Maya's POV
My mother opened the door before we knocked.
That was the first thing.
She looked at Luca the way she looked at everything she was deciding about. Completely. Without pretending, she wasn't doing it.
"Mrs. Chen," he said.
"Luca." She stepped back. "Come in."
That was it. No preamble. She'd already decided something, and she was letting him inside to confirm it.
Aria went straight for the kitchen because my mother always had something on the stove and Aria had known this since she was four. Luca followed me into the living room and I watched my mother watch him move through her house.
She was cataloguing.
I knew the look.
"Sit," she said.
He sat. Not stiffly. He just sat the way he sat everywhere, like the chair was exactly where he'd intended to be.
My mother sat acr
