sierra

THE FIRST THING YOU LEARNED ABOUT MONACO WAS THAT THE WALLS WERE THIN ENOUGH TO HEAR YOUR NEIGHBOR SWEARING AT HIS ESPRESSO MACHINE AT SIX-THIRTY EVERY MORNING.

Not loudly, either. That was the unsettling part.

Most people yelled when they were angry, but not your neighbor. He sounded calmly, professionally furious, like a man filing a formal complaint against God himself.

“You useless piece of —”

A metallic clank. After a moment, very distinctly: “I swear to Christ.”

You stared up at the wood tiled ceiling of your grandmother’s apartment, still tangled in unfamiliar sheets, sunlight spilling through the gauzy curtains in watery gold. For one peaceful second after waking up, you forgot where you were.

And then it punched you in the gut. You were in Monaco, following the surprise inheritance…and the funeral. You still couldn’t believe the fact that you’d uprooted your entire life — or whatever meager semblance of a life you had — on what could generously be described as an emotional breakdown and a legally binding whim.

Then the espresso machine hissed again, like a snake waiting to strike.

“Oh, come on.”

You blinked slowly. Your neighbor’s accent was distinctly Australian, so unlike the prim and prudish French accents that were common in Monaco.  

That difference, somehow, made it worse.

Rolling onto your back, you checked your phone. 6:34 A.M. Why the fuck was your neighbor cursing at his coffee machine at such an ungodly hour of the day?

You considered several possibilities.

One: your neighbor was the victim of a murderous kitchen appliance.

Two: he was deeply unstable.

Three: Monaco apartment walls were apparently constructed from decorative tissue paper.

The machine gave one final tortured sputter before a cupboard slammed hard enough to rattle a framed painting in your bedroom.

You bolted upright, heart pounding. “Jesus,” you muttered.

On the other side of the wall, the man sighed. Not a normal sigh, either. A long-suffering, exhausted sound. The sigh of someone moments away from throwing a very expensive appliance directly into the Mediterranean.

Against your better judgment, you laughed at the thought. Immediately there was silence, and you froze.

The silence somehow felt… pointed. Like he’d heard you. Which was very possible, considering you could hear every phonon of movement that he made.

Then came three sharp knocks against the shared wall. You stared at the blank space, contemplating what to do — either respond and interact with your Negative Nancy of a neighbor at an hour where half the population was fast asleep, or just go to bed yourself and pray he didn’t send that espresso machine flying through the wall. Before you could choose, though, another three knocks were rapped. Your eyebrows lifted slowly in pure astonishment. “No way.”

Three more knocks in quick succession.

You climbed out of bed, still wearing oversized sleep shorts and one of your oldest university hoodies that definitely had a hole in the armpit, and crossed the apartment barefoot. The hardwood floor was cold beneath your feet as you pressed your palm lightly against the wall.

“…Hello?”

Nothing for just a second.

“Your laugh is loud.”

You gasped. Actually gasped. “Oh my God,” you whispered to yourself, horrified.

The voice came again, muffled through plaster. Dry. Flat. Annoyingly attractive. “And your footsteps.”

You narrowed your eyes at the wall. “You’re the one verbally abusing an espresso machine before sunrise.”

“It’s not my fault.” He said it as easily as though he were stating the freezing point of water.

You stared for a beat longer before a disbelieving laugh escaped you again.

Instantly, your neighbor shot back: “See? That.”

“Oh, you cannot possibly be serious.”

“You’ll find,” the voice replied coolly, “that I usually am.”

The audacity. The sheer, unbearable audacity of this man. Whoever he was, he had a massive ego and a chip on his shoulder, and you wouldn’t stoop so low as to engage in these petty squabbles. 

You looked around your grandmother’s apartment as though searching for hidden cameras. Yesterday, you’d landed in Monaco carrying two suitcases, grief wrapped tight around your ribs, expecting reinvention and glamour and maybe a little healing by the sea.

Instead, you’d inherited a passive-aggressive wall enemy before unpacking your shampoo.

“Incredible,” you muttered. No response. You waited another second before asking, “…Did your coffee at least work?”

Begrudgingly, your neighbor answered, “No.”

You bit your lip to stop smiling. Which was unfortunate, really.

Because you had the distinct feeling your neighbor would hate that.

A month prior, you’d been standing in uncomfortable black stiletto heels beside a coffin wondering whether grief was supposed to feel more dramatic than this.

Rain tapped softly against the church windows. Someone in the second row was crying. Your aunt was pretending to dab away tears.

And you? Well. You mostly felt tired. You hadn’t seen your grandmother in almost four years.

That was the part nobody said out loud. Not during the service, at least.

Instead, people spoke about her elegance, her intelligence, her impossible standards. They talked about the way she carried herself through rooms like royalty and the way she never repeated an outfit twice in the seventies and how she once insulted a French ambassador so severely he refused to attend dinner parties she hosted afterward.

You believed every word of it.

Your grandmother had been difficult in the way expensive perfumes were difficult: sharp, overpowering, impossible to ignore. Loving her had always felt like the equivalent of losing an argument.

“You should stand straighter,” she used to tell you as a child, gently tapping your spine with two fingers.

“You should call more,” she’d say later, over increasingly strained phone calls, where long stretches of silence became more and more frequent. “You should want more from your life than this.”

This, apparently, meant everything. Your studio apartment in New York City. Your degree in art history. Your relationships, of which you had none. Your job as an intern at the Met.

