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 the Post , 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 a Starting this soon! And even when she sent a link to a Fresh Prince pop-up announced for December, with an Interested? as if she already assumed he would 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.
“My dear, I am not everyone,” their instructor said. He clapped his hands, and everyone stood to attention. “Please, pick a station.”
Mal and Jo wandered to an unclaimed station in the back. Jo draped an apron over her head, then bent to snap off her heels
and slip her feet into Mal’s sneakers. The instructor introduced himself as Emiliano ( Even his name is hot , Mal thought bitterly), then announced that they would be making cacio e pepe. “So simple, even my worst cooks have managed,”
Emiliano said, winking at Jo.
Thankfully, even if Jo was a terrible cook, she couldn’t resist a challenge. She borrowed a hair tie from a woman at the station
behind them and secured her hair into a ponytail, rolled up her sleeves so they wouldn’t dip into the flour. Despite her initial
reticence, she seemed genuinely engrossed.
She had not, however, been joking about her lack of skill.
“Oops,” Jo said. Her attempt to crack an egg open at the edge of the counter had resulted in her smashing it instead, and
a sticky glob of yolk dripped onto the floor. She crouched to clean it. “It looked cooler when you did it.”
They came to a tacit understanding after that. Jo read out the steps from the recipe card, measured the ingredients, and handled
the unskilled labor, such as grating cheese, and Mal did the mixing, the kneading, and eventually the rolling when Jo’s attempt
to help led to a glob of dough getting stuck in the pasta maker.
“I don’t understand how you’re alive,” Mal said, stunned, when Jo asked Emiliano exactly how much salt she was expected to
add to the boiling water.
“I’m too pretty to cook,” she said with a sideways smile. She turned the dial on the timer. “Besides, I can tell you set me
up. You clearly know what you’re doing.”
Okay, so he’d been caught.
“My dad and I used to make pasta once a week when I was a kid,” he confessed. “I was a picky eater. Would only eat vegetables if they were drenched in alfredo sauce. I can still make a pretty respectable tortellini.”
“Okay, sure, that’s cute. But you still attempted to deceive me,” Jo said. Then she reached into her front apron pocket and
produced her phone. “As your punishment, I’m going to need you to take a picture.”
“Already got me doing Instagram boyfriend duties,” he muttered.
Jo smiled beatifically at him, holding up a ladle that she hadn’t used once. The clear incongruence between her clothing and
their setting was silly but charming, like she’d stepped off a movie set and onto a cooking show.
“Is that what you want?” she said the second he’d returned her phone. “To be my boyfriend?”
Mal choked on a laugh. He’d expected to have this conversation at some point, maybe on date three, or at the very least after
they’d covered such bases as where they were from or what they liked to do with their free time. Just not now, and certainly
not with two minutes left on their boiling pasta.
“You... That is a question,” he sputtered.
“Does it have an answer?” Jo asked.
Behind her impish expression, Mal could sense something else. Her stance had shifted, legs set wide, arms tense, her smile
all teeth. This question, he sensed, had a wrong answer.
Thankfully, Emiliano swept by their station, slapping a meaty hand onto the counter.
“Josephine! You have left all the work to your partner. I’m ashamed! I thought you would at least try for me!”
“Emiliano, I wanted us to have something edible for dinner at the end of this—”
Mal took advantage of the time Jo was using to defend herself to drain the pasta—setting aside some of the water for the next
step, of course—and think. Someone else might let a topic like this go, but Jo was like a bull, and she’d already seen red.
If he’d learned anything from his last interaction with her, it was that he’d do best by being honest, not by trying to tell
her what he thought she wanted to hear.
Emiliano hovered by their station, forcing Jo to crack the black peppercorns, then sauté them in a second pot. He swept away
to check on other guests for only a few minutes before he was back, snatching the tongs out of Jo’s hands to demonstrate how
to coat the noodles with cheese without breaking them.
By the time they’d transported their finished dishes out of the kitchen and to the attached dining room, Jo’s pout was in
prime form.
“I was just bullied, wasn’t I?” She dropped into the chair facing his and crossed her legs, smiling at a waitress as she poured
them both glasses of wine. “I was bullied for thirty whole minutes, and you did nothing.”
“You’re so overdramatic,” Mal said. Despite Jo’s best attempts at sabotage, the pasta was delicious. “You did well at the
end. It’s not rocket science. Or medicine .”
“Does it bother you that I don’t cook?” Jo asked suddenly. “Because I don’t really clean either. I hire someone to do that
for me.”
“That sounds nice,” Mal said dryly. “And no? Why would it?”
“You don’t expect it of the women you date?” Jo said. She’d lined under her eyes, and it made her stare even more predatory,
like a cat waiting to pounce.
“I expect the women I date to be adults who know how to take care of themselves,” Mal said carefully. “However they make it happen.”
Jo hummed.
“I’ll probably make more than you if I start practicing again,” she continued. “Does that bother you?”
When they first met, Mal had found Jo’s directness comforting. But today, it wasn’t cute. It felt like he was being tested,
and she was grading him in real time.
