I gestured for the driver to bring the rest while answering with deliberate indifference. "You don't need to explain your business arrangements to me. These are from my mother. We don't know when we'll be back this way, so she stocked up."
Seeing that I hadn't taken offense, Luca's shoulders visibly relaxed.
"That's fine then. The north end isn't far. Whenever you want to come by, just let me know."
He still didn't know I was moving back permanently. I had no intention of enlightening him.
Aunt Mina started to say something, but watching how attentively Luca hovered over Celina, she thought better of it and held her tongue.
Celina's expression grew guarded, a flicker of calculation behind her doe eyes.
The four of us stood there in that awkward silence—the kind that settles over a room when too many secrets press against too few words—until Celina finally broke it with a theatrical sigh of exhaustion.
Luca immediately instructed the driver to pause unloading, explaining that they didn't have much and could take the elevator first. Seeing him laden with bags of household goods—linens, cleaning supplies, the small intimacies of shared space—I stepped aside to let them pass.