I wasn’t entirely sure why that irritated me as much as it did, but the answer arrived all the same, sharp and ugly and probably deserved.
“It’s always what you want, when you want, isn’t it?” I said. “You want to talk now, so naturally we should talk now. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood.”
His shoulders dropped a little.
He nodded once. “Fine. No problem. I’ll wait here until you’re willing to give me twenty minutes.”
I blinked. “Wait here? In this weather?”
“Yes.”
I shrugged. “Fine. Suit yourself.”
Then I marched away quickly, before my will could waver and before I could start thinking too hard about whether standing out in the cold like that might affect his condition.
No, Emily. You do not care. He is a grown man. He can leave whenever he pleases. He is no longer relevant to your life.
That was what I told myself all the way to the bus stop.
Knowing Pietro was taking care of Sophie’s cane did at least free up the money I had been hoarding for it, and with nowhere urgent to be except back in my own increasingly dramatic thoughts, I decided to make myself useful. What was originally meant to be an hour out turned into much longer. I stopped by the department office and uploaded the grades for one batch of assignments, then picked up a second stack to grade over the weekend. If heartbreak had a practical upside, it was that it left more time for academic admin and the vague hope of making myself indispensable enough to eventually secure something more permanent.
After that I bought a dessert I didn’t need, a hot drink that had absolutely no business costing that much, and took my time drinking it.
By the time I got home nearly three hours later, I was cold, tired, and feeling almost smug about the probability that Pietro had finally come to his senses and left.
Then I turned the corner and saw him still there.
He was standing exactly where I had left him. His face was paler, his mouth set in its familiar hard line, but his lips had taken on the faintest bluish tint and even from a distance I could see the slight shiver running through him every so often despite the rigid dignity with which he was clearly trying to suppress it.
It took every ounce of my willpower to walk past him without stopping.
I made it into the building, up the stairs, through my apartment door, and even then I didn’t let myself think. I showered, changed into sweatpants, thick wool socks, and the most aggressively unflattering oversized Christmas sweater I owned—red, knitted, and covered in three-dimensional reindeer.
Then I looked out the window.
Snow had started falling hard, thick and fast and relentless enough to blur the streetlights.
He wouldn’t still be there.
No. At that point it would be practically suicidal, and for all his idiocy, Pietro Benetti was not a man with a death wish.
And yet I couldn’t stop myself.
I grabbed my coat, shoved my feet into boots without bothering to lace them properly, and went back downstairs like I had lost a war with both comfort and good taste.
He was still there.
Snow had gathered on the shoulders of his black coat and in his hair, and though he was still upright, still managing to holdon to that infuriating air of composed stubbornness, I could see the shudder in his frame.
Fuck me.
I yanked the building door open.
He looked up immediately.
“Come in,” I said.
He walked in slowly and I knew right then that the cold did affect the pain.
