The Pairing(32)

He’s quiet while the ocean laps against his chest.

“I read the book in French first,” he says finally. “It means, ‘surpasses all jewels.’”

“Huh. Cool.” It’s been ages since I read The Silmarillion for Kit, but the phrase sounds familiar. I’m more fascinated by the linework, the delicate, featherlight script. Whoever did this must have barely dug into his skin at all, but the black is stark and clean. “I love the lettering.”

Without thinking, I run my fingertip over the ink. Wet skin meets wet skin. Kit shivers.

The sense memory crashes in like a rogue wave. I see our skinny legs, grown too fast and not filled out yet, kicking together against the tide. I see a teenaged Kit levering himself out of my parents’ pool. I remember a flat tire in the pouring rain on the side of the Pacific Coast Highway, peeling his wet shirt off in the back seat. I feel my back pressed to his chest in a too-small bathtub, and I see his face, slick with me from nose to chin.

Oh, fuck.

Kit kicks away as if he can sense the deluge of uninvited horny thoughts. God. Why can’t my fear of spontaneity manifest as impulse control? Why do I have to touch things?

“Sorry, that was—” I start, but then he turns. “Oh my God, Kit, your nose.”

It’s bleeding, this time from both sides. He wipes it with the back of his hand and examines the red swirling through the seawater. “Ah. Yeah. I thought so.”

“It looks . . . pretty fucking gnarly. It’ll stop, right?”

“It should,” he says, attempting an apologetic smile, “but it might stop faster if I get out of the water?”

“Okay,” I agree. He looks at me like he’s waiting for something. “Oh, right. I’ll close my eyes, just let me know when you’re decent.”

I listen for his strokes through the water, and the sounds of him climbing onto the breakwater. Something soggy splats against the concrete—the underwear he swam in.

“I’m decent!” Kit calls out.

When I open my eyes, his back is to me as he settles his shorts on his hips. I very deliberately do not have any emotions or observations about his silhouette against the distant watercolor foothills or the fact that he’s no longer wearing anything under his terry shorts. Kit’s build has always been graceful and lithe, but his ass is, as the poets say, bodacious. The poets, not me—I’m not choosing any adjectives. I swim in and get myself dressed, very decidedly not looking.

“Sorry to kill the mood,” Kit says, his head tilted.

“No, it’s okay, there was no mood.” I pull on my shirt, feeling mildly delirious. “Except, you know, a friendly mood. The mood of friendship.”

“Yes, my favorite Wong Kar-wai. In the Mood for Friendship.”

“Tony Leung is so hot in that one.”

“He always is.” He turns just as I do, scrunching up his nose and sniffing. He hasn’t put his shirt on yet. I look everywhere but him. “I think it stopped.”

“Cool. What do we do now?”

Kit considers. “Do you want to go pick up some things for when we meet up with Paloma?”

“What kind of things?”

“I was thinking pastry,” he says, “in case she wants to keep hanging out.”

He puts his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, and I narrow my eyes, finally thinking clearly.

“You’re trying to sleep with her.”

“I simply think,” he counters, “it seemed possible she might want to sleep with one of us, and the right pastry might tip things in my favor.”

“Or the right bottle of wine.”

“Sure,” he says noncommittally, half smiling, “maybe.”

“Let’s go, then.” I slide my feet back into my Birks, grinning back. “May the best slut win.”


I stand outside the bakery, cradling a bottle of screw-top red and watching through the window as Kit charms every single person behind the counter. He emerges flushed, waving to the shopgirls as they blow kisses. He really is some kind of world wonder.

“What’d you get?”

He opens a white paper box to reveal two dozen thin, pale, informal cookies with crinkly cracks around their edges. When I take one, it’s surprisingly light and tastes like almonds.

“Mouchous,” he says. “Basque macarons. Chewier than the Parisian ones, right?”

“Mmm. And better, I think.”

“The secret is potato flour.” He closes the box. “And you?”

I hold up my bottle. “A cheeky Croatian Plavina. Should be cute and beachy, a little juicy.”

Kit sighs.

“This isn’t fair. You’re just going to do your thing, and it’ll be over.”

“What thing?”

“Your sommelier thing, where you lower your voice and tell them the grapes taste like elderflower because the wind blew in a southeasterly direction in Provence last July, and then everyone wants to have sex with you.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Everyone?”

“Theo!” a crisp voice calls out from above. “Kit!”

We look up to find Paloma leaning out of the open window of the apartment over the bakery.

“I was about to leave to meet you at the port,” she says, “but then I look out my window, and there you are! And I see you went swimming, well done!”