Instead, I thought, as I upended the flowers, water and all, into a garbage can outside the eighteenth-floor elevators, I would open up to the world I’d closed myself off to, the one I had previously only observed from a distance.
On Friday night, at Il Latini at 7:00p.m., I was going to seduce Malcolm Waters.
Chapter Eight
Mal
Friday came, and Mal shocked himself by not being nervous. Now that he had Jo’s number, she’d suddenly become accessible. Gone were the days of shooting a response into the ether of her DMs, hoping that his messages were interesting enough to catch her eye among her legions of fans. Now, if Mal saw a compelling article in thePost, he could send it to Jo with the message:Have you heard about this?and she would respond with a paragraph of insight before he could provide his own. Sometimes she reached out first, like when she sent him a selfie of her holding up his novel, with aStarting this soon!And even when she sent a link to aFresh Princepop-up announced for December, with anInterested?as if she already assumedhewould be present in her future.
As Kieran had begrudgingly noted, he had nothing to worry about. “You’ve got this one in the bag, honestly,” he’d said. And Mal didn’t worry, not really, until Jo showed up at Il Latini.
“Whoa,” Mal said.
On the one hand, Josephine Boateng looked fantastic. Her braids hung down her shoulders, framing the deep-V neckline of a green blazer dress that tightened her hourglass figure to a point,which she’d matched with a pair of strappy stilettos. A gold emerald pendant nestled in her décolletage, glinting in the evening light as she walked.
On the other hand, it was not an appropriate outfit in which to make pasta.
“Hello to you too,” Jo said. She looked him up and down, her expression passive. “I’m overdressed, aren’t I?”
“Yes, maybe,” Mal said, chagrined. He realized, too late, that he should have advised her that the dinner he’d asked her to was actually more of an activity. Strike one, and the night had barely started. “But you look amazing.”
“I’m aware,” Jo said, strutting ahead of him, and he swallowed, sure that he’d already messed up. Then she smiled, a rapid quirk of her lips, and he realized that she was just nervous too. “So... what have you planned? And will it involve sitting? Because I have maybe twenty minutes left in these before I kick them across the room.”
Mal laughed helplessly.
“Oh god. No, sorry, I don’t think you’ll get to sit much.” He thought for a moment. “Wait here.”
His gym bag was still in his backseat, in it a pair of multicolored neon running shoes. He yanked off his white Air Forces, put on his backups, and jogged back to Jo with them in hand.
“Worst-case scenario, you switch into these. That okay?” he said.
Jo raised an eyebrow. “Wow. The shoes off your feet,” she observed. “Why are you still single, Malcolm Waters? What am I missing?”
His cheeks warmed. “I—” he started, just as a hostess bounced to the stand and smiled at them.
“Are you here for the class?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mal said. He prepared to show her his phone with their access codes, but instead held out his shoes. “No. Sorry. This. Please.”
A true professional, the woman didn’t let her expression waver.
“Please head to the end of the hall, past the dining area, and to your right.”
They entered through a set of glass double doors into an enormous kitchen with multiple stainless steel islands. As in the photos on the website, the fixtures were crisp and modern, the room itself bright, especially compared to the dim restaurant. A few other guests had already arrived, most of them in casual clothes—T-shirts, jeans, hair up in ponytails. Behind him, he heard Jo’s stiletto scrape against tile.
“I did all this for a cooking class,” she said to herself. She chuckled, and the hollow sound made Mal’s heart fall. “Is this to show that you’re domestic? Or to test whether I am?”
Mal barely held back a wince.Damn it, Kelechi.
“I thought it would be nice,” he said. “You know, to eat something we’d made.”
“You see, I only find the pleasure in the eating part,” Jo said. “I’m an awful cook, and I don’t think any amount of tutelage is going to change that.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a challenge,” a smooth, accented voice said from behind them. They whipped around at once, tilting their heads up to face an olive-skinned, bearded middle-aged man with twinkling brown eyes.
Shit. Their instructor was supposed to be someone’s squat, arthritic nonna, not Italian Hugh Jackman.
“Everyone before you has failed,” Jo said, looking at him from under heavy lids.
