We went to a diner.
Not a private club.
Not a restaurant with a month-long reservation list.
A diner near the lake where Fiona ordered chocolate chip pancakes at four in the afternoon.
Luca stole one of my fries.
I slapped his hand.
Fiona laughed so hard she nearly dropped her fork.
It was one of the best meals I had eaten in years.
By then, Luca and I had known each other for almost five months.
There had been no moment when he announced that he loved me and orchestral music appeared from nowhere.
It happened in smaller ways.
He learned that I hated coffee that tasted burned.
I learned he woke before five when he was worried.
He learned not to try to solve a problem unless I asked him to.
I learned that his public confidence disappeared whenever Fiona asked him to draw something because he was terrible at drawing.
He had money most people could hardly imagine.
Yet the things that made me trust him were almost embarrassingly ordinary.
He knocked before entering the guesthouse.
He returned things where he found them.
He never read over my shoulder.
When he disagreed with me, he said so without punishing me for disagreeing back.
The first time he kissed me, we were standing beside the kitchen sink.
No photographers.
No champagne.
No dramatic confession.
Fiona was asleep upstairs.
I had been telling him that I was looking for an apartment because the case was almost finished and I wanted a place that felt like mine.
He nodded.
“That makes sense.”
I had expected him to argue.
He didn’t.
Then he said, “I’m going to miss having you nearby.”
I looked at him.
“I’ll probably miss you too.”
“Probably?”
“Don’t get arrogant.”
He smiled.
And then he kissed me.
Slowly.
Like he was asking.
I kissed him back.
Six months after the flight, Fiona and I moved into a small house of our own about twenty minutes from Luca’s property.
I could have stayed in his guesthouse.
I could have moved into the main house.
I chose neither.
I wanted keys that were mine.
Bills that came in my name.
A front door nobody could change without me knowing.
The house was not grand.
It had three bedrooms, slightly uneven hardwood floors, an old maple in the backyard, and a kitchen drawer that refused to close unless you lifted it first.
