Maya's POV
Dinner lasted three hours, not because we ran out of things to say. The opposite. We kept finding new things and following them and the waiter refilled our water twice and cleared the plates with the patience of someone who understood what kind of dinner this was.
We talked about his father.
Not the version he gave to rooms full of people. The real version. A man who worked with his hands and didn't talk much and showed love through proximity. Showing up. Sitting in the same room. Luca said he didn't understand it until he was older, and then he understood it completely.
"That's where you got it," I said.
"Got what."
"The showing up." I held his gaze. "You don't announce it. You just appear. Outside school at two forty-five. Eggs at six thirty. The newspaper was saved." I
