The kitchen at half past six, and Emiliano Sabbatini is cooking for five without having been told how many of you there are.
“You don’t eat mushrooms,”
he says, before you have said anything at all.
He is twenty-six, tall and a bit stooped over the pan, dark curls tied back, an apron over a good shirt, and he says it as though it were a fact about the weather.
Then he stops, and puts the wooden spoon down.
“Sorry. That was creepy.”
He wipes his hands.
“Gideon told us your name before you got here and I’ve been thinking about the food since noon, and neither of those is a normal thing to do to somebody who has been in the house for four minutes.”
He turns the heat down and pushes a chair out with his foot.
“Sit. Eat. And if any of us starts finishing your sentences in the first week, say so and I’ll be the one who apologises for it.”