Seven Years, Just Friends

Someone at our college reunion suggested a game of Yes or No. By the time it was Luca Moretti’s turn, we were all a few drinks in. Even the men stationed outside the private dining room had relaxed a little. For one evening, everyone seemed willing to forget that the quiet boy from our finance lectures now ran the Moretti crime family. Chloe Russo glanced at me, something bright and knowing in her eyes, and dropped a handful of screenshots into the reunion group chat. They were from my private account. Seven years of loving Luca in secret, carefully preserved in 1,832 posts. “Elena says you’ve been together for seven years.” She tipped her head toward him. “Yes or no?” I looked at him before I could stop myself. For seven years, I had waited for a moment like this. No more pretending I was only the woman who ran his legitimate businesses. No more leaving the room separately. Just my name, spoken by him, and the truth at last. Luca was silent for a moment. “No.” Then, almost gently, he added, “We’re just friends. We’re not even that close.” Chloe slipped her arm through his and laughed. “That's what I thought. After all, your girlfriend's spot has always been reserved for me.” He didn’t correct her. The room went quiet. A few people looked at me with the careful, embarrassed kindness reserved for someone who has just humiliated herself in public. Someone else started talking too loudly about ordering another round. I lowered my eyes. The bracelet at Chloe’s wrist slipped out from under her sleeve: tiny pearls and green stones, strung by hand. It had taken me two weeks to make it when I was eighteen. Luca had given it away. On my phone, a confirmation box appeared. Permanently delete your account? I tapped Yes. All 1,832 posts disappeared. If he wanted us to be friends, I could do that. Chapter 1 The reunion ended at midnight. I had already ordered a car. According to the app, the driver was a few blocks away. Some of the guys from our year stumbled past me, laughing and shoving each other into a waiting cab. Luca and Chloe came out last. Their shadows stretched across the pavement beneath the amber streetlights. Chloe was flushed and unsteady. Luca’s bodyguard moved toward her, but Luca lifted a hand, dismissing him. “Easy, Chloe.” There was mild exasperation in his voice. His arm hovered at her waist, ready to catch her. A little rabbit-shaped purse hung from his shoulder. One of its soft ears drooped over the strap. Chloe rummaged inside it and pulled out a cat-ear headband. She held it above his head for a moment, considering, then put it on him. “I’ve been dying to do that.” She giggled. “You look adorable.” Luca Moretti, who could silence a room full of armed men without raising his voice, let her adjust the ears. And smiled at her. I looked down at the keys in my hand. My key ring was a rabbit too. It had come in a matching set, with a tiny bell attached. You could only get them in mystery boxes. I’d spent more than a hundred dollars trying to find the pair. When I’d offered Luca his, he hadn’t even touched it. “Elena. You know I don’t use childish crap like that.” I pressed my lips together and rubbed my thumb over the little rabbit’s stitched face. It was absurd that something so small could still hurt. A car pulled up beside me. The driver lowered his window. “Elena?” I checked the plate and got in. As I reached for the door, I caught Luca looking across the pavement at me. The rear window was open. Warm night air stirred against my face. I raised the glass, and his reflection blurred, then vanished. It was still summer. I folded my arms over my stomach anyway. My phone vibrated. Luca: Chloe’s drunk. I’m not letting her go home alone. Nothing about what he had said upstairs. Nothing about the bracelet. Just a decision he assumed I would understand. Messages began pouring into the reunion chat. Someone had uploaded a video and tagged them both. Look at these two. Still in the honeymoon phase. Get a room! I pressed Play. The video had been taken after I left the table. “Chloe, you lost,” a woman was saying. “Come on. Finish your drink.” People were laughing. One of the men elbowed Luca. “Your moment to shine, buddy.” In the jostling, Chloe stumbled into Luca’s lap. She buried her face against him, blushing, and the cheering grew louder. Luca’s mouth curved. “Leave her alone. You’re embarrassing her. I’ll take the drink.” He picked up a full pint of beer and drained it without a pause. “Oh, come on. Some of us are single.” “Have a little mercy, you two.” I stopped the video. At our building, I thanked the driver and got out before he could ask if I was