“Ooh,” he says, clearly approving.
“Okay, I’m gonna get out of here,” Mateo states, interrupting our flirting.
Vince smiles at me, winking before wrapping an arm around me and turning so we’re both facing Mateo. “Well… thank you for this,” Vince says.
Mateo nods, but there’s a spark in his eye I don’t like, and his eyes are on me. “Don’t thank me, thank Mia.”
Unprepared, I lose my smile, but Vince is still holding me in such a way he wouldn’t have seen. I paste it back on, a little less exuberant, and try to murder Mateo with my eyes.
“For not talking,” Mateo adds, after far too long a pause.
“Right,” Vince says, dryly.
Mateo doesn’t keep poking. Instead, he hands Vince the keys. “There’s not much in the way of furniture, but a truck will be by later with a bed, a couch, a TV—just enough to get you started.”
It feels real, maybe for the first time, when Mateo walks to the car waiting for him alone, and looks back to say, “I’ll see you both Sunday.”
For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I’m not going to see Mateo at breakfast the next morning. I won’t pass his study, or walk the halls of his house wondering if I’ll see him around the next corner.
Vince holds up the keys, dangling them in front of me. “Our own place.”
I smile, aware of Mateo’s car pulling away. “Yep.”
“Ready to go in?” he asks.
“I think so.”
Vince smiles at me, taking my hand as we walk up the steps. “It’s going to be so empty.”
“But full of love,” I joke.
Pulling a face, he says, “Ew, gross.”
I elbow him in the side and he pulls me close, giving me a squeeze.
The living room is tiny, but perfect, since we won’t have much to fill it with. Since there’s no furniture, I sit down on the floor and cross my legs, looking around.
Vince sits down with me, following my gaze as if to see what I’m looking at.
“I think we put the TV over there,” I announce, nodding confidently.
Vince agrees, jerking a thumb toward the wall behind us. “Couch back here.”
“Yep. We’re not going to be able to afford cable, so we should borrow all of Joey’s Jason Statham movies.”
Snorting, he wraps his arms around me and tugs me back against him. “I can think of far better uses of our time.”
I let him pull me back, pulling a thoughtful face, resting my chin on my hand to really sell it. “Like what?”
In response, he leans down and brushes a soft kiss across my lips. I kiss him back, wrapping my arms around his neck at the awkward angle, and before I know it, we’re tugging clothes off and christening our brand new living room.
Afterward, curled in each other’s arms on the floor, I announce, “The carpet is soft.”
Vince snorts, tucking my head under his chin. “Good thing.”
We stay just like that for a long time—too long. We were supposed to bring in the stuff we had packed and brought over in Vince’s car, but before we even get dressed again, the furniture truck pulls up outside.
Scrambling to get dressed before they come up on the porch, I tell Vince, “Our first purchase has to be curtains.”
Since we never made it past the living room, Vince goes to make sure the path to the bedroom is clear for the movers, and I head out to the truck.
“Vince Morelli?” the man asks, glancing at his order sheet.
“Yep, this is Vince Morelli’s house.”
The second man rolls up the back of the truck, placing a ramp there. I move around to the back to look at the stuff, since Mateo never asked, just ordered it himself. It’s mostly what I expect as I watch them unload—a queen bed, a mid-size television with a stand, a charcoal gray sofa. Then the unexpected: a short three-shelf bookshelf and a single rectangular box.
Vince is down the hall, putting sheets on our new bed, so once the men bring it in, I take a moment alone to open the mystery box.
It’s my box of graphic novels.
On a gold-rimmed, cream colored card, scrawled in the handwriting I didn’t recognize the first time, it reads:
I can’t help smiling as I read it.
“I did it!” Vince calls, his voice louder as he comes down the hall. “All by myself. We don’t even need a maid.”
I stand, crushing the card in my fist and shoving it in my pocket, since we don’t have a garbage can yet. “Good job, baby,” I say, with a teasing wink.
“Those corners are no joke,” he states, glancing past me at the box. “What’s in there?”
Shaking my head dismissively, I tell him, “Oh, just some books.”
That doesn’t excite him in the least, so the box is already forgotten. Grabbing my hand, he tugs me down the hall. “Come look at how good I did.”