ARIA'S POV
I cleaned the apartment before he arrived.
I noticed myself doing it halfway through wiping down the kitchen counter, the cloth moving in slow careful circles over a surface that was already clean. I stopped, put the cloth down and stood there for a moment.
This is not about comfort. This is not something you clean your way through.
I left the rest of it, sat on the couch and waited.
He arrived at seven exactly, always punctual.
I opened the door and saw him with a bottle of wine in his hand. A specific bottle, a Willamette Valley pinot I'd mentioned once in passing three months ago, the kind of offhand mention that people didn't usually remember. He remembered. He always remembered things.
"I remembered," he said. Warm, easy, the smile that had been one of the first thi
