Chapter 27: MAYBE I’M OVERTHINKING

MIA

I strolled in without knocking because his apartment had become our apartment so I used my key and pushed open the door expecting to find him on the couch or in the kitchen or maybe still at work because it was only four and he usually didn't get home until six.

Instead I found him standing by the window with his phone to his ear, speaking rapid Italian to someone in a tone I'd never heard him use before.

He sounded annoyed and almost aggressive to the person on the other end.

There was another man in the room. His back was turned to me but I could see he was tall with dark hair and wearing an expensive suit that suggested he wasn't just some casual friend dropping by. He was standing near the bookshelf looking at something I couldn't see from the doorway.

Dante saw me and his expression changed.

Not to warmth or surprise or even mild irritation at being interrupted. His face went cold for just a second and his eyes flashed with genuine anger before he schooled his expression to be somewhat neutral but I could still see the anger in it then he said something short in Italian and ended the call.

"You need to knock," he said, and his voice had an edge I'd never heard directed at me before. "This is my space too."

I froze in the doorway. "I'm sorry. I didn't think—"

"That's the problem." He set his phone down with slightly too much force. "You didn't think. I could have been in a meeting or on a private call. You can't just walk in whenever you want."

"You're right. I'm sorry." My face felt hot and I wanted to leave. I wished I could walk back out into the hallway and close the door and pretend this hadn't happened. "I should've knocked."

The other man moved then and I expected him to turn around so I could see his face and maybe get an introduction, but instead he walked toward the door without ever looking at me. Just kept his back turned, his head down and slipped past me into the hallway like he was trying very hard not to be seen.

The door closed behind him and I stood there feeling like I'd walked into something I wasn't supposed to see.

Dante's expression softened immediately. "I'm sorry. That came out harsher than I meant it." He crossed to me and touched my face gently. "I've been dealing with work stress all day and I took it out on you. That wasn't fair."

"It's okay. I really should have knocked."

"No, it's—you live here now. You shouldn't have to knock. I'm just used to privacy for business calls and I wasn't expecting you home so early." He kissed my forehead. "Forgive me?"

"Of course."

But something still felt wrong. That call was more serious than he was downplaying it.

"Who was that?" I asked.

"My business associate, Marco. We were discussing a client situation that's gone sideways." He guided me to the couch. “It’s confidential matters. Boring stuff. How was your day?"

I knew he was trying to deflect but I let it because pushing might not be the best thing right now and I was still off balance from the way he'd snapped at me and I didn't want to risk his anger again.

"Fine. I finished editing that series I was working on."

"That's great. Let me see."

We spent the rest of the evening looking at my photos, talking about the project and he was attentive, interested and everything I needed him to be. By the time we went to bed I'd almost convinced myself that the incident earlier had been nothing, just a moment of stress that I'd blown out of proportion in my head.

Almost.

I noticed the photo the next morning while Dante was in the shower.

It was on a shelf I'd walked past a hundred times but never really looked at closely because it held books and a few random objects that seemed like decoration more than anything personal. But this morning the light hit it differently and I saw a frame I didn't remember seeing before.

I picked it up and my stomach dropped.

It was me.

Laughing, head thrown back, completely natural and unposed. I was in my old apartment based on the wall color behind me and I was wearing the blue shirt I'd donated to Goodwill three months ago because it had a stain I couldn't get out.

I stood there holding the frame and trying to remember when this photo had been taken and coming up completely empty because I didn't take photos of myself like this. Candid shots, genuine laughter, those were the kinds of images other people captured of you, not selfies you staged.

Dante came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and saw me holding it.

"Where did you get this?" I asked.

"From your Instagram a few weeks back. I liked it so I had it printed." He said it so casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world to print and frame photos of your girlfriend without asking. "Is that weird? I'm sorry, I should have asked first."

"No, it's—" I pulled out my phone and opened Instagram and scrolled back through my feed looking for this photo because I knew my own content, what I'd posted and when and this image wasn't ringing any bells. "When did I post this?"

"I don't know. A month ago? Maybe more."

I kept scrolling. I went back two months, three months, six months. Checked my stories archive, checked my highlights. Checked everywhere I could think to check.

The photo wasn't there.

"I can't find it," I said slowly.

"Maybe you deleted it? You delete things sometimes when you're curating your feed." He was getting dressed now, completely unconcerned and not even looking at me. "I'm just glad I saved it before you did. You look happy in it."

"I don't delete photos." My voice sounded strange. "Especially not candid ones. I don't get many of those."

"Well, it was definitely on your Instagram. Where else would I have gotten it?" He smiled at me. "Unless you think I broke into your old apartment and took secret photos of you without your knowledge."

He said it like a joke but it didn't feel like a joke.

I looked down at the photo in my hands and tried to make sense of what I was seeing because there were only two possibilities and neither of them made any sense. Either I had posted this photo and somehow completely forgotten about it and deleted it for reasons I couldn't remember, or Dante was lying about where he'd gotten it.

The first option meant I was losing my memory or my grip on reality.

The second option meant something I wasn't ready to think about yet.

"You're probably right," I heard myself say. "I must have deleted it and forgotten."

"There you go. Mystery solved." He came over, took the frame from me gently and put it back on the shelf. "I'm keeping it though. I love seeing you that happy."

I watched him walk into the kitchen to make coffee and tried to ignore the voice in my head asking how he'd gotten a photo I'd never posted from an apartment he'd never been to while I was wearing a shirt I'd thrown away before we even started our photography session.