Perfect.
Mine.
Day fourteen, I tell him about being invisible.
We’re in the kitchen, which has finally recovered from the Tuesday Night Butter Massacre. I’m baking solo now. He’s been officially banned from batter until he stops whisking like it’s a hate crime.
He sits at the counter like a bouncer at a very sensual bake sale. Watching me.
“I used to think I was broken,” I say, measuring vanilla with shaking hands like I’m auditioning for the role oftragically repressed housewife #4.“Like maybe there was some secret ingredient I missed out on. The one that makes people notice you. Remember you. Give a shit.”
Enzo doesn’t say anything. Just listens.
“I was the human equivalent of a chair,” I say. “Teachers forgot I existed. Group projects? I could die and they’d just divide my part between Becky and Josh. And boyfriends?” I crack an egg with unnecessary force. “Looked through me like I was a coat rack. Just something nearby they could hang their ego on.”
I crack another egg.
“So I started watching,” I say. “Like some weirdo background cryptid. If I couldn’t make people see me, at least I could see them. Every habit. Every nervous tic. It made me feel like I existed. Even if I was basically invisible, at least I was paying attention.”
“That’s why you watched Dario.”
“That’s why I watch everyone.” I stir the batter. “It’s not stalking. I mean it is, but it’s also survival. It’s how I connect.How I anchor. I know it’s weird. I know I sound like the raccoon behind the 7-Eleven whispering about secrets, but it’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel real.”
“I pay attention.”
My head snaps up like someone just called my full government name.
He’s watching me with that intensity he gets. The one that makes me feel pinned.
“I notice when you hum while you bake. When you talk to yourself like the cookies are listening. When you’re nervous, you count everything. Ceiling tiles. Steps. How many times you stir. It’s like watching your brain try to stay in one piece.”
His voice lowers. “You’ve never been invisible to me, Stevie. You’ve been blinding. Since the second I saw you.”
I want to climb inside those words and live there.
The batter is forgotten. The kitchen is too small. He’s too close and too far away at the same time.
“Enzo...”
“Don’t.” He shakes his head. “Don’t say anything. I just needed you to know.”
But I’m already moving. Rounding the counter. Closing the distance between us.
I stop in front of his stool. He’s sitting, so we’re almost the same height for once. Eye to eye. Breath to breath.
“What if I want to say something?” I ask.
“Then say it.”
“I see you too.” I reach up. Touch his face. His jaw tenses under my fingers. “Just Enzo, who likes his coffee black and can’t bake to save his life and is oddly judgmental about The Princess Bride even though he absolutely cried during the sword fight and then lied about it.”
“Stevie.”
“I see you,” I repeat. “And I don’t want to stop.”
He makes a sound. Low. Almost pained.
And then he’s kissing me.
