The first time I saw him after the elevator incident, I was in my pajamas.
Not cute pajamas. Not the matching set I owned and never actually wore. I'm talking about an oversized shirt from a 5K run I did four years ago that said FINISH STRONG across the chest, paired with plaid shorts that had seen better decades. Hair in a clip that was doing its best. Coffee mug in hand.
It was six-thirty in the morning and I was trying to figure out which hallway led to the communal mail room.
I turned the corner and almost walked directly into him.
We both stopped.
He looked at my shirt. Then at my face.
I looked at his — and my stomach did something I immediately decided to ignore.
"You live on this floor," I said. It came out more accusatory than I intended.
"Unit 701." He said it like a fact, not an apology. Dark hoodie again — did he own other clothes? — and he was carrying a coffee of his own, black, no sleeve on the cup like heat was something that happened to other people.
"I'm 704." I don't know why I told him that. He probably already knew.
He nodded once and started to move past me.
"Hey — wait." I turned. "You never told me your name."
He paused. Didn't quite look at me, but didn't keep walking either. Something about the way he held himself made me feel like every word I said was being quietly evaluated.
"Luca," he said finally.
"Aria."
A beat. "I know."
"How do you—" I stopped. Right. He'd seen my unit number last night. Probably not hard to figure out from the building registry. "Okay, that's only mildly creepy."
The corner of his mouth moved. Just barely. Almost a smile. Gone before I could confirm it.
"You're a nursing student," he said.
"And you're apparently a person who knows things about me that I haven't told you, so." I raised my mug. "We're getting off to a great start, Luca."
He looked at me then — really looked, for just a second, like he was deciding something again. He did that a lot, I was realizing. That quiet considering thing, like there was a conversation happening behind his eyes that his mouth wasn't invited to.
"The mail room is left, then right at the fire door," he said.
Then he kept walking.
I stood in the hallway watching him go, annoyed and intrigued in equal measure, which was quickly becoming my default state around this man.
✦
The building had a coffee station in the lobby. One of those nice pod machines that the tenant welcome packet had described, somewhat desperately, as a "community amenity." It was next to the mailboxes and a sad little table with a plant that was either thriving or fake — I genuinely couldn't tell.
I started going down there in the mornings before my commute because the machine in my unit was temperamental and I didn't have time to negotiate with appliances. It became routine fast. Seven AM, pod machine, ten minutes of quiet before the day tried to kill me.
He was there on Wednesday.
Standing at the machine, waiting for it to finish, scrolling his phone with an expression that could only be described as professionally unbothered.
I almost went back upstairs. I didn't.
"Morning," I said, stepping up beside him.
He glanced over. "Morning."
"You're always up early."
"So are you."
"I have six AM labs three days a week. What's your excuse?"
He was quiet for a second, watching his coffee fill. "Work."
"What kind of work?"
He took his cup. Looked at me. "The kind with early hours."
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
I let out a short laugh — I couldn't help it. "You're genuinely the most evasive person I've ever met, and I've dealt with attending physicians who won't give a straight answer about lunch, so that's saying something."
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite warmth, but adjacent to it.
"Luca," I said, dropping my voice like we were conspiring, "I'm going to find out eventually. I live three doors down. I'm nosy by nature and professionally trained to notice things."
He picked up his coffee. And this time, the almost-smile made it all the way.
"Good morning, Aria," he said.
And walked away.
I stared at the pod machine.
"I hate him," I told it.
The machine beeped back sympathetically.
✦
Bea nearly spit her coffee through the phone.
"Wait — he's hot?"
"I didn't say hot. I said he had a scar above his eyebrow and unsettling eyes. Those are neutral observations."
"Those are extremely not neutral observations, oh my god."
"He's weird, Bea. Like, genuinely weird. He doesn't answer questions. He just says vague things and then leaves and somehow that's the whole interaction."
"Okay but he told you his name—"
"Because I asked."
"And he knows yours—"
"Which, again, slightly concerning—"
"Aria." I could hear her grinning through the phone. "You like him."
"I don't know him. There's a difference."
"You want to know him. That's worse."
I pressed my face into my pillow. "Can we please talk about something else. I have a patient assessment exam Thursday."
"You'll be fine, you're annoyingly good at school. Tell me more about the elevator boy."
"His name is Luca."
"ARIA—"
"Good night, Bea."
"You literally called me—"
I hung up.
I lay in the dark staring at my ceiling and thought about the way he'd almost smiled, and how it made something in my chest do a thing I wasn't ready to name.
Then I thought about the fourth floor. About a hallway that shouldn't exist. About a man who walked out of it like it was the most normal thing in the world and then told me I hadn't seen anything.
The two things didn't fit together. And I had a bad habit — a very specific, professionally-reinforced bad habit — of needing things to fit together.
I picked up my phone.
Me: serious question. hypothetically. if the building you lived in had a floor that wasn't supposed to exist and a mysterious guy clearly knew something about it. would you let it go
Bea: lmaooo no
Bea: wait is this about elevator boy
Bea: ARIA
Bea: hello???
I set my phone face down.
Outside my window, the city hummed its usual indifferent hum. Somewhere down the hall, three doors away, I wondered if Luca was awake too.
I wondered what he'd do if I knocked on 701 right now and asked him — not about the elevator, not about the floor, just: who are you, actually?
Probably give me another non-answer with that almost-smile.
Probably that would still be more interesting than anything else happening in my life.
I closed my eyes.
Don't take the elevator past midnight.
Why? What happened at midnight? What was up there that needed a whole sealed floor in a residential building? What was he — security? Management? Something private, something off the books?
And why did it feel like he was watching to see which way I'd go? Like this was some kind of test I hadn't agreed to take?
I fell asleep thinking about it.
Which meant, technically, it was the last thing on my mind.
Which meant Bea was right.
And I was absolutely not going to tell her that.
✦
Thursday. Post-exam. I was running on three hours of sleep and the sheer force of spite when I stepped into the elevator at seven PM, arms full of groceries, a bag strap cutting into my shoulder, telling myself I was just going to eat something, sleep for twelve hours, and become a new person by morning.
The elevator moved.
1… 2… 3…
I held my breath.
It kept going.
4 blinked on the panel — and the elevator stopped.
"Oh, come on," I breathed.
The doors opened.
The hallway. The flickering lights. The same cold draft that had no business existing in a climate-controlled building.
My groceries crinkled as I gripped the bags tighter.
And then, from somewhere down that hallway — the sound of a door.
Footsteps.
I stared into the dim corridor, heart slamming, and told myself very firmly to press the close-door button and forget this was happening.
Luca appeared at the end of the hallway.
He stopped when he saw me.
I stopped breathing.
We looked at each other across the threshold — me in the elevator, him on the floor that didn't exist — and for one long, suspended second, neither of us said anything.
Then I said, because apparently this was the kind of person I was:
"So. About that explanation."
Something moved across his face. Not the almost-smile this time. Something quieter. More complicated.
He looked at the grocery bags in my arms. Then at my face. Then, slowly, at the hallway behind him.
"How much do you actually want to know?" he asked.
And the way he said it — low, careful, like a door being unlocked — made it very clear he wasn't just asking about the floor.
I held his gaze.
"Everything," I said.
The elevator doors began to close.
His hand shot out and stopped them.