You never seemed to reach the moving target of her approval, and eventually, you stopped trying to.

So one missed Christmas became two, a birthday phone call never went through.

And now she was dead.

The priest said something solemn. Your cousin sniffed loudly. You stared at white lilies until they blurred at the edges.

You thought grief would feel heavier, but instead it felt unfinished. This couldn’t be it; it just couldn’t. And yet it was.

After the burial, your family gathered beneath gray awnings outside the cemetery while rain misted over black umbrellas and expensive coats.

Your aunt Marianne caught your elbow before you could escape.

“There you are,” she said tightly, words clipped. “The lawyer is asking for everyone to meet Monday regarding the estate.”

You blinked, taken aback. “There’s an estate meeting?”

“She owned property in three countries,” Marianne replied, as though you were thick-headed. “Of course there’s an estate meeting.”

Right. Normal grandmothers left behind photo albums and recipe cards, but yours was anything but normal. 

You almost didn’t go when Monday arrived, heavy and humid. You spent most of the morning sitting in your old Kia outside the law office debating whether you could fake your own death instead.

Unfortunately, curiosity won.

The lawyer’s office smelled like polished wood and old paper. Everyone sat around a long table wearing expressions ranging from grieving to openly competitive. Your cousins looked like they were putting on their best imitation of a shark, eyes bloodthirsty and slitted as they waited to hear what the lawyer had to say. You took the chair closest to the exit. Just in case.

The lawyer adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “Thank you all for coming. We’ll begin with the personal allocations.”

The meeting dragged on.

Jewelry, investments. Art collections. Properties in two different continents, places you’d never been to and could only dream of going to. A stake in a film company. 

Your grandmother apparently possessed the financial portfolio of a minor Bond villain.

You stopped listening after twenty minutes. Until —

“And to her granddaughter —”

You looked up automatically, heart suddenly thrashing in your chest like it were a rabbit trying to free itself from a trap.

The lawyer smiled politely. “The apartment located in Monaco.”

Your brain completely shut down.

“…Sorry,” you said after a second. “What?”

Across the table, your aunt’s expression tightened almost imperceptibly.

“The residence in Monaco,” the lawyer repeated calmly. “Per your grandmother’s instructions, ownership transfers fully to you.”

You laughed. Not because it was funny, but because there was genuinely no other possible response. “I think there’s been a mistake.”

“There hasn’t.”

“No, I —” You looked around the room helplessly. “I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

The lawyer’s face softened slightly. “She amended the will six months ago.”

Six months ago.

“She also left a letter,” he added.

A cream envelope appeared in front of you moments later, your name written across the front in your grandmother’s elegant handwriting.

Suddenly, you couldn’t breathe properly. You stared at it for several seconds before opening it apprehensively.

Darling,

If you are reading this, then I am dead, which is unfortunate timing because Monaco is beautiful in spring.

You swallowed hard, tears pricking in your vision, yet you charged on.

You were always too sentimental for your own good. Too soft-hearted. I suspect the world has punished you for this already. But softness is not weakness, no matter what I may have taught you otherwise.

The apartment is yours because you are the only one who will live in it properly. Do not waste your life waiting for permission to become someone else.

And for God’s sake, answer your phone more often.

— Grand-mère

By the time you finished reading, your vision had gone embarrassingly blurry. You stared down at the paper, feeling completely out of your depth. Even her final act of affection still somehow sounded like criticism.

“Are you alright?” the lawyer asked gently.

You folded the letter carefully before answering.

“No,” you admitted. After a beat, you added: “But maybe I could be.”

By the time you arrived in Monaco, you were operating almost entirely on caffeine, blind optimism, and the kind of emotional dissociation that only occurred after making several catastrophic life decisions in rapid succession.

The train station spilled sunlight and noise and expensive luggage onto the streets in dizzying waves. Everything gleamed. The sea in the distance looked unreal, too blue to belong to an actual country, and every person you passed seemed aggressively well-dressed. Women in silk trousers walked tiny dogs that probably had trust funds. Men in linen shirts leaned against polished cars worth more than your student loans.

Meanwhile, you were dragging two overstuffed suitcases with one broken wheel through the streets while sweat collected at the base of your spine.

A glamorous entrance like no other, truly.

The apartment building itself sat tucked along a quieter street several blocks from the marina, elegant in that understated European way that made American luxury suddenly feel embarrassingly loud. Cream-colored stone climbed four stories high, ivy curling around wrought iron balconies. The windows were tall and narrow, their shutters painted faded green from years of Mediterranean sun.

You stood across the street for a long moment staring up at it.

Your grandmother had lived here.

The realization landed strangely every time it returned. You could still barely connect the woman who corrected your French grammar over Christmas dinners with this place that looked like it belonged in a film.

For a second, fear crawled unpleasantly into your throat. What if you didn’t belong here either?

Then one of your suitcases tipped sideways and nearly launched itself into traffic. “OK,” you muttered, yanking it upright. “Fantastic start.”

Inside, the building smelled faintly of lemon polish and old books. Cool air wrapped around your overheated skin as you stepped into the lobby, immediately grateful.

Until you saw the staircase. You stared upward. No elevator. Presumably, your grandmother’s final wish was for you to die dramatically hauling your earthly possessions up four flights of stairs.

The apartment keys dug into your palm while you mentally calculated how many trips this would take. Too many.

