Page 44 of Stalk

I nod and Marco heads upstairs. I wouldn’t have minded if he wanted to stay with Ren and I, but Marco has always had a keen intuition. He knows when to stay and when to take hisleave. And this is no dinner between friends. Ren and I may be… friendly-ishat this point in our working relationship, but we have business to tend to.

“Wine?” I ask Ren.

They nod. “Thank you. It smells amazing, by the way. Did you make all this?”

“Yes. We’ve got a few more minutes before the pizza is ready, so feel free to start eating the antipasto if you’re hungry.”

“Wow. Thank you. I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in years.”

Probably not since their mother passed. I’m glad they are excited by the food, though I shouldn’t give a shit. I think this person is turning me soft, and I hate it.

We spend a while eating the antipasto and engaging in small talk, as if we really are just two friends hanging out. Ren doesn’t mention anything about what they found out, and I wish they’d mention something already. It’s kind of aggravating how easily they seem to bounce around from subject to subject, as if they’re purposely avoiding bringing up anything serious. They’re probably waiting for me to break the ice.

Once the pizza is done, I leave it on the counter to cool off. I set the table in the dining room before Marco and Ren got back, so I grab the salad and ask Ren to grab the antipasto platter. We make our way into the quaint dining room adorned with a square table and four chairs and set down the food. After retrieving our wineglasses, I join Ren at the table. Cannella plops down by my feet, not a care in the world.

“Are you secretly a chef or something?” Ren laughs. “Have you been fooling me this whole time?”

I put some salad onto Ren’s salad plate. “I promise I’m not. My mother is the chef, if anyone.”

“Well, she definitely taught you well.”

“You haven’t even had the main dish yet,” I say, only a little annoyed by all the flattery.

Ren tries the salad and groans in delight. It’s weird. They seem almost happy tonight. It’s probably the only time I’ve ever seen them at ease.

Still, I can’t help but fuck with them a little. “It’sjusta salad, Ren. Calm down.”

“Nuh-uh. This is the best salad I’ve ever tasted.”

With a scoff, I say, “You Americans need to gain a better taste in food.”

Ren shrugs and stuffs their mouth full of lettuce. My eyebrows raise with obvious judgment, but deep down, I’m holding back a laugh.

I clear my throat. It’s time to jump into the business side of this dinner. “Are you ready to discuss our findings?”

They smile as they swallow the food in their mouth. “You know, not everything has to be so formal. But yeah, we can dive in. So long as you promise not to keep me waiting for pizza too much longer.”

With a huff, I stand up and head back into the kitchen. I remember to drop off a plate to Marco, and then I serve the pizza to Ren and myself. Ren’s eyes widen in an almost cartoonish way once I set the plate in front of them. My heart leaps a little. I physically shake my head and ignore the idiotic muscle inside of my chest.

Ren blows on the pizza, which is still steaming. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”

I nod at them. “How about we start with you so I can catch up on eating?”

Ren laughs and rolls their eyes, but their happy and relaxed demeanor quickly slips away and the expression on their face becomes somber. Ren takes a long sip from their wineglass, then leans forward, placing their elbows on the table.

They sigh before speaking. “Well… Cleo and I found a lot of stuff, actually. Way more than I ever would have thought. Turns out, my mother was quite sneaky and weirdly good at hiding things.” I want to ask who Cleo is, but I don’t want to disrupt Ren’s story. Instead, I begin eating. “We found a lot of weapons, many diaries—I didn’t even know she kept diaries—documents, an annotated Bible, family photos, you name it. We also found her old laptop, but no charging cord.”

I swallow a bite of salad. “Marco is good with technology. Perhaps we can let him look at the laptop and see if he can track down a charging cord? If you trust him to do so, I mean.”

Ren shrugs. “I doubt it’s that hard to find, but I’ll take the help. I’ve just started going through all of our findings. It’s all a bit overwhelming.”

I nod. “Have you found anything noteworthy yet?” I ask after swallowing a bite of pizza—cooked to perfection, as always.

They shake their head. “I decided to start out by reading the diaries. I’m halfway through the oldest one, which she wrote when I was about two or three. There’s hardly anything in it about her line of work.”

“Hmm. How many diaries are there?”

Ren looks at me, their dark eyes swirling with dark shadows of their past. “Pretty much one for every year leading up to her death.”

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