all right. The bell on my key ring chimed with every step through the lobby. Upstairs, in the empty hallway, it sounded much too loud. Chapter 2 By the time Luca came home, I had showered and changed into pajamas. I was sitting on the sofa, staring at my phone. Without thinking, I had reached for the account where I used to write about us. A few lines before bed. Something he’d said. A photograph of his hand beside mine on the table. Proof, however private, that we had a life together. Then I remembered. There was no account anymore. Seven years was long enough for a habit to outlive the thing that had created it. “Why are you still up?” Luca set a cake box on the coffee table and slipped off his jacket. I smelled mango before he opened the lid. “Luca. I’m allergic.” His hand stopped on the coat hanger. “Forgot.” “You didn’t forget. You never bothered to remember.” He came over and smoothed a hand over my hair, as if that settled it. “Don’t do this. It slipped my mind.” I blinked until the sting in my eyes eased. For the past two years, he had brought home mango cake when he was late, when we’d argued, when he wanted to stop an argument without having it. Even on our anniversary. Every time, I told him. Every time, he forgot. I opened Chloe’s profile, knowing exactly how much it would hurt. Her pinned post was a photograph of a mango cake. Hers came from a better bakery. Delicate little decorations, gold lettering, a ribbon carefully tied around the box. Mine looked like an afterthought someone had picked up on the way out. On the coat rack hung the jacket I had chosen for him. Several strands of pink hair clung to its dark shoulder. My hair was brown. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” I asked. Luca was on the balcony, finishing a call. He came inside, put his phone away, and caught my cheek lightly between his fingers. “Jealous?” His voice softened. “Okay. I should have told you sooner.” He unlocked his phone, scrolled through a conversation, and handed it over. “One of the guys from college keeps bothering her. She asked me to pretend we were together so he’d back off. That’s all.” I looked at the screen. “And when you were waiting outside, he was right behind us,” he added. “What was I supposed to do?” The messages said exactly what he’d told me. Chloe asking for help. Luca agreeing. He spread his hands. “Go through whatever you want. There’s nothing going on.” I knew that composure. I had watched him use it across negotiating tables, letting other people exhaust themselves while he sat perfectly still. “All right?” he said. “I’m taking a shower. Get some sleep.” A moment later, water began running behind the bathroom door. I kept holding his phone. I couldn’t have explained what made me keep looking. The messages were there. His explanation made sense. I should have felt relieved. Instead, I opened app after app, searching for something I was terrified of finding. Then I opened his photos. There was a locked album. Six digits. I tried my birthday. Incorrect. Our anniversary. Incorrect. His birthday. Incorrect. My fingers were cold now. I went back to Chloe’s profile and found the date she had posted beneath a birthday photograph. The album opened. There were dozens of pictures. Chloe leaning against him. Luca’s mouth at her temple. Their faces pressed together, close enough that there was no space left for misunderstanding. I sat very still. Behind the door, the shower kept running. Luca had lied to me. Chapter 3 I thought I ought to be angry. What I felt first was confusion, a dull blankness that made familiar objects look slightly wrong. The table. My cup. The little crescent a spoon had left in the foam. My mother always said I was stubborn. Once I chose a road, I would keep walking long after any sensible person had turned around. For seven years, I had done exactly that. I had cried in locked bathrooms. Stayed awake after arguments that lasted until dawn. Accepted being invisible because Luca’s world was dangerous, because the timing wasn’t right, because there was always one more reason to wait. I had found a way to make every hurt sound like something love could survive. Now I couldn’t do it anymore. Across the café table, Maya’s eyes filled as I told her what had happened. “What the hell is wrong with him?” She grabbed her phone. Her hands were shaking. “I don’t care whose family he runs. He doesn’t get to treat you like this.” Maya was one of the few people who knew about us. She had seen what those seven years cost me, including the parts I tried to make funny when I told her. I touched her wrist. “Don’t. He won’t answer.” He didn’t. By now, he and