Page 11 of The Satyr Next Door
I stood at my kitchen counter for twenty minutes, staring at the wicker basket I'd filled with fruit and cheese like it might explode if I looked at it wrong. I'd gone down to the Italian market on Eastern Avenue, choosing the ripest peaches, the creamiest burrata, the kind of crusty bread Nonna would have approved of. Preparing like I was having a guest over rather than putting together a gift for my mythological neighbor.
This was ridiculous. I was a grown woman with a mortgage and two children and a translation deadline looming over me like storm clouds. I had no business standing in my kitchen, heart hammering like a teenager's, trying to work up the courage to walk twenty feet across my backyard to do something that would probably end in spectacular humiliation.
When was the last time I'd wanted anything that wasn't sensible, practical, mother-approved? When was the last timeI'd done something just because it made me feel alive instead of responsible?
The answer was depressing: probably not since before I'd gotten married. Maybe not since college, when I'd spent a summer in Florence translating medieval poetry and falling half in love with every cobblestone street.
The bus had pulled away ten minutes ago, taking Aria and Luca to their respective schools with their usual chaos, leaving me with eight hours of blessed solitude. Eight hours to work on the Venetian maritime contracts that were due Friday, to catch up on laundry, to scrub the bathroom, to be the responsible adult I'd trained myself to become.
Or eight hours to find out what would happen if I stopped translating my life into something smaller, safer, more acceptable than what it could be.
His words. Thrown back at me like a challenge.
I picked up the basket before I could lose my nerve.
The morning was already warm, promising another scorcher by afternoon. Baltimore in September was like that, summer refusing to let go gracefully, clinging with humid fingers and the promise of one last heat wave. I slipped through the gate between our yards, surprised to find it not only repaired but painted a soft green.
When had he done that? And how had I missed it?
But the question fled my mind as I stepped into what had been an impenetrable jungle just days ago.
The transformation was breathtaking.
Where vines had strangled the fence, morning glories now climbed in neat spirals, purple blooms opening to the sun. The chaos had been cleared, reshaped into something intentional. A garden that looked centuries old, tended by hands fluent in the secret language of growing things.
Fruit trees dotted the space, not just the fig tree whose bounty I'd enjoyed as gifts, but apple trees sagging under the weight of red fruit, a pear tree with golden offerings, the grapevine heavy with purple clusters that caught the sunlight like amethysts. Stone paths wound between raised beds, herbs releasing fragrance with every breeze. The air was rich with earth, but beneath it lingered something else.
The green smell of deep forests that had never known the touch of civilization.
Magic. Though I'd never believed in such things until a year ago when the Convergence had torn holes in reality and proved that everything I thought I knew about the world was embarrassingly limited.
Looking at what this garden had become in only days though, there could be no other explanation.
"Well, well." His voice came from behind me, warm with amusement and something darker. "My Juliet comes down from her tower at last."
I spun around, clutching the basket against my chest like armor, and felt my cheeks flame. "Gina," I corrected automatically. It was time he knew my name.
"Gina," he repeated slowly, like he was testing the feel of it on his tongue, savoring each syllable. The way he said it made it sound like something precious, something worth keeping.
He emerged from behind the fig tree, and my mouth went dry. Shirtless again. Was the man allergic to clothing? His golden skin already gleaming with a fine sheen of sweat, dirt streaked across his forearm from whatever work he'd been doing.
But it was the smile that made my breath catch and my knees wobble. Slow and entirely too pleased with itself, like he'd been expecting this moment and was savoring it.
He extended a hand. Long fingers, callused but elegant. “Cal,” he said.
I reached automatically, expecting a brisk shake. Instead, he lifted my hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to my knuckles that sent lightning up my arm. Then he turned my hand, thumb pressing directly to my pulse.
The touch was intimate, claiming, a little outrageous. It should have offended me. Instead, heat flooded low, stealing my breath.
"Your heart's racing," he murmured, and there was wonder in his voice, as if my pulse was something precious he'd discovered.
"I know," I managed, though my voice came out smaller than I'd intended.
His thumb stroked gently over that telltale hammering. "Are you afraid of me?"
No teasing, no bravado. Just a genuine question.
I looked up at the strong jaw shadowed with stubble, horns catching the light, eyes that seemed to see straight through every wall I’d built.
