The Pairing(96)

I ask, “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Yes.”

“I think you deserve peace. And you can do whatever it is you decide.” I take a sip and add, “And you should have let me talk about Bernini more.”

Theo laughs. “I guess so.”

“And for what it’s worth,” I go on, “whatever you choose, you don’t have to do it alone.”

Theo absorbs this, then leans closer.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” they say. “I thought you went to pastry school so you could open your own place. You were going for the diploma in culinary management too, right? Why are you working in someone else’s kitchen?”

The question catches me by surprise; I have to take a beat to think of an answer.

“I changed my mind,” I say.

“Why?”

“I met other patissiers in Paris,” I explain as simply as I can. “I saw what it was like, trying to start something from nothing in a city like that, and I realized you were right. Fairflower was a fantasy.”

Theo’s expression softens, something strangely sad playing around their eyes.

“A nice one, though, wasn’t it?” they say. “Do you still think about it?”

“Of course.”

“I do too,” they say. “Sometimes, I wonder if—”

They break off, their gaze flicking past me.

“Oh, whoa.”

“What?”

“That guy over there,” they say. “For a second I thought that was your dad.”

I look over my shoulder, scanning the tables outside the next bar until I see the man Theo must be talking about: sixty-something with a scruffy beard and a vague resemblance to Victor Garber, writing in a notebook with an expensive-looking fountain pen.

“Oh, huh. He does look like him, doesn’t he?”

“It would be so typical Craig to just happen to be on summer sabbatical in Rome and not tell anyone.”

“Oh, sure. He’ll be the writer in residence at St. Peter’s, and we’ll find out when he shows up in a photo with the pope.”

Theo laughs, and as they lift their glass back to their lips, a terrible thing occurs to me.

My dad’s pattern. Deciding what he wants on some romantic whim, fixating on the fantasy, pursuing it without regard for how it will affect the people he loves or if they even want the same thing. That’s what I did to Theo with Paris.

Am I about to do it again?

I said I’d do better this time, but here I am, about to present another dream of my own design, telling myself it’s a better plan if I leave my life for theirs than the other way around. As if romance should mean giving up everything and disappearing into someone else. Theo has never asked for that, not then, not now.

“Kit?” Theo says. “Did you hear what I said?”

I blink myself back to the present.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, should I pick out another bottle, or do you want to head back to the room?”

I see the promise in their eyes, and there’s nothing I’d love more than to learn what they’ve dreamed up to top last night, but I can’t. I’ve accidentally told them I love them twice now, nearly said yesterday it in bed. I’m one glass from saying it right here at this table. If I touch them tonight, I won’t be able to stop myself.

There are only a few days left on this tour, but those are still days. If I offer them something they don’t want, they’ll be stuck with me thousands of miles from home with an American passport. What gives me the right? Because I still think I know best? Because I’ve grown bored of Paris, just like my father said I would, and I want a new dream to save me from boredom? Because of my ridiculous, incurable obsession with love?

I say the only thing I can think of to deflect.

“Do you remember what our score was?”

For a moment, Theo doesn’t have any idea what I mean. Then it connects, and they set down the wine list.

“Five to three,” they say. “Why?”

“Just—just wondering if we were still counting.”

“Were you planning to catch up while we’re out?”

“No,” I say, “I’m too tired. I need to get some actual sleep tonight.”

Theo nods, and mercifully, they don’t bring up the room again.

I need to step back. I need to lock myself in my own room for the night and hope I’ve gotten ahold of myself by the time we get to Naples.





There’s a certain flavor to Fabrizio, a bacchanalian ripeness that I haven’t yet identified. I’m sure if I’d asked Theo they could have named it right away, because the same notes are in the wine we’re drinking.

“Body?” they ask me.

“Full,” I say, feeling its weight on my tongue, the intensity of the flavors.

“Sweetness?”

“Barely. Sort of like a—a dark fruit at first. Maybe black currant? But it’s more . . . savory?”

“That’s good, savory how?”

“Um.” I think about it.

“No wrong answers,” Theo says, “whatever comes to mind first.”

“Smoke? Or . . . dirt? Peppercorn?”