Chloe would have finished their movie. Since the reunion, she had been posting constantly. It was hard not to feel that she was arranging each photograph with one particular viewer in mind. Every post showed another small intimacy. Luca had hurried out of our apartment that morning. Now I knew why. He’d bought the tickets in advance. I refreshed her page. A restaurant this time. Luca at a tabletop grill, sleeves rolled back, patiently turning pieces of meat. In the next photo, he was cutting her food into smaller bites. In the last, he was feeding her. “You’re his girlfriend,” Maya said. “You. How can he just—” She stopped and took my hand instead. “Ellie, please tell me you’re not going to let this go.” “I’m ending it.” Saying it made my throat tighten. Maya’s expression changed, and I knew the question she was trying not to ask. Could I really leave him? I held her hand a little harder. “I mean it.” Outside the café window, a young couple had stopped beneath the awning. The boy held out a bouquet of paper roses. Pearlescent paper, a little glitter on the edges. Someone had drawn the veins on each petal by hand. “I know you’re allergic to pollen,” he said, stumbling over the words. “But it’s our anniversary. I still wanted you to have flowers.” The girl looked at him as if he had handed her something priceless. Once, Luca had been that boy. Before anyone called him Don Moretti, before his father’s death put the family in his hands, he had blushed when I told him he looked nice. He had stayed awake half the night after I gave him the bracelet, sending photographs of it on his wrist. At school, when a teacher accused me of cheating and began singling me out, Luca had been the first person to stand up for me. I was painfully shy then. He had never made me feel small for it. We kept our relationship quiet, as teenagers sometimes do, believing a secret made things more precious. Across a classroom, our eyes would meet, and that was enough to make me smile for the rest of the lesson. I used to write his name in the margins of my textbooks, then erase it before anyone could see. On the afternoons we stayed late at school in Boston, we walked home with the sunset spilling across the sidewalks. Luca would fall into step behind me, reach down with those long fingers, and hook his pinkie around mine. I would swing our joined hands a little. “Ellie,” he said once. “We should apply to the same colleges.” Then he laughed at himself. “Obviously we should. We’re going to be together forever. I don’t know why I’m asking.” Outside the window, the couple walked away, hand in hand. I paid for our coffee. Maya hugged me at the corner, and I took a car back to the apartment. Then I began packing. There were more little things than I remembered. They filled a box before I had even finished the living room. Luca came home and frowned at it in my arms. “Where did all this junk come from?” He glanced inside, then sighed. “Just throw it out. It’s taking up space.” For a moment, I couldn’t answer. Then I smiled. “Okay. I’ll get rid of it.” Most of it had come from him. A four-leaf-clover pendant. Framed photographs. Things he’d made before he could afford to buy me anything. A little book of handwritten coupons, including one he’d given me after our first real fight. Once, he couldn’t find something interesting without wanting me to see it too. Now he sat down and began typing on his phone. A smile slowly touched his mouth. He didn’t look up again. When I carried the box past him, I caught the sweet trace of Chloe’s perfume on his shirt. I wondered if he even knew it was there. Chapter 4 The box was heavy. I had to rest it on the edge of the dumpster before tipping it in. For a second, a photograph caught against the rim. Then it fell with everything else. I brushed my palms against my jeans and checked my phone. Another message from Mom, gently circling back to the question of marriage. I had raised it with Luca several times over the past two years. His answer was always some version of Not yet. After the next deal. When things settle down. There’s no rush. He had never asked how long I was willing to wait. I typed a reply. We’re not getting married. I’m leaving him. Then, before I could change my mind: That man you wanted me to meet. Can you arrange it? The next morning, I handed my resignation to the personnel director at Moretti Holdings. He looked at my signature, then at me. “Ms. Bennett. You’re leaving? Does Mr. Moretti know?” He lowered his voice on Luca’s name. Everyone in the building knew which part of the Moretti empire appeared on the letterhead and which part never did. I worked on the legitimate