By the second trip, your arms were shaking. By the third, you were actively considering abandoning half your belongings on the staircase and reinventing yourself as the kind of woman who owned exactly two shirts and no cookware. The final box, a massive one filled almost entirely with books because apparently you’d inherited your grandmother’s inability to travel lightly, was balanced precariously against your chest as you stumbled up the last flight.

You couldn’t see, vision blacking out with sweat and sheer fatigue.

“One more step,” you whispered to yourself breathlessly. “One more —”

The box slipped out of your slick grasp. You made a strangled sound, knees buckling as the entire thing tilted sideways. And — a hand caught the edge of it, steadying it effortlessly.

You looked up. Oh.

Oh, that was unfortunate.

The man standing above you on the landing was tall in a way that felt deeply inconvenient at the moment, broad shoulders blocking part of the afternoon light streaming through the stairwell window. Dark brown hair curled slightly at the ends like he’d run a hand through it too many times, and his expression?

His expression was profoundly unimpressed.

Not annoyed, exactly, as that would have implied emotional investment. No, he looked at you the way someone might look at an unusually loud pigeon.

You straightened slightly, breathless and sweaty and immediately defensive. “Thanks,” you said, as politely as you could manage.

His eyes flicked once over the massive box in your arms, over your wobbling posture, and back to your face. “You know,” he said evenly, accent unmistakably Australian, “most people make more than six trips.”

You blinked at him. The nerve. “I have made more than six trips.”

“Hm.”

“Hm?” you repeated incredulously, too winded to even think about the ridiculousness of that one word.

He released the box slowly, clearly unconcerned whether it crushed you or not. “That explains why you look like that.”

You stared.

He stared back. Completely serious.

The worst part was that he wasn’t even mean about it. There was no cruelty in his voice, no mocking grin. Just blunt observation delivered with the emotional warmth of a spreadsheet.

You adjusted the box against your chest with increasing offense. “Wow. You’re really committed to being unhelpful, huh?”

His gaze drifted toward the staircase below, where another one of your bags had fallen over dramatically. “You seem to have it handled.”

“I very clearly do not.” You waited for him to help. 

He did not help.

Instead, he slid one hand into the pocket of his dark trousers and tilted his head slightly, studying you with mild curiosity. Like he was trying to determine whether your situation was genuinely concerning or simply entertaining. You suspected it was the second one.

You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Not at all,” he responded.

“You hesitated.”

“I was thinking.”

You cocked your head to the side, studying him. “About?”

“How someone survives adulthood while carrying a box like that.”

You let out a disbelieving laugh. He blinked once at the sound, almost caught off guard by it.

Up close, he looked around your age. Mid-to-late twenties, maybe. Tired eyes. Sharp jawline. One of those faces that would probably look devastating if he ever smiled…which, judging by current evidence, had perhaps never occurred.

He wore a black button-down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, revealing strong forearms dusted faintly with grease or graphite. Engineer, maybe. Or mechanic. Something precise and frustratingly competent. Definitely not a job that involved being surrounded by people, for sure.

“Do you always stand around watching women suffer for fun,” you asked, shifting the box again, “or am I special?”

His gaze dropped briefly to the way you were struggling to hold it. “You’re loud,” he answered.

You frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’ve been swearing in the stairwell for twenty minutes.”

Heat crawled immediately into your face. “Oh my God.”

“One box said fragile before you dropped it.”

“It slipped!”

“Hm.” There it was again. That stupid little hum.

You already hated him. Which would’ve been easier if he weren’t annoyingly attractive in that severe, exhausted sort of way.

“Do you live here?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“Great. Then you’re my first Monaco enemy.”

Something shifted in his expression. Not quite amusement, but close enough to count. “You just moved in?” he questioned, lips quirking upward insufferably.

“Yes.”

His eyes flicked toward the door beside yours. The apartment next door.

The realization hit you instantly. Looks like this intolerable, unaccommodating jerk was going to be a staple of your new life in Monaco. How wonderful. And you didn’t even know his name — which was for the better, since you did not want to be on friendly terms with this jackass.

He glanced down at the box still threatening to crush your internal organs. “You’re holding that wrong.”

“Oh, now you want to help?”

“No,” he said calmly. “I’m criticizing your technique.”

You made a noise of outrage. And to your absolute horror, the corner of his mouth twitched. Just slightly. 

Not a smile.

But dangerously close.

Five days into living in Monaco, you came to two important conclusions.

First: the city was absurdly beautiful in a way that became almost irritating after a while. Every street looked curated, a perfect home feed on Pinterest. Every café seemed to exist solely to make tourists romanticize their lives. Even the air smelled expensive, saltwater and sunscreen and citrus drifting together beneath the afternoon heat.

Second: your neighbor was either avoiding you deliberately or naturally moved through life like a suspicious alley cat.

You’d heard him through the walls plenty.

Cabinets opening at precise times. Low music occasionally humming through the apartment. Classical sometimes, instrumental piano other times, once an aggressively miserable jazz playlist that lasted nearly four hours. You’d also discovered he worked insane hours, judging by the fact you’d heard his front door close sometime after midnight twice already.

But actually seeing him was rare.

It was beginning to annoy you on principle.

Especially because every interaction so far had ended with him looking faintly exasperated by your existence while you developed an increasingly inconvenient curiosity about his.

So on Thursday afternoon, after unpacking exactly half your kitchen and collapsing over a box labeled miscellaneous wires, you decided you deserved a break. 

