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He was just adding cinnamon to his little pile of syrupy goodness when Matty appeared, looking rumpled and slightly annoyed. He didn’t say anything, just grunting his hello as he slid onto his stool and picked up his fork.
“Juice or water?”
“Milk,” Matty said.
Renzo sighed. “We’re out. Unless you and Milla bought a cow I don’t know about.”
Matty’s lips twitched into the ghost of a grin as he shook his head. “Cows are expensive.”
“Is that what Milla told you?”
“My friend at work showed me a cow auction,” Matty said, then cut his French toast into perfectly precise triangles like he’d been doing since he was old enough to cut up his own food. It gave Renzo another wave of nostalgia that was just shy of painful. “Maybe I can earn fifteen thousand dollars for a cow.”
“Too much work,” Renzo said. “You’d have to quit your job to feed it and brush it. And shovel shit.”
Matty rolled his eyes and tapped his finger in the air in the direction of the swear jar.
Renzo made a huge show of patting his pockets. “Fresh out. Spot me five bucks?”
“No. Get a job,” Matty said, then laughed at his own joke before turning his attention to his breakfast.
Renzo knew better than to get between Matty and his mealtime, so he turned his back, resting his backside against the counter as he picked at the peaches and scrolled through his emails. There were several from students he was going to steadfastly ignore until the start of the semester, considering almost all of them were—no doubt—begging him to reconsider their final grades.
Renzo was a good teacher—he was a fun teacher. He made class lively and exciting for people who were both in the STEM field and ones that were just trying to fill a requirement. But when it came to marks, he was a hard-ass. He’d earned a reputation, and if he started going soft now, there’d be no recovering from it.
Trying to set his phone down and eat at the same time, he missed his mouth and smeared peach syrup all over his chin. “God damn it.”
“Mm,” Matty hummed behind him.
Renzo looked over to see his finger pointing again. “Seriously, bud. I’m broke. I’m going to have to take out a loan.”
Matty just sighed, knowing he was lying, and went in to finish his sausage link as Renzo walked to the sink and turned on the water. It ran freezing, and Renzo waited until he could stand to hold his fingers under it for longer than a second, then wet a kitchen towel and mopped up his mess.
His gaze fixed out the window, and before he turned away, the Bugatti man reappeared. He was even more shadowy and vague from the kitchen, but even without details, Renzo liked the way he moved. He strode with a sort of purpose Renzo didn’t see often—a confidence that came only with a man who lived a life without the same worries as Renzo did.
And there was something both horrifying and beautiful about it.
“Have you met the new neighbor?”
“She’s not new. She was old. And she died,” Matty said.
Renzo shook his head. “No. Someone’s been over there cleaning out that house.”
Matty just shrugged as he wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I’m going to go play Roblox.”
Renzo sighed. “Fine. Abandon me.”
Matty walked over and kissed Renzo’s cheek. “You have to take me to work. We have to leave at eleven fifteen.”
“On the dot,” Renzo promised. “So don’t take too long in the shower.”
Matty made a face at him, then disappeared back up the stairs, and Renzo turned toward the window again. He could only just make out the man behind the wheel of his car, and he watched tendrils of white coming from the exhaust, visible in the frigid morning.
He wondered if the guy had a proper winter coat.
Which was an absurd thought. Of course he did. If he didn’t, it was by choice, not by need. But…if Renzo saw him out there in his flimsy jacket one more time, he might have to go over and offer one of his own. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if his delicate, rich fingers got frostbite all because Renzo didn’t think he needed help.
Yeah. He’d just keep an eye on things.
