Chapter 9: Closer
It happened the way these things always
happen — not in one dramatic moment, but in a
hundred small ones stacked so gradually that
neither of them noticed the height until they
finally looked down and realized how far they'd
climbed.
The morning she taught him to make her
grandmother's ragù, swatting his hand away
from the salt with mock outrage, laughing so
hard at his rebellious overcorrection that she
had to sit down on the kitchen floor to recover.
The night a storm knocked out the power
along the entire coastline and they sat by
candlelight playing cards for imaginary stakes
— a favor here, a secret there — because neither of them had anything real left to bet
that the other one didn't already hold.
The long afternoon she found an old record
player in a closet and made him dance with her
in the front room to music neither of them
recognized, both of them terrible at it, both of
them not caring in a way that felt like its own
small miracle.
The way he started reaching for her hand
crossing the rocky path down to the water —
not because she needed the help, her balance
was perfectly fine, but because he had simply
stopped pretending he didn't want to.
"This isn't supposed to happen," Isabella said
one night, sitting close enough on the porch
steps that their shoulders touched, close
enough that neither of them moved away. "You
work for my father. You're supposed to be
professional. Invisible, almost."
"I know."
"You're supposed to protect me. Not—" she
gestured vaguely between them, a small helpless motion that said more than words
could have.
"I know that too." Romeo turned to face her
fully, close enough now to see the flecks of
gold in her dark eyes catching what little
moonlight made it through the clouds. "Tell me
to stop, Isabella. Tell me you don't feel it, and I
will put four feet of distance between us for
the rest of this and never bring it up again as
long as I live."
She didn't tell him to stop. She reached up
instead and traced the line of his jaw with her
thumb, slow and deliberate, like she was
memorizing something she was afraid she
might not get to keep.