Monaco unfolded lazily beneath the sun as you wandered downhill toward the older part of the city. Laundry fluttered from narrow balconies overhead. Scooters buzzed past. Somewhere nearby, church bells rang softly through the heat.

You stopped in little shops mostly to escape the temperature. A tiny bakery where the woman behind the counter called you darling after you butchered your French pronunciation. A stationery store filled with fountain pens you absolutely could not afford.

Then finally… the bookstore.

It sat tucked between a wine shop and a florist, nearly hidden beneath climbing ivy. The sign overhead was faded slightly with age, the windows crowded with stacked novels and handwritten recommendation cards.

You paused outside immediately. Unlike most places in Monaco, it didn’t feel polished. It felt lived-in.

Inside, the air smelled like paper and dust and old wood soaked warm by sunlight. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling in crooked little aisles, books stacked sideways where they no longer fit properly. Soft jazz played somewhere overhead. You exhaled slowly.

OK.

This might be the first place in Monaco that didn’t make you feel wildly underdressed. You wandered aimlessly at first, fingertips brushing over spines. French novels. Travel memoirs. Architecture books bigger than your torso.

A sleepy orange cat blinked at you from atop a stack near the register.

“This is perfect,” you whispered.

The cat yawned.

You drifted toward the back corner before stopping abruptly, fear clenching your chest nonsensically.

Your stupid neighbor — Oscar — stood near one of the shelves with a book open in one hand, entirely absorbed. Dark gray T-shirt this time. Black trousers. Glasses perched low on his nose.

Glasses.

You stared for a second too long. They somehow made him look even more severe, like he was someone who corrected grammar in emails for fun.

Unfortunately, they also made him hotter, which felt deeply unfair considering his personality.

You should probably leave him alone. Instead, you walked directly toward him.

“Are you stalking me,” you asked pleasantly, “or is this just fate?”

Oscar looked up slowly. His expression changed the exact same way it always did when he saw you: a tiny flicker of recognition immediately followed by visible mental exhaustion. “You live next door to me.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“No,” he agreed calmly. “It doesn’t.”

His eyes returned to the book.

You stared at him. He focused on the page, as though you no longer existed to him.

“Wow,” you muttered. “You really commit to the whole emotionally unavailable thing.”

“I’m reading.”

“In public. Dangerous choice.”

A pause. Without looking up, he countered: “You’re loud in bookstores too?”

You scoffed. “That was almost a joke.”

“Well, it wasn’t supposed to be.”

You moved beside him anyway, tilting your head to read the title in his hands. Advanced Structural Systems Engineering.

You blinked. “Holy shit.”

“What?” he said, exasperatedly.

“You actually read these voluntarily. And here I was, thinking that nobody could ever find building infrastructure fun.”

Oscar finally looked at you properly again, gaze steady and unreadable behind his glasses. “It’s relevant to my work.”

“Oh God, that’s worse. Why would you choose that of all careers?”

“You ask too many questions,” Oscar muttered, but he lowered the book and affixed his eyes on you again.

“And you answer too few,” you retorted.

“That usually discourages people.”

“Well, disappointingly for you, I’m deeply irritating.” You flashed him a wide smile. 

He scowled, lines marring his face. “I noticed.”

The thing was, he never sounded cruel. Dry, yes. Constantly unimpressed, absolutely. But there was something strange underneath it all, something restrained rather than genuinely cold. Maybe speaking too much physically pained him, but listening didn’t.

Because he did listen. You were beginning to notice that.

Even now, his attention stayed fixed on you with unsettling steadiness despite his minimal responses. Most people waited impatiently for their turn to speak. Oscar seemed content letting silence stretch between your words.

“So,” you said, pulling a random novel from the shelf and thumbing through it. “Engineer.”

“Yes.”

“What kind?”

“Mechanical.”

You blew out a low breath. “That sounds important.”

“It’s mostly spreadsheets and suffering,” he remarked, tilting his head to the side.

You laughed. Again, there it was, flitting on Oscar’s face — that almost-expression. Close enough to a smile that you caught yourself wanting to earn another one. You leaned lightly against the shelf. “You know, when I first met you, I thought you were incredibly rude.”

“That implies you changed your mind.”

“Oh, no,” you said quickly. “You absolutely are.”

Oscar’s eyebrows raised.

“But,” you continued with a hint of a smile on your face, “I think maybe you’re secretly less horrible than you pretend to be.”

There’s a moment of silence as he thinks of what to say. “That sounds like a disappointing realization for you.”

You laugh again, bright and loud. Everything Oscar claims he hates.

The bookstore owner shuffled past pushing a cart of books, eyeing the two of you curiously before disappearing again. Oscar glanced toward the architecture section nearby.“You inherited  the apartment?”

The sudden change in conversation surprised you slightly. Maybe because it was the first personal thing he’d asked. “Yeah,” you answered more softly. “My grandmother’s.”

“She lived there a long time.”

“You knew her?”

“A little.”

You watched him carefully. “Did she terrorize you too?”

To your shock, his mouth actually twitched upward. Small. Brief, but definitely real. “She corrected my pronunciation once.”

“Oh my God.” You snorted. “That means she liked you.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he objected.

“No, seriously. She only bothered correcting people she found interesting enough to fix.”

Oscar looked down at the book in his hands again, thoughtful now. The light from the windows caught against the frames of his glasses, softening the sharpness of his face. For the first time since meeting him, he looked less like an irritation and more like he was… lonely, maybe.

You wondered how long he’d lived next door. The thought sat strangely heavy in your chest. “You know,” you joked, “you can smile. I checked. It won’t kill you.”

