Chapter 12: The Sign-In Sheet

Moira's POV

The next day was the best one I'd had in a year, and I didn't know it yet.

I woke up late with the sun on my face and my leg not hurting.

The house smelled of coffee and burned toast.

I went down in the boot, using the cane only for the stairs.

Colleen was at the stove in an apron too big for her, scrambling eggs for six people.

"Luca says I'm doing it wrong," she said.

"You're doing it fine."

"He keeps adding hot sauce."

"It's an improvement," Luca said from the table.

"It's a crime," Colleen said, and he threw a piece of toast at her.

She caught it and ate it.

I stood in the kitchen doorway and thought, a month ago I had no friends who weren't the Hourigans' friends.

Damiano came in from the porch with the newspaper and stopped when he saw me.

He looked at me a second too long.

Then he took a mug from the cabinet and poured my coffee the way I liked it, with too much milk, before I could ask.

I hadn't told him how I took it.

I thought, he notices things, and I smiled into the cup.

We ate on the porch.

Luca told a story about Damiano at nineteen trying to parallel park a hearse, and Colleen cried laughing.

I laughed until my ribs hurt.

Damiano said nothing, but he sat very near to me on the porch step, and his arm lay along the rail behind my back.

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