Page 8 of My Protective Biker

I wash my hands and get to work while Zoe sets the table and talks about her day. A customer who couldn't remember the title or author of a book, only that it had a blue cover and made her cry.

"Did you find it?" I ask, tearing lettuce into a wooden bowl that looks handmade.

"Eventually. Took twenty minutes and four people helping." Zoe grins, setting down the last fork. "She bought three more books while she was there."

"That's good salesmanship."

"That's Zoe being unable to let a problem go," Roan says, but there's warmth in his voice.

We sit down to eat a few minutes past seven. Zoe immediately launches into her paper while reaching for the garlic bread.

"So Professor Mitchell actually responded to my argument about Portia," she says. "I sent her my draft yesterday and she wrote three paragraphs engaging with my point about the courtroom scene subverting patriarchal authority."

Roan looks up from his plate. "The one where you compared it to the casket test?"

"Exactly." Zoe's eyes light up. "You remembered."

"You've been working on this for three weeks. Hard to forget."

"Okay, so Mitchell agreed that Portia's cross-dressing isn't just disguise, it's commentary on how legal authority is inherently gendered. But then she pushed back on my Greenblatt citation and said I should look at Orgel's work on transvestism instead."

Roan twirls spaghetti on his fork. "The scholar you said was too focused on performance theory?"

Zoe pauses mid-bite. "You actually listened to that?"

"Yeah."

"That was two weeks ago."

He shrugs. "So are you going to use Orgel?"

"I think I have to now. Mitchell made a good point about grounding the gender argument in actual theatrical practice." Zoe looks at Carina. "Sorry, this is probably boring."

"It's not," I tell her. "I didn't know cross-dressing in Shakespeare was about legal authority."

"It's about everything." Zoe gestures with her fork. "Gender, power, who gets to speak in court, who gets believed. Portia literally has to become a man to be heard."

Roan sets down his fork. "What about the other play? The one with the twins."

"Twelfth Night." Zoe grins. "That's my next section. Viola's even more interesting because she chooses the disguise, it's not forced on her like Portia's situation."

"And you're still using that Butler essay?"

"Gender Trouble? Yeah, but I'm pairing it with… wait, how do you even remember that?"

"You left it on the kitchen table last week. I looked at it."

Zoe stares at him for a moment, then looks at me. "He actually reads my citations."

"He listens when you talk," I say.

Roan reaches for more bread. "When's it due?"

"Next Friday. I'm almost done, just need to tighten the conclusion."

"You'll get it done."

The conversation shifts after that, but I watch the way Roan engages with her and think about how he's been doing this for twenty years, showing up, paying attention, remembering details that matter to her even when they're outside his world entirely.