Oscar looked at you for a long moment, and then reached past you toward a shelf overhead, entirely ignoring the comment. Unfortunately, his arm brushed yours lightly in the process.

Your brain short-circuited instantly. He pulled a book free.

“You’d like this one,” he said, handing it to you.

You looked down automatically. A Moveable Feast. Your brows lifted slightly. “You’re recommending me books now?”

“It’s Hemingway.”

“That doesn’t answer the question either.”

Oscar met your gaze evenly. “No,” he said again, quieter this time. “It doesn’t.”

Something shifted after the bookstore, but not as dramatic as one might expect.

Oscar did not suddenly become warm or talkative or capable of expressing emotions like a normal human being. He still looked vaguely inconvenienced every time you appeared unexpectedly within his line of sight. He still answered most questions with the fewest words possible. He still treated social interaction like a mildly unpleasant administrative task.

But the edges softened, tiny things at first. The next morning, the espresso machine was quieter. Not fixed, exactly — you still heard a muffled curse around six-thirty — but quieter in the deliberate way that suggested Oscar had used a modicum of effort to not be as loud.

Which was a ridiculous thing to think.

You stood in your kitchen holding a spoonful of yogurt and stared at the shared wall suspiciously. “Was that for me?”

Faintly, Oscar’s disgruntled response. “No.”

You grinned into your breakfast.

Later that afternoon, you found a folded piece of paper slid beneath your apartment door. Not a note, but a list. Three cafés written in precise handwriting. Good coffee, not tourist traps. Stop going to the one on the corner. Their espresso tastes burnt.

You laughed so suddenly you nearly scared yourself. Even though there was no signature, you knew exactly who the list was written by. Like there was anyone else in the building passive-aggressive enough to leave anonymous coffee criticism at your doorstep.

You went to all three cafés. And despite your reservations, he was right.

After that, Monaco started feeling smaller in strange ways. You’d spot Oscar unexpectedly throughout the week like some bizarre recurring character only you seemed able to unlock.

At the market buying exactly six oranges and nothing else. Walking home late at night with rolled-up blueprints tucked beneath one arm. Standing outside the florist beside your building while an elderly woman enthusiastically spoke French at him while he listened with the exhausted patience of a hostage negotiator. And every time you interacted with him, he stopped a little longer when talking to you.

Not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for you to. You were observant in that sort of way. “You’re becoming significantly less terrifying,” you informed him one evening when you crossed paths on the staircase.

Oscar glanced at you from beneath tired eyes. “That sounds unlikely.”

“You gave me coffee recommendations.”

“You were drinking bad espresso. I could smell it.”

You harrumph. “OK, but you carried my groceries upstairs yesterday.”

“You dropped a tomato,” he rebutted.

“It burst dramatically.”

“It exploded.”

You smiled brightly. “And yet you helped me anyway.”

He adjusted his grip on the folder tucked under his arm. “That’s since you were blocking the staircase.”

“See, that’s the thing,” you said, pointing at him accusatorially. “You always pretend you’re helping people accidentally.”

Oscar looked almost wary now, like he disliked being perceived too closely. “Do you analyze strangers often?”

“Only interesting ones.”

That earned you silence. Not the dismissive kind you were familiar with, but the thoughtful one. You were beginning to understand the difference, slowly but surely.

A handful of days later, rain swept over Monaco in silver sheets so heavy the streets below your apartment blurred completely. Thunder rolled somewhere over the sea while warm wind rattled the shutters. You’d spent the evening curled beneath a blanket reading the Hemingway novel Oscar recommended.

Which was annoying, because it was good. Quiet and aching and observant in ways that slipped beneath your skin without permission.

You were halfway through rereading and admiring a paragraph for the third time when someone knocked on your door. Three sharp taps.

Your stomach flipped immediately, and you opened the door to find Oscar standing there holding two mugs of coffee.

You blinked at him. Rain darkened the shoulders of his dark ebony sweater slightly, curls damp from the weather. He looked unfairly good in low lighting, all sharp lines softened by the glow spilling from your apartment.

“The power’s out in my kitchen,” you said.

Oscar glanced past you toward the darkened appliances.

“I know.”

“You know?”

“The whole building lost partial electricity twenty minutes ago.”

“Oh.” You looked at the coffee, then back at him. “So to commiserate the loss of my appliances, you brought me pity beverages?”

“You looked miserable earlier.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “You noticed I looked miserable?”

“You sigh loudly when frustrated.”

“I do not.”

Oscar smirked. “You do.”

Offended, you crossed your arms. Oscar held one mug out slightly.

“It’s temporary,” he said. “The outage.”

You took the coffee carefully, fingers brushing his for half a second.

Warm. Dangerously so. “Thanks,” you murmured.

“You finished the book?” The question caught you off guard, and you took a second to reorient yourself.

“Almost.”

Oscar nodded once towards the general direction of his apartment. “I have more. If you want.”

Your brain buffered as you understood what he was suggesting. “You’re inviting me over?”

A flicker of hesitation crossed his face then, so brief you almost missed it. Like he was already reconsidering the decision in real time. “It’s raining,” he said finally. “And your apartment currently smells like burnt toast.”

Heat rushed immediately into your face. “That happened one time.”

“Not true. You set off the fire alarm twice.”

“The second one was unrelated,” you argued.

Oscar’s expression remained perfectly neutral. “You can come over,” he said. “Or continue destroying your kitchen independently.”

