Page 59 of The Pairing

There’s no pretense in his voice, no arrogance, only naked joy and generosity. Happiness to open up a world and share it with me. I turn away so he won’t see me blink the sudden wetness from my eyes. I left that room in Bordeaux specifically to avoid this: the terrible, undeniable, shattering fact of his goodness.

When the rest crumbles—the worst angles, the meanest versions of events, the lies I told myself—what’s left is only Kit. Only the great unfinished love of my life, and a floor I’m still lying under.

“You can’t use a whole dish as an ingredient!” Kit says, gesturing so expansively that his vermouth almost spills. “That’s cheating!”

“Not even if I buy it prepared and incorporate it?”

“That’s against the spirit of the exercise. On the Fly is forrawmaterials.”

“Then you shouldn’t be allowed to use chocolate,” I counter. “You should have to march your happy ass down to the shops and crank up the bean grinder, baby.”

Kit’s smile blooms even brighter, color splashing into his cheeks. He’s always loved when I get belligerent for his entertainment.

“You know that’s not the same—”

“Do you churn your own butter too? Do you have a chic little Parisian butter churn? Does it have a holder for chic little Parisian unfiltered cigarettes?”

“Okay!” Kit says, showing me his hands. “Okay, you can use crema catalana to make a milk punch! And I’ll take the only the orange zest from it—”

“Boooo.”

“—and I’ll mix it with ricotta to fill cannoli, and—” He sees the look on my face. “What?”

“Did you make the ricotta, Kit?”

He looks like he might scream, half frustration and half delight, all Theo-and-Kit.

“Yes, Theo, I rode my bike down to the village sheep farm, and I made sweet, tender love to the farmer’s wife all night long so she would let me milk the sheep, and then I carried the pail home and made the ricotta.”

“Then I’ll take the salty tears of the sheep farmer whose wife leaves him for the village hole—”

Kit gasps theatrically. “Hole?”

“—and use them to make a salted Negroni, with a tangerine twist.”

“Campari tangelo marmalade,” Kit says instantly. “Glazing a tangelo-and-five-spice pound cake.”

“I’ll take the Chinese five-spice and steep it in rum and then use the rum to make a Cable Car.”

Kit sets his glass down, still smiling.

“Cable Car. That was. . .that was what we drank that time we drove to San Francisco for your birthday, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, at that dive in North Beach,” I say. “It was cash only, and we were out of cash.”

“And I pretended to propose so they’d comp our drinks.”

We were only twenty-three then, and we always joked about getting married, like it was so obvious that it wasn’t worth taking seriously. I laughed when he did it. But after, he told me he’d marry me that night if I wanted. That he’d have married me the night we first kissed.

“I’m definitely not beating that one, then,” Kit says. He tips his chin up at me, and I want to press my thumb to the center of it. “You win. I’ll drink the absinthe.”

“Discúlpeme, señor!” I call to the bartender. “Una absenta, por favor!”

We’re in Bar Marsella, the oldest bar in Barcelona, allegedly a haunt of Picasso and Hemingway. Humid night clings to wood-paneled walls and peels away brown paint, steaming cabinets of antique bottles and mirrors mounted behind wobbly tables. A chandelier blinks dustily above as the soles of my sandals stick to the mosaic floor. The bartender drops off a crystal glass of pale green absinthe, a bottle of chilled water, and a paper-wrapped sugar cube, and Kit sets about expertly melting the sugar into the glass.

Down the bar, an older man sits alone with a glass of pale beer and the kind of book you’d pick up at an airport. His khaki shorts and polo scream American tourist. When I check the cover, I do a double take.

“Check it out,” I say. “Three seats down. That’s one of Craig’s, isn’t it?”

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