Paris?
The word landed in the sitting room and stayed there, hovering in the space Matteo had vacated with the same unhurried efficiency with which he'd filled it, and I sat with it for approximately three full seconds before my brain completed the processing and sent the relevant signal to the rest of my body.
I put the cup down.
It found the saucer slightly harder than intended.
Paris. He had said Paris with the same tone one might use to say the kitchen or the second floor flat, informational, completely unbothered by the weight of the word, as though Paris were simply a coordinate and not a city that people dreamed about, that people saved for, that people put on lists they carried around for years and occasionally took out to look at and then folded back up and returned to their p