“Why are you interrogating me over dinner?” he asked, swirling a glass of wine.
“Why aren’t you answering my question?” she said, doing the same.
He held her gaze, stewing, for a full minute.
“My mom was the breadwinner in my house growing up. We moved around every few years for her jobs. My dad stopped working and
stayed at home full-time when I was in third grade. Whatever hang-ups you’re assuming I have, I don’t. I think it’s great
that you’ve got your life together. I also think it’s rude to guess how much I make, but all you need to know is it was enough
to support two adults in a big city a couple years back, and I’m doing better now than I was then. Oh, and I’m paying today,
not because of the patriarchy, but because I want to.” He placed his glass back on the table, a quiet checkmate.
Jo rolled her bottom lip into her mouth as if he’d just dropped the swooniest pickup line rather than put her in her place.
“Touché,” she said. “It is a little rude. But you like that.”
“I don’t,” Mal insisted.
Suddenly, something glanced up his leg—Jo’s bare foot, gliding slowly up to the crook of his knee. His face flushed instantly, and he held his breath, unsure of where it was headed, where this was going. They were far from alone. None of the tables in this room had cloths. If any of the other attendees were paying attention, they would trace the path her leg had taken, catch the way it had stopped just at the juncture of his thigh.
“You do,” Jo said confidently. She eased a bundle of noodles off her fork, then lowered it and her wandering leg all at once.
“And why shouldn’t I interrogate you? We’re grown. I just want to know what your expectations are of”—she waved between them—“this.”
The light caught her pendant, and Mal’s eyes flickered to her chest at exactly the wrong time. When Mal looked up to her face
again, she looked triumphant.
“I want the things most people want when they’re getting to know someone,” he said. “I want to spend time with you. See if
we vibe...”
Jo laughed. “Is that what most people want?” she said. She nodded sagely, took another sip of wine, and then added, as plainly
as if she were commenting on the color of his shirt, “Mostly, I want to sleep with you.”
Mal choked—quite literally—on his tagliatelle.
“Are you okay, my friend?” Emiliano said, sweeping over to him, clearly ready to deliver a Heimlich. Mal shook his head vigorously,
pounding on his chest and trying not to heave. Jo didn’t get up from her seat, just pushed his cup of water toward him.
“You’re heartless,” Mal joked weakly when he finally recovered, dabbing the tears from his eyes. “I could’ve died, and you
just sat there.”
“You were protecting your airway,” Jo observed, bemused. She tapped a finger next to his water, directing him to drink.
Mal took a swig, using the split second to collect his faculties. Okay, so he knew he was a good-looking guy. All that time in the gym post–cataclysmic breakup had given him a physique that got him the occasional appreciative glance. An old woman on the Red Line had told him he had a nice butt just last week. But he had never been the type to inspire primal urges. The women in his friend groups referred to him as “sweet.” No one was tagging him on #mancrushmondays.
And yet, nothing in Jo’s expression indicated that she was joking. If anything, her entire getup suddenly made sense, the
sky-high heels, the dress that left little to the imagination, even her slight annoyance at his choice of first-date activity.
Oh my god. She’d intended to seduce him, and now she was wearing his sneakers. To think she was the virgin here.
“I...” Mal said, gaping at his half-empty plate. “I don’t know what to say.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, suddenly
hyperconscious that he’d be overheard, though he figured he needn’t be worried—the ladies to his right had already uncorked
their second bottle.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” Jo said. Then, coyly: “Do you not want to sleep with me?”
“Of course I do,” he said, just a bit too enthusiastically. “It’s just. Ah. Um.”
Jo’s smile became feral. “You’re a writer, Mal, use your words,” she said.
Mal was laid-back. It was a quality he liked about himself, that he had the capacity to take things in stride, that, at least
when he was spending time with someone one-on-one, he could carry himself with ease. Even Renata Kovalenko had commented on
it, ending their conversation with a Has anyone told you that you have a gentle aura? He could roll with the punches like the best of them, but right now he felt like he was taking a beating.
It was time to throw one himself.
“Okay, fine, since we’re using words,” he said, adjusting himself in his seat. “What’s going on with you and Adelman?”
If Jo was taken aback by his question, she didn’t show it. Instead, the corner of her lip twitched, and he realized that she
was impressed.
“Of course a writer would be perceptive,” she muttered, straightening in her chair.
“It’s complicated,” she started, then sighed and shook her head. “No, actually, it’s not. Classic case of unrequited love,
honestly. I have feelings for him. He doesn’t have feelings for me. I’m cutting my losses and seeing what’s out there.”
Her honesty was bracing, and if his stomach hadn’t just dropped like an anchor, he might have found it admirable. He imagined
most other people would hold such information close to their chest, wait until they’d extracted what they wanted from him
before sharing their motives.
“So... this is your attempt at a rebound?” Mal asked. He could practically hear Kieran’s chiding voice in his head— I told you: toxic. How had he ended up in this situation, sitting across from a woman with whom he’d imagined a genuine connection, only to
find out that she intended to use him as a stepping stone to recovery?