side. I always had. That distinction was on paper, in our accounts, in the limits I had insisted on when we started. It had never made the family’s shadow any smaller. “He’ll have the paperwork,” I said. “It’s time I built a life outside this place.” We had begun with one cramped office and a handful of clients. I had sat through endless dinners, smiled through one drink too many, and brought in contracts when Luca’s surname closed as many doors as it opened. We had almost lost the business. We had struggled to meet loan payments. We had celebrated deals worth millions over takeout eaten straight from the cartons. I had helped build something real inside his family’s empire. The director signed reluctantly. “We won’t find anyone with your experience easily. This still needs his signature. Once that’s done, you can complete the handover in three days.” “I’ll take it to him.” Luca was behind his desk, wearing a blue tie I had never seen before. The knot sat loose and crooked. He was normally so particular about those things. I set the paperwork in front of him. He signed without reading it. I had reached the door when he called my name. “Ellie.” There was a trace of apology in his expression. “Chloe lost her job. We went to college together, and we could use another person here, so I found her something.” I waited. “You don’t mind, do you?” “No.” He relaxed, then hesitated again. “She gets anxious around people. The open-plan floor is a bit much for her. Could you let her use your office? Just until the new department space is—” “Sure.” He stared at me. “You’re not upset?” “Was there anything else?” There was no point being upset. A week earlier, I would have argued. I would have asked why a new hire needed an office other people had spent years earning. I would have tried to make him see how easily he gave away things that belonged to me. Now even the thought of that conversation exhausted me. I cleared out my office that afternoon and took an empty desk in a corner. By the third day, the handover was nearly finished. I went to the break room for coffee and found Chloe beside me. I nodded politely and turned to leave. “Elena.” She was smiling. She moved closer, lowering her voice until it was meant only for me. “I knew you two were together, you know. And he still said yes when I asked him to pretend.” I looked at her. “Come on. He doesn’t love you anymore. Hanging on to a place he doesn’t want you in is just embarrassing.” “Are you finished?” Her smile faltered. “I’m working,” I said. “I don’t have time for this.” Her eyes filled abruptly. The cup in her hand tilted, spilling hot water over her fingers. She cried out. A hand slammed into my shoulder. I stumbled backward into the water cooler, pain bursting behind my eyes. Luca stood between us. “I knew it. All that understanding, and the second I turn my back, you go after her.” He pulled Chloe against him and turned toward the door. I couldn’t tell what hurt most: the impact, the accusation, or how little time he had needed to decide I was guilty. “Luca.” He stopped. There was a familiar impatience in the set of his shoulders. He was waiting for me to apologize. I held out my hand. “Give me back my bracelet.” His expression hardened. Chloe looked down at her wrist. “Of course. I’ll take it off right now.” She tugged at the clasp with trembling fingers. The thread had held for seven years. It snapped with one small, sharp sound. Pearls and green beads scattered across the tile. One rolled to a stop against my shoe. Chloe began to cry, but this time Luca didn’t comfort her immediately. He stared at the floor. “Ellie, I—” “It’s okay.” And, strangely, it was. I smiled. I could feel how unsteady it looked, but there was relief in it too. I wouldn’t have to take the bracelet home. I wouldn’t have to keep it in a drawer and touch it on nights when I missed him. For the first time in all my years at the company, I left before the end of the day. No one stopped me. The paperwork was signed. My keys and access card were on the desk. I went home, grabbed my bags, and booked the next flight to Boston. I needed to be gone before I found another reason to stay. A week passed before Luca realized he had not seen Elena once. The bracelet bothered him. He knew what it meant to her. He simply hadn’t thought it would break. He was about to find out where she had gone when his phone rang. Music and laughter spilled down the line. “Luca, where are you? Elena’s getting married today. You’re not coming?” It was Ben, from college. “I know she had that thing for you, but you’ve known each other for years. I figured you’d at least—” Luca’s phone hit the floor.