Chapter 13 - What Florence Actually Taught
The lunch rush hadn't quite hit yet. The dining room was in that thin pause between crowds, the grills hissing in the back and the windows letting in flat daylight that made everything look cleaner than it was. I stood at the edge of his table, not too close. My tray was tucked against my side. He didn't look up right away.
Matteo sat with his hands around the untouched cup, the burger box still closed beside it. The bald man was two tables back near the brick wall, pretending to check his phone. For once he wasn't staring at me, and that made it easier to breathe.
"You keep coming back to it," I said quietly.
He glanced up. "To what?"
"Florence."
He gave a short nod, then looked back down at the cup. The condensation had left a dark ring on the light wood. He traced it once with his thumb and then stopped himself, like he'd caught himself doing something he didn't want me to see.
"I meant what I asked," he said. His voice was lower than the other times, not performing for anyone. "Who taught you?"
I shifted my weight. My apron string had come a little loose and I could feel it against my hip. I didn't fix it. I kept my hands on the tray so I wouldn't fidget.
"I studied there," I said. "One year. Language and literature. I had a scholarship."
That was the sentence I'd practiced in my head that morning. Just enough. True, but narrow.
He looked at me then, really looked, and I saw the change in his eyes before he spoke. Not surprise. Recognition.
"Full scholarship?" he asked.
"Tuition," I said. "I cleaned offices at night to cover the rest. It wasn't glamorous."
He almost smiled. "It never is."
Behind us, a kid dropped a fry container and his mom shushed him. The sound made my shoulders tighten, but Matteo didn't turn. He kept his focus on me, and for a few seconds the rest of the room fell back.
"Why'd you leave?" he asked.
I breathed in through my nose. Slow. The way I'd taught myself to do when customers got loud.
"My dad got sick," I said. "I came home to help. Then the money ran out, and I didn't go back."
It was the truth. Not all of it, but the part that mattered. I didn't tell him about the professor who said I had an ear for dialect, or the apartment I shared above a bakery, or how I'd cried on the plane home because I knew I wasn't going back. I didn't need to give him all of that to answer him honestly.
He nodded once, like he understood more than I'd said. "I'm sorry," he said.
I hadn't expected that. I blinked, and then steadied my gaze on the table edge so he wouldn't see it land.
"Why do you care about grammar so much?" I asked. "Most guys trying to scare me wouldn't notice."
He leaned back a little. The gray jacket pulled across his shoulders. The tattoo on his neck moved when he swallowed.
"My grandmother," he said. "She raised me and my brother. She was from Calabria. Barely finished school, but she was strict about how we spoke. She'd smack the table if we got lazy. Said if we sounded sloppy, people would treat us like we were sloppy."
I could hear something else under his words. Not pride, exactly. Something older.
"She sounds tough," I said.
"She was." He looked down at his hands. The ink on his knuckles was sharp against his skin. "She died three years ago. I still hear her when somebody gets it right. That's why I noticed you."
It caught me off guard, how plain he said it. No threat in it. For a moment he wasn't the man who'd stood up too close to me on day one. He was just a guy in a fast-food booth talking about his grandmother, with a cold drink sweating in front of him.
"She'd probably correct both of us," I said before I could stop myself.
That got a real breath out of him, almost a laugh. His eyes softened around the edges. I felt my own mouth pull a little, and I let it. It was the first time standing near that table hadn't felt like holding my breath.
Behind him, the bald man's phone buzzed. Loud in the quiet. He answered on the second ring, his voice clipped, and stepped toward the windows. I watched Matteo's attention shift. His jaw tightened. The softness closed up fast, like a door.
He held up two fingers without looking, and the associate nodded and kept talking, pacing a short line by the glass.
Matteo turned back to me. "I have to take this," he said. He wasn't apologizing, just stating it.
"I know," I said.
He stood, pushing the chair back carefully so it didn't scrape. He left the cup and the box where they were. He paused, his hand resting for a second on the edge of the light wood table.
"Thank you for telling me," he said. "About the scholarship."
I nodded. "Thank you for telling me about her."
His associate said his name once, sharp and low. Matteo glanced toward the windows, then back at me. The moment thinned out. Whatever privacy we'd had for those two minutes was gone.
May you like
He picked up his phone from the table and slipped it into his jacket pocket. "Leave the food," he said, not unkindly. "We'll be a minute."
I stepped back to give him room, tray against my ribs, and watched him walk toward the daylight with his shoulders squared again, the other man already holding the door talk low against his ear.