You stared at him for another second, but you couldn’t help it. A slow smile grew on your face. “Wow. Oscar Piastri voluntarily initiating social interaction. Historic moment.”

“I can leave,” he pointed out.

“No, absolutely not.”

His apartment looked exactly how you imagined it would. Clean to the point of suspicion. Dim warm lighting. Bookshelves arranged with alarming precision. One massive desk crowded with sketches, mechanical parts, and monitors filled with things you absolutely did not understand.

The place felt lived in quietly, as though someone who spent most of his life inside his own head but had tried, carefully, to make solitude comfortable.

Music played softly somewhere in the background. Piano again.

“You own candles,” you said immediately, spotting one lit near the bookshelf.

Oscar shut the door behind you. “That’s your first observation?”

“You don’t seem like a candle person,” you informed him.

“What does a candle person look like?” Oscar scoffed.

“Happier.”

To your delight, you caught it again. That tiny near-smile. “You can sit down, you know.”

You wandered instead, deciding to uncover some fragments about the mystery that was Oscar’s life. “You alphabetized your books,” you accused him as you inspected his perfectly organized shelves. The ones in your apartment looked nothing like this.

“No.”

You paused, looking closer.

“Don’t tell me it’s chronologically? By publication date?”

“Yes,” he confirmed, a soft blush spreading on his cheeks.

“That’s somehow worse.”

“You reorganized yours by color yesterday.”

You turned sharply. “How do you know that?”

Oscar froze for approximately one second too long. “You left your curtains open,” he answered finally.

“Oh my God.” You pointed at him accusingly. “You do watch me.”

“I live next door.”

“That is not helping your case.”

He looked genuinely unimpressed by your delight over this revelation, but there was something looser about him tonight. Less guarded around the edges. You settled onto the couch eventually, curling one leg beneath yourself while Oscar sat in the armchair opposite, coffee resting untouched in his hands. “You liked Hemingway?” he asked after a while.

You looked down at the book beside you.

“Yeah,” you admitted quietly. “It feels… lonely.” Oscar’s gaze lifted toward yours. “Not sad,” you continued thoughtfully. “Just… like someone trying very hard not to say what they actually feel.”

Silence settled between you. Heavy suddenly. And for the first time since meeting him, Oscar didn’t immediately look away first. “You do that too, you know,” you said softly before you could stop yourself. His expression stilled. “With the whole pretending-not-to-care thing.”

The rain filled the quiet for a moment. Then Oscar leaned back slightly in his chair, studying you with that same unsettling steadiness he always seemed to reserve only for you. “You’ve known me for a week.”

“Mm. And?”

“And you think you understand me already?”

“No,” you clarified honestly. “I just think you want people to underestimate how much you notice.”

Something flickered across his face then. Recognition, changing the air between you two. The room didn’t suddenly become charged with cinematic tension. Nobody leaned closer. Nobody confessed anything dramatic beneath the rain and candlelight.

Oscar simply looked at you for a fraction too long. And for a man who treated eye contact like a limited resource, it felt strangely intimate.

The piano music hummed softly through the apartment while thunder rolled somewhere over the sea. Outside the windows, Monaco glittered silver and gold beneath the storm, headlights smearing against rain-slick streets below.

Inside, Oscar remained very still in his chair across from you. “You say things like that often?” he asked eventually.

“What, annoyingly perceptive things?”

“Yes.”

You smiled slightly. “Only when I’m trying to bother someone.”

“And is it working?”

“You invited me into your apartment voluntarily. I think I’m making incredible progress.”

That earned you the smallest exhale through his nose. Not quite laughter — or a smile — but God, you were becoming disturbingly addicted to making Oscar Piastri happy.

His fingers tapped once against the side of his coffee mug before he asked, quieter this time, “What made you say it?”

“The underestimating thing?”

A nod. You considered him carefully. “I don’t know,” you admitted. “You notice everything.”

Oscar’s brows pulled together faintly.

“You remembered which café I kept going to. You knew I reorganized my books. You notice when I’m frustrated… through a wall.” You gestured lightly around the apartment. “Half your personality is pretending not to care while secretly paying attention to literally everything.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It sounds lonely.”

The words slipped out before you could soften them. Immediately, silence settled again. You watched his expression shutter slightly. He wasn’t angry, or offended, just instinctively guarded. You’d stepped accidentally too close to something private. Your stomach twisted. “Sorry,” you said quickly. “That was probably—”

“No,” Oscar interrupted. His voice was calm. “It’s fine.” Which, you were beginning to learn, usually meant absolutely not fine at all.

You shifted slightly on the couch. “You don’t have to answer personal questions, by the way.”

“I know.”

“You just look at me like I’ve committed a federal crime every time I ask one.”

“That’s because you ask invasive ones.”

“You invited me over to discuss literature. This is what happens.”

“I regret it already.”

“No, you don’t,” you corrected him.

Oscar glanced at you then, and there it was again. That impossible almost-smile threatening at the corner of his mouth before disappearing. “I usually don’t invite people over,” he admitted after a moment.

Something about the quiet honesty of it made your chest ache unexpectedly. “You don’t seem like you usually invite people anywhere.”

“You’d be right about that.”

“Do you have friends?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“You hesitated,” you said, pouting.

“I was deciding if you counted as one.”

Your heart did one deeply humiliating thing, but you recovered with visible effort. “Wow. That was almost nice.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

After that night, things changed in ways so subtle you almost convinced yourself you imagined them. Except you didn’t.