But Jo was shaking her head, no longer gleeful.
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “Mal. I’m twenty-nine. I’ve kissed one guy in my life, and I didn’t even enjoy it. Did it because I thought I should.” Mal blinked, shocked by that revelation. “But you... I like you. I like talking to you. I think you’re interesting, and insightful, and I’m only, like, thirty pages into your book and I can already tell that you’re ridiculously talented. If I wanted to sleep with just anyone , I would’ve found one of Renata’s models back at the party. Or hooked up with one of Ezra’s costars. I want to sleep with
you . I just think it’s only fair that you understand where I’m at first.”
Suddenly, one of Jo’s older posts came to mind: a clip from an Instagram Live with HuffPost, the screen split horizontally
between a severe-looking white woman and Jo.
“Honestly, I find the fascination with my virginity interesting,” Jo had said, somehow managing to sound both bored and biting.
“I think when people see Black women, they try to categorize them as respectable or not respectable. I talk about sex, so
I must be hypersexual, but I can’t be hypersexual because I haven’t had sex. I’m neither the Madonna nor the Whore, not the
Mammy nor the Jezebel. It confuses people.”
“On your platform, you encourage pleasure,” the interviewer had said, after a pause to absorb Jo’s first response. “Do you
also encourage abstinence? Do you intend to continue practicing it?”
“I encourage being discerning about all of the things we put into or around our bodies. Sex can greatly impact both physical
and emotional health.” Jo paused, balancing her chin on her fist. “And I wouldn’t say I practice abstinence. I’m simply aware
of the risks, and I haven’t met a man who is worth me taking them yet.”
It occurred to Mal, then, that Jo had decided that he was such a man.
Of course he was flattered. Who wouldn’t be? Jo met all manner of people, fraternized with the kind of guys that some women
put on their mood boards, and the person she found most worthy of her was him . Still, even as he reeled, he knew that what Jo wanted would require a level of ambiguity that he couldn’t provide.
“I’m not interested in hookups,” he said. “Sorry.”
The stoicism that Mal had suspected was a facade cracked, and for half a second, Mal saw that he’d wounded her. But then,
with a blink, it was back.
“Okay,” Jo said. She gave him a smile that was almost placating, as though she felt the need to soothe him for rejecting her.
“Totally understandable. Sorry if I put you off—”
“You didn’t put me off,” Mal interrupted. “I just don’t do the casual thing. And...” He tested the words on the back of
his tongue, then, feeling bold, said them aloud. “Specifically, I don’t really want to do the casual thing with you . Because I like you too.”
Jo’s expression opened up, and he marveled at how much more she resembled the girl he’d met in the Adelmans’ bedroom, the
one whose sincerity had turned a lion’s den into a safe space. The one he’d immediately felt comfortable spilling his heart
out to, because she’d done it so easily first.
“We’ve talked about this before, you know. Online,” Mal continued. “Virginity is just a social construct, and sex is just
a physical act. You can go out to Viagra Triangle right now and find some guy who’ll be willing to sleep with you, then roll
over a few minutes later feeling completely unchanged and totally let down.” He leaned in closer, enthralled by her focus,
by how her gaze hadn’t lifted from his mouth since he’d started speaking. “But... wanting someone for more than just their physicality? Wanting to hear from them, speak to them, see them, every second of the day? That feeling when their hand brushes against yours and you ask yourself if you want to hold it? That first kiss? It amplifies everything. You feel like you’re on fire . It’s transformative, in the best ways. In the worst ways too . That’s what I want for myself. It’s what I want for you too, especially since you’re new to this. And if we can find that
together, great. But I’m not taking anything less.”
He’d tried to capture that feeling in She Blooms at Dusk , the tension that went beyond a physical yearning, the other person etched so far into your skin that you couldn’t scratch
them out. Lust that couldn’t be sated with one passionate romp but needed to be addressed over and over again, every time
with increasing urgency. Once upon a time, Mal had tried to be pragmatic. Feelings like those were short-lived, after all,
reserved for a finite honeymoon period. Only a few lucky people could put in the work to keep a fire like that alive. His
parents had managed; Mal had spent his entire childhood grimacing at their public shows of affection. Now he knew that he
would take the fairy tale or nothing at all.
Across from him, Jo had gone stock-still, holding in a breath that he didn’t remember watching her suck in. It should have
scared him, speaking so candidly. He could never have imagined having a conversation like this, never thought he could form
words like this in public, that he could look someone right in the eye as he said them. His teenage self was kicking him— A beautiful woman throws herself at you, and you turn her down? —but he felt comfortable in his resolution. Jo herself had requested his difficult truths. Here he was, delivering them. If
she decided to walk away and find someone else, that would be fine. He had a second book to write, after all. He could go
back to his monastic life, the one in which he spent his days staring at his computer screen, bothering his chosen family,
and seeking out endorphins at the gym. It was a good life, a respectable one—
“Okay,” Jo said suddenly. She blinked, rolled her lips into her mouth. “Okay. Yes. