“I’ll bring up the bags,” Saul says.
He disappears down the narrow staircase that connects the apartment to the bakery. I hear his footsteps on the stairs, solid and sure.
I stand in the middle of my new living room and try to feel something other than ghost in a pancake house.
I fail.
The vibe is haunting but make it cozy.
This is good. This is better than beige. This is a life I might actually want to live, if I could stop thinking about the two men I left behind without saying goodbye.
Did Enzo find the note? The cookies? Did he understand? Does he hate me?
My chest aches in a way that’s becoming familiar. A bruise I keep pressing on, just to feel something.
Saul comes back with my bags. Both of them. Everything I own in the world.
“Where do you want these?”
“Straight into the void, ideally.”
I gesture toward the bedroom like I’m not moments from breaking down on a beige comforter and screaming into a federal pillow.
He carries them through, sets them on the bed.
The bed is already made with generic witness protection linens. The emotional state is beige. My soul is beige.
This apartment is one sad throw pillow away from becoming a cry for help on HGTV.
Some things never change.
“We can get you real bedding,” Saul says, following my gaze. “Whatever you want. This is just temporary.”
Temporary. Like him.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Stevie.”
“Zoey,” I correct. “Legally. Mentally I’m still a raccoon in eyeliner clinging to emotional debris and stolen shirts.”
I smile. It feels like it might slide off.
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he crosses the room, stops in front of me, close enough that I could reach out and touch him if I was brave enough.
“You’re Stevie,” he says softly. “To me, you’re always Stevie.”
Jesus Christ. I’d marry him for that line and a functional espresso machine.
“Saul...”
“I know.” He steps back. Gives me space I didn’t ask for but probably need. “I know.”
I unpack because it’s something to do.
Clothes go in the closet. Toiletries in the bathroom. Normal things, practical things, the kind of things Beth Taylor would have done without feeling like her chest was caving in.
But then I get to the bottom of my bag. And I stop.