Oscar started existing around you differently.

You’d hear your front door open in the mornings only to find coffee sitting outside sometimes — not every day, just occasionally. No note, no explanation. Just a paper cup from one of the cafés he’d recommended.

The first time it happened, you knocked on his door immediately. When he opened it, he looked annoyingly unsurprised to see you. “Did you leave this outside my apartment?”

Oscar leaned one shoulder against the doorframe. “Probably.”

“Probably?”

“You drank the terrible coffee near the marina again yesterday.”

“You can’t punish me into having better taste,” you reminded him.”

He shrugged. “I can try.”

You stared at him, looked down at the coffee, and back up again. “Wait. This is kind of sweet.”

His expression changed instantly, like the word itself physically alarmed him. “No, it isn’t.”

“It absolutely is.”

He fumbled for what to say next. “You looked tired.”

“So your solution was caffeine and emotional repression?”

“That solves most things.”

“Jesus Christ.” But you smiled the entire walk back into your apartment.

Another evening, you came home balancing groceries against your hip only to find Oscar sitting on the floor outside his apartment door with a screwdriver clenched between his teeth.

You stopped short. He glanced up briefly from where he was taking apart the lock mechanism. “…Did you break into your own apartment?”

“No.”

“You look like you did.”

“The lock jammed,” he corrected you.

You crouched down nearby immediately despite the groceries cutting painfully into your fingers. “How long have you been out here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“And you didn’t call someone?” you inquired, choking out a laugh.

“I can fix it.”

“You say that with the confidence of a man currently sitting in a hallway.”

Oscar removed the screwdriver from his mouth with visible patience. “Go inside.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“I know moral support is important,” you added, beaming. 

He flicked his gaze up to you, brown eyes crinkling with frustration. “I don’t need moral support.”

“That’s objectively false.”

He sighed quietly. You sat cross-legged on the floor anyway.

The hallway was warm from the lingering heat outside, golden evening light filtering through the stairwell windows. Somewhere downstairs, someone played music softly while dishes clinked faintly through open windows. Oscar worked in silence for another minute before speaking suddenly. “You really don’t get discouraged easily.”

You tilted your head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Most people stop talking when I clearly want them to.”

“Oh.” You smiled brightly. “That’s because I think you secretly enjoy it.”

“I don’t.”

“You invited me over.”

“That was one time,” he refuted.

“You bought me coffee.”

Oscar tossed his head back. “You looked exhausted.”

“You repaired my window latch yesterday.”

“It was hanging off.”

You inhaled, annoyed. “You notice every time I come home late.”

“That’s because you stomp up the stairs like a soldier returning from war.”

You grinned triumphantly, finally having gotten what you wanted. “See?”

Oscar looked deeply dissatisfied with the direction of this conversation. Before you could say anything, the lock clicked open. He blinked once. “Hm.”

“That’s your reaction?” you asked incredulously. “Not even a little celebration?”

“It’s a lock.”

“You have the emotional range of a Victorian widower. God.”

Oscar looked up at you from where he still sat on the floor. And finally — he laughed. Small and startled, like the sound escaped accidentally. But real.

You froze instantly. That was significantly worse than the almost-smiles. Because now you knew what he sounded like when he genuinely laughed, and unfortunately it was warm and low and unfairly nice.

Oscar seemed to realize what he’d done a second later because his expression shifted immediately back toward guarded neutrality. Too late.

Your eyes widened slowly. “You can laugh.”

“That was barely a laugh.”

“But it was one.”

“No.”

You nudged his shoulder. “You literally laughed at my joke.”

“I exhaled.”

“You’re embarrassed,” you chortled.

“I’m opening my door now.” He stood up smoothly, towering over you again as he pushed the apartment door open. “Goodnight,” he said flatly.

You got to your feet far slower, still grinning like an idiot. “Goodnight, Oscar.”

He paused just before stepping inside, glancing back toward you standing in the hallway. “You can borrow the other Hemingway book I have when you finish,” he said. And then he disappeared into his apartment.

You stood there for another few seconds holding your groceries, heart beating strangely hard beneath your ribs. Somewhere between the bookstore and the coffee and the quiet conversations in the rain, your grumpy neighbor had stopped looking at you like an inconvenience.

By the fifth week of you living in Monaco, Oscar started lingering. That was how you knew things were getting dangerous.

Not because he became openly affectionate — heavens no. Oscar still spoke like every additional sentence cost him money. He still answered the door looking mildly inconvenienced by human interaction. He still acted personally betrayed whenever you made him laugh unexpectedly.

But now he stayed. In the hallway after brief conversations should’ve ended. At your apartment door after returning borrowed books. Beside you at the little market near the marina while you spent fifteen minutes dramatically debating between peaches and nectarines.

“You can’t actually taste the difference,” he informed you.

“That is an insane thing to say.”

“You’re choosing based entirely on vibes.”

“You say that like it’s wrong,” you protested.

Oscar looked at the fruit. “The peaches are objectively better.”

“You have strong opinions about fruit,” you grinned, “I’m surprised.”

“I have correct opinions about produce.” There it was again, that warmth hiding underneath the dryness.

It showed up more often now. In the way he automatically walked on the outside edge of sidewalks without seeming to realize it. In the way he started bringing an extra coffee downstairs if he saw your lights on early in the morning. In the way his apartment door remained cracked open occasionally while he worked, a silent invitation that you’d somehow learned how to read.

