Page 81 of 32 Days in May

Soph catches my eye, and I look away as fast as I can. “No, not at all. We just click, you know? It’s really easy. We’re having fun.”

“I don’t know, Nadia. He’s giving long-term-partner vibes—”

“Allison, enough,” Soph cuts in calmly.

“Jeeeeeez, full name. What’d I do?”

“Nothing.” I shrug, trying to sound unshaken. “Let’s just talk about something else.”

“But what happens next?” Allie whines, hopping up onto the counter. “We can’t just act like everything goes back to normal—”

“This is the last thing I want to talk about right now, ma’am. You’re drunk.”

Soph pushes off the island and slips between Allie’s legs, wrapping their arms around her waist. “She’ll give herself another mental-breakdown haircut, and we’ll all move on.”

I laugh, even though that joke kind of stings. “See? There you go. Soph always has a solution.”

“Ugh, I love the short hair—why do we have to call it a mental-breakdown haircut—?”

The balcony door slides open and Marco steps back inside. “Sorry about that. My brother called and then my stepmom got ahold of the phone.”

“You better be.” I snap off the rubber gloves. “I haven’t worked this hard in years.”

“Leave the dishes,” Soph says, corralling us back toward the table. “I made us a tiramisu.”

After dinner, I lead Marco up to the second story of the beach house, making a show of our arrival. I Vanna White in front of the pale blue front door with the faded Welcome wreath my mom bought from a yard sale approximately fifteen years ago.

“Three bedrooms. Two baths. One skylight. Innumerable bugs. One lazy piece of shit. Three doors that don’t work—”

“Okay, I get it.” He laughs. “Let me in.”

“I’m not done! Three doors that don’t work, and tonight? One celebrity.” I press my hands to Marco’s chest as he rolls his eyes and gently pushes my hands away.

“You’re hilarious.”

“Aren’t I?” I turn the key in the door and, with a shaky breath, push it open. “Ta-daaaaa.”

The apartment is exactly as it always has been, exactly as it always will be. The furniture is all slightly too small with faded fabric and scuffed corners from years of use. Our kitchen table is wicker and glass, a real 1980s coke-den special. But moonlight pours in from the skylight, drenching our island—smaller than Soph’s—and the countertops, and the space feels clean, pristine, compared to downstairs. There’s no art on our walls, just family pictures in heavy frames.

Soph sent us away with an armful of leftovers that I put away while Marco walks around the room. He’s moving slowly, almost with reverence. He runs his fingertips over the afghan draped over the back of the couch. He pauses to look at every picture of us on the walls.

My mom’s favorite photo is one of me, Liv, and Nicky on the beach in Calabria one summer when we went to visit her family, taken on a Kodak camera and now hanging next to our TV.

We’re all standing in the shallow sea tide, deeply tanned and hair unkempt. Nicky’s grinning with all his might, Liv’s arms tucked protectively around his neck. I’m squatting at their feet, my chin against my knees, eyebrows furrowed in contemplation. We all look so much like ourselves.

Marco squints at our little, dusty faces. “Look at you. Adorable little moppet.”

“See, I’ve always been a mystery.”

He lets out a deep laugh. “Your home—your life—it’s nice, Nadia. It’s really nice.”

“Is it?” I ask quietly, crossing my arms over my chest.

He nods. “It feels full, saturated with—I don’t know, good things. Your friends, your parents—” He jabs his thumb toward the photo. “I’ve never had anything like this.”

Saturated with good things. I shift awkwardly at his words. I bite at my lower lip and ask, “Does that . . . bother you?”

“No. I mean, yes. But not actively.” He furrows his brow, shoving his hands down into his pockets. “You have a lot to be grateful for.”