“I don’t know yet.” I set down my glass. “But we will. There’s a trail. We just have to find it.”
It’s a promise I don’t know how to keep. But I make it anyway. Because the alternative, accepting that she’s gone, that the only proof she existed is cookies and a note, is unbearable.
“You slept with her,” I say.
Enzo nods. Doesn’t look at me. “Last night. She asked me to stay and I…”
“Was it good?”
He blinks. “What?”
“Was it good. For her. Did you take care of her.”
“I tried.” His voice is rough. “I don’t know how to be gentle but I tried.”
“Then that’s what matters.” I refill both our glasses. “She chose you. Trusted you. That’s not nothing.”
“She chose you too. The house. The tiramisu. The…”
“I gave her a schedule,” I interrupt. “You gave her every day. There’s a difference.”
We sit with that. Two men who love the same woman. Neither of us able to reach her.
“We’ll find her,” Enzo says.
“We’ll find her,” I agree.
He finally picks up a cookie. Takes a bite. His eyes close.
“She made these for me,” he whispers. “Knowing she was leaving. Knowing I’d come back and she’d be gone. And she still made them.”
“She wanted you to know it mattered. What you had.”
“It did matter. It does.” He sets the cookie down. “I love her, Dario. I’m in love with her. And she’s just gone.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He looks at me. “Love her?”
I think about her sitting in my kitchen. Wearing my shirt. Looking at me like I could be soft. The way she made me amaretti and left notes and took pieces of me with her when she disappeared.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I think I do.”
We finish the bottle. Don’t talk about logistics or plans or how we’re actually going to find one woman in a country of three hundred million people.
Just sit there, drinking expensive whiskey and mourning a woman who baked cookies and saw us as more than what we are.
Eventually Enzo leaves. Takes the cookies with him. The note. The last pieces of her he has.
I close the door behind him. Lock it. And stand there, hand on the deadbolt, listening to the silence of my empty house.
Somewhere out there, Stevie Reeves is becoming someone new.
Again.
I hope she knows we’re coming. I hope she waits. I hope wherever she is, there’s a door.
And I hope it’s unlocked.
