eight euros.”
“That is not helping your argument.”
“You do not have to take it.”
Claire zips the case and puts it into the camera bag.
“I am taking the kettle.”
“Good.”
“And I am going to tell Tessa my billionaire boyfriend gave me boiling water technology.”
“I would prefer you did not.”
“Then you have misunderstood me completely.”
I smile.
“I love you.”
Her expression softens.
“I love you too.”
The last hour disappears faster than I want it to.
Claire hands the cottage key to the owner’s local manager at the gate. She checks the camera cases once. I keep my hands in my pockets.
When she comes back to me, the car is running.
I can hear the air-conditioning through the open door.
Three days from now, she flies to Japan.
Today she leaves Bellamare.
I put one hand at the back of her neck and kiss her.
Claire presses into me immediately.
Her fingers slide under the back of my shirt.
I kiss her again until she laughs against my mouth.
“You are going to make me late.”
“You set the departure time.”
“Yes.”
“Then this is your fault.”
“That is excellent progress.”
I touch my forehead to hers.
“First call.”
“Three your time.”
“Ten mine.”
“Saturday after Kyoto.”
“Afternoon.”
“Call if you want me before then.”
“I will.”
“And if you do not?”
“I am still coming Saturday.”
“Yes.”
She studies my face.
“You are going to miss me.”
“I already do.”
“Good answer.”
“It is the truth.”
Claire kisses me once more, shorter this time.
Then she steps away.
I let my hands fall.
She gets into the car.
The window comes down.
“Matteo.”
“Yes?”
“Do not fix the chair.”
I look at her.
“The terrace chair?”
“Yes.”
“It wobbles.”
“I know.”
“That is unreasonable.”
She grins.
“Miss me.”
Then she drives away.
I stand at the gate until the car disappears beyond the bend.
I miss her before it does.
For one sharp second, every old instinct comes back at once.
Check the route, ask her to message when she arrives, find out whether traffic is bad.
Do something.
I put both hands in my pockets.
Claire knows the road. The collapsible kettle will probably become evidence against me in an argument later.
I go back through the gate.
Casa Ginestra is quiet behind me.
At Bellamare, Sebastian is shouting from the terrace about a card game. Luca tells him nobody agreed to play. Nico says he will play if Sebastian stops talking. Adrian says nothing, which Sebastian interprets as consent.
I walk toward them.
On the way, I pass my terrace.
The chair is still crooked beside the table, exactly where Claire left it yesterday morning.
I look at it.
Then I keep walking.