Page 460 of Rosetti Family New York
"Not anymore." She steps back to admire her work. "Now it's for beauty. You're welcome."
"Carmela—"
"I know, I know. Beauty isn't tactical. Flowers don't enhance operational efficiency." She pats my arm as she passes. "But they also won't kill you, so maybe we can risk it?"
By the second day, her campaign has escalated.
"We need groceries," she announces, emerging from my bedroom wearing one of my t-shirts that barely covers her thighs. The sight short-circuits something in my brain.
"Make a list. I'll get what you need."
"Counter-offer: we go together like normal humans who exist in society."
"No."
"Van." She hops up on my counter, legs swinging. "I'm going stir-crazy. I've reorganized your nothing twice. I've had in-depth conversations with your walls. Your shower curtain and I are best friends now."
"The Torrinos—"
"Can kiss my Italian ass." The profanity from her sunshine mouth hits like cold water. "I'm not spending weeks hiding in your depression cave eating protein powder."
"It's not safe."
"Neither is my mental health if I don't see sunlight soon." She leans forward, eyes serious despite her light tone. "I'm not asking to go clubbing. Just the grocery store. You can do your whole tactical assessment thing. Check for snipers in the produce section."
"This isn't negotiable."
She slides off the counter, moves closer. "Everything's negotiable if you're creative enough."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning if you don't take me grocery shopping, I'm going to start ordering things online. Lots of things. Decorative things. Throw pillows. Curtains with patterns. Maybe some doilies."
"You wouldn't."
Her smile is pure evil wrapped in sunshine. "Try me. I saw a website selling life-sized cardboard cutouts of boy bands. Your living room would look great with some ambiance."
Twenty minutes later, we're in my car heading to the grocery store.
"See?" she says, practically bouncing in her seat. "Compromise. It's this thing humans do when they respect each other."
I scan the mirrors, checking for tails. "This is coercion."
"This is partnership. I bent on the security protocols, you bent on the isolation torture. We're practically a Hallmark movie."
At the store, she turns grocery shopping into performance art. She narrates her selections like she's hosting a cooking show, asks my opinion on twelve types of pasta, and somehow makes choosing tomatoes seem like an adventure.
"You're enjoying this," I mutter as she debates between two identical-looking cheeses.
"I'm enjoying being treated like an adult who can handle buying mozzarella." She drops both in the cart. "Also, watching you assess every shopper as a potential threat is fascinating. That grandmother with the coupons really had you worried."
"She was reaching into her purse suspiciously."
"For coupons, Van. Coupons."
But she slides her hand into mine as we walk, and I realize she's not mocking my vigilance—she's trying to make it bearable. Trying to find lightness in the darkness I've wrapped around us both.
A week passes in this strange domesticity. She's learned my routines, my tells, the exact amount of pushing she can do before I shut down. I've learned she talks to herself when she's bored, that she dances while making coffee, that she steals my shirts because "they're comfortable" but really because she knows what it does to me.
