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“Iam ruining it? How is that possible? I’m merely sitting here eating my food, minding my business.”
“Why aren’t you sitting at the bar like you usually do? Why are you sittinghere?”
“Well, if you must know, when I arrived, the only open seat at the bar would have put me next to someone I don’t particularly care for.”
She looked at the bar, wondering who that someone was.
“The bar was much more crowded when I arrived,” he added with a touch of petulance in his tone.
It was currently about half-full and home to several swathes of open stools where a solo diner could sit and have a buffer on each side. But whatever. Why was she so pressed about this?
She glanced over her shoulder. There was Johannes, smiling and waving—and holding up another bottle of wine, god help her. Johannes was the reason she was here, so why was she wasting all this energy on Mr. Benz? She took a deep breath, hoping to settle both her ire and her nerves. “Good night, Mr. Benz.”
There was a beat before he replied, “Good night, Ms. Delaney. Enjoy your... darts.”
She intended to. She spun on her heel and made her way back to Johannes. She couldn’t help marveling at how, a handful of hours ago, she and Mr. Benz had been sharing a meal and talking earnestly about their families. What had happened to that Mr. Benz? Or forget that, even—a handful of hours ago, she and Mr. Benz hadkissed.
“Ah, hallo!” Johannes hoisted the new bottle of wine. “May I be pouring you another glass?
When she didn’t say anything, Johannes set the bottle on the table. “Or perhaps the time has come that you would favorite tobe seeing my room?” He smiled with such goofy happiness that he looked like a puppy.
What a nice man he was. What agorgeousman he was. But somehow, despite everything lining up on paper, the time had not come that she would favorite to be seeing his room. So she pulled out that most horribly transparent of excuses and hoped it translated. “I’m actually getting really tired.” It wasn’t working. He was still looking at her with the puppy-dog face. “Thank you for a lovely evening, but I’m going to say good night.”
He got it then, and she was flattered by the disappointment that flashed across his face before he replaced it with a smile. The goatherd would have to remain lonely.
As would she.
And despite his protestations to the contrary, and despite the fact that she couldn’t really articulate why, it was all Mr. Benz’s fault.
By the time Matteo dragged himself back to his apartment, he was exhausted. And embarrassed. While he had admitted to nothing, Ms. Delaney had been correct. He had been spying on her. And so overtly, too. He had innumerable people he could call on if he needed intelligence, and even in situations where he wanted to handle something himself, he was usually a great deal more subtle than he’d been tonight.
He resolved to do better.
He didn’t turn on any lights as he shed his clothing on his way to bed. Lord, he was tired. But also jumpy. Before, he’d felt his blood thicken and grow sluggish. Now, he had hot soup zinging through him, and he feared that despite his exhaustion, sleep would not come.
When even a Nina Simone record failed to settle him, he sighed and got up to pace in the dark. He very much did not want to think about his own life, so why not turn his attention to someone else’s? He picked up his phone and glanced at the time. Nearly midnight. But Torkel was a night owl.
“Hello?” Torkel answered.
“I think you should do it at the Cocoa Ball.”
“You do? Hmm.”
Matteo sat down, enjoying the way Torkel knew exactly what he was talking about, the way the two of them dispensed with formalities. It caused a kind of calmness to settle over his scattered self. He continued to miss Torkel.
“The ball two years ago was where Princess Marie and Leo got together,” Torkel continued.
“Yes,” Matteo agreed. They both knew that had been Matteo’s doing.
“And to hear Sebastien tell it, the ball last year was a rather significant... episode in the romance between the duke and Daniela.” He paused. “The word ‘episode’ is a euphemism here.”
Matteo held up a hand even though Torkel was not there to see it. “Say no more. I can imagine.” That had not been his doing, but hehadhelped arrange things later so those two fools didn’t let each other slip away out of sheer pride and stubbornness.
“My point is,” Torkel said, “there seems to be a bit of a tradition of romantic entanglements advancing themselves at the ball. I like that.”
Matteo liked that he liked that. He liked when other people noticed and valued tradition.
The image of a dart-playing angel of destruction popped intohis head. She was probably following her evening activities by working on her layoff list.
