I rapped my knuckles against the glass, nudging the doors open, and peered into a sprawling kitchen. The walls and cabinets were a stark white, and the pale wood floors looked new. A black cast-iron stove reached up to a high ceiling, which was studded with spotlights.

“Who is it?” A musical voice came from within, startling me from my snooping.

I hesitated. If I didn’t know the voice, the voice wouldn’t know me, and so what good would my name be?

“It’s Sophie,” I said after a beat.

No answer.

“I’m just returning a hoodie.”

I opened the doors another crack. More of the kitchen filtered into my view. On the white walls were several ornately framed oil paintings. I recognized one as Da Vinci’s Madonna and Child — it had been a favorite of my grandmother’s — though the others, while also religious in sentiment, were foreign to me. I stared in surprise. I had never seen artwork like this in a home before — it was almost like a gallery, or a church, and I found myself feeling intimidated by the splendor. I considered taking out my phone and sneaking a photo to show Millie after all, but the rational voice inside my head stopped me.

Cautiously, I edged inside.

In the center of the kitchen was a marble-topped island, and beyond it was a glass table covered with several sheets of paper and scatterings of pencils. Sitting at the table was a boy. He was drawing.

“Hello?” I said again, though I could plainly see he knew I was there.

He looked up and his piercing blue eyes found mine immediately. I zeroed in on them, frowning, as my stomach turned to jelly. “Luca?”

He didn’t respond. He just put his pencil down and sat in silent contemplation, his elbows atop the table and his chin resting just behind his steepled fingers, as though he were praying.

I felt my breath catch in my throat. “Oh!”

It wasn’t Luca. It was the boy from the window. Just like on that very first night, his eyes grew, but this time in recognition. Set against his olive skin, they were a brilliant, startling blue. They were just like Luca’s, but something about them seemed different — warmer, perhaps.

“I recognize you,” he said in that pleasant, lilting voice.

I moved toward him, utterly captivated. He had Luca’s searing eyes, his golden skin, and his jet-black hair. But while Luca’s hair was shaggy, falling in strands across his eyes, this boy’s hair was short and clean-cut, combed away from his face entirely, revealing a pointed chin and severe cheekbones. He was thinner, too, and slightly hunched. I couldn’t tell if he was older than me — he didn’t seem it, but his likeness to Luca made me think maybe he was.

“You were watching my house last week.” He lowered his hands and rested them on the table in front of him, but his eyes remained hooded with caution.

I stopped when I reached the table, hovering uncertainly. I realized then why he hadn’t moved toward me, and why he hadn’t played in the basketball tournament last week. He was in wheelchair.

“Yes, that was me,” I replied. I tried not to stare, but he was so like Luca, and yet so unlike him, it was hard to reconcile. “I was just curious.”

“I believe you fell rather spectacularly just afterward,” he added, but not unkindly.

“That’s a point of contention. Your brother actually crashed into me.”

He smiled, and it made him seem suddenly very young and boyish. “I hope he apologized.”

“He did — eventually.” I shuffled a little closer until my hands brushed against the edge of the table. “You’re so like him.” It was those eyes — they were so unnatural. That they should exist in two different faces seemed unbelievable to me. “Luca, that is. I don’t mean to stare, but it’s really incredible.”

“Well,” he said, “we may be twins, but we’re not the same.”

I was only partly surprised by the revelation. Even though their similarities were startling, all of the Priestly brothers shared the same features, and this boy had an aura of innocence that Luca did not. He seemed sweet, and unblemished by whatever had made his twin such a resounding ass to be around.

“For one thing, he can’t maneuver a wheelchair half as well as I can.” He tapped the wheel beneath his right hand and released a wry smile. “And for another, I’m smarter.”

“I don’t doubt it.” He seemed appeased by my agreement. “I’m Sophie. But I said that already.”

“Hello, Sophie.” His smile was a beautiful sight. To think, Luca had the potential to look and act like this and yet he chose not to. “I’m Valentino.”

He shifted forward and picked up his pencil again, twirling it between his forefinger and thumb. My attention followed it, and I gasped as the sheets of paper came to life below me. I tried to study them all at once. “These are incredible.”

Valentino waved his hand over the sketches with a casualness that seemed out of place. They were stunning, and surely he could see that. And more than that, he should be owning his talent and agreeing with me. I used to think my father was good because he could draw Mickey Mouse, but this artwork was on a whole other level.

I raked my eyes over the drawings and stopped when I found a side profile of Nic. Drawn in pencil, careful shadows swooped across his creased brow line and gathered beneath his cheekbones. His lips were parted in concentration, his hair twisting in strands below his ear as he looked ahead, focusing on something out of frame.