Sometimes you sat there for hours doing nothing together. You’d curl up on his couch reading while Oscar worked at his desk nearby, sleeves rolled up, glasses slipping lower down his nose while blueprints and mechanical sketches crowded his screens.

You’d always thought connection had to be loud to matter. Big conversations, grand confessions, immediate understanding.

Oscar was quiet in a way that made tiny things feel enormous. One night, you looked up from your book to find him watching you absentmindedly from across the room. “What?” you asked.

Oscar blinked once, like you’d caught him doing something embarrassing. “Nothing.”

“You’re staring at me.”

“You’re reading intensely.”

You frowned. “How does someone read intensely?”

“You keep making faces.”

“That’s because I’m emotionally invested.”

“You gasped twenty seconds ago,” he concurred.

“It was warranted!”

His mouth twitched faintly. Your chest did something deeply pathetic. The thing was, you couldn’t pinpoint exactly when you started falling for him.

Maybe it was the bookstore. Maybe it was the rainstorm. Maybe it was every tiny moment afterward: the coffee, the conversations, the way he always noticed things about you nobody else did. Or maybe, it was moments like these. The terrifying gentleness hiding underneath all that restraint. Oscar never reached for attention, instead for specifics.

The exact pastry you liked from the bakery downstairs, the fact you hated overhead lighting at night, the way you reread paragraphs when you were anxious.

He noticed everything.

And once he cared about something, you got the feeling he cared permanently. Which was horrifying, really. Especially since you were beginning to suspect the same thing about yourself.

It happened on a Thursday evening.

Warm wind drifted through the open balcony doors while the city glowed beneath the sunset. You sat cross-legged on Oscar’s kitchen counter eating strawberries directly from the carton while he made coffee with the concentration of a surgeon.

“You know,” you said thoughtfully, “for someone who claimed I was too loud, you spend a shocking amount of time with me.”

Oscar slid a cup toward you without looking up. “You’re still loud.”

“And yet here you are.”

“Hm.”

You smiled into your coffee. Outside, Monaco buzzed softly with evening life. Scooters somewhere below. Distant laughter from the street. The sea beyond the buildings turning molten beneath the setting sun.

Oscar leaned back lightly against the counter across from you, arms folded. “You like France?” he asked suddenly.

You looked up, surprised by the question. “I think so.”

“Think?”

“I’ve never… really been.” You glanced toward the balcony. “I mean, unless you’re counting Monaco as being a part of France. But I’m not sure if you are or not. Anyways, my grandmother would have loved the thought of me moving here… at least that’s what I hope.” 

Oscar watched you, a flicker of amusement crossing his face. “She was difficult.”

“She was terrifying.”

“She liked you,” he murmured. The certainty in his voice made you look away from him unexpectedly, refocusing down at your coffee. 

“I don’t know about that.”

Oscar was quiet for a moment. “She talked about you.”

Your head lifted immediately. “What?”

He looked almost reluctant now, like he already regretted speaking. “She mentioned you sometimes,” he admitted. “Mostly after you stopped visiting her in Newport.”

Something inside you twisted painfully. “Oh.”

“She kept photos.”

Your throat tightened further.

Oscar’s gaze stayed fixed somewhere near your shoulder instead of your eyes now, voice calm and even in the way it always became when talking about emotional things too directly. “She worried about you.”

For a second, neither of you spoke. The air between you felt fragile suddenly. “I thought she was disappointed in me,” you admitted quietly.

Oscar looked at you then. Really looked at you. Something about his expression made your pulse stumble. “I don’t think,” he said carefully, “you disappoint people as much as you think you do.”

The words landed harder than they should have. Oscar never said things he didn’t mean, either because he noticed too much, or because somewhere along the way, his opinion had started mattering to you in ways that felt terrifyingly irreversible.

The dying sunlight caught against the edges of his hair and the curve of his jaw. You suddenly became hyperaware of how close he stood. How easy it would be to step forward.

Neither of you moved.

Oscar cleared his throat softly and looked away first.

“There’s a vineyard in Nice,” he said.

“That’s… random.”

“I know.” He laughed, then played it off as a cough before you could point it out.

“You hate random.”

“I tolerate some exceptions.”

Your lips curved slightly. “Do you now?”

Oscar rubbed a hand once across the back of his neck, and to your absolute shock, he looked — nervous? “They do outdoor dinners sometimes,” he continued, gaze fixed very firmly on the coffee machine instead of you. “It’s quieter this time of year.”

Slowly, your smile faded into something softer. “Oscar.”

“They have good wine,” he added, clearly making things worse for himself now. “And olives. You like olives.”

Your heart practically melted onto the kitchen floor. “You noticed I like olives?”

His jaw tightened faintly like he regretted existing. “You order them constantly.”

“And this is…” You tilted your head slightly. “What exactly?”

Finally, Oscar looked at you again. Steady, certain, but terrified regardless. “A date,” he said simply.

The word settled warmly between you. You smiled before you could stop yourself. Gentle enough that something in Oscar’s expression immediately unraveled at the sight of it.

“I’d love to go,” you said.

For a moment, he just looked at you, like he couldn’t quite believe you answered that easily. And then he smiled. Not the tiny restrained flickers you’d spent weeks chasing.

A real one.

Small and crooked and devastating enough to knock the breath directly from your lungs.

Suddenly, with the sea glowing outside the windows, you understood something all at once: You hadn’t moved to Monaco to start over.

You’d moved there to be found.