Sofia’s POV
Luca found me after lunch.
He appeared in the sitting room where I was attempting to read — actually attempting this time, making genuine progress, the words landing rather than sliding off — and he sat in the chair across from me and opened his laptop and worked in the particular focused silence of someone who had things to do and had decided to do them here.
I let him.
This was new — this specific thing between us. The ability to occupy the same space in silence that wasn’t weighted. That didn’t require management. That simply existed because we had decided it could.
After a while he said without looking up from his laptop — “Dante said you were in the library this morning.”
“Dante was in the library this morning,” I said.
“He said you were fine.”
“He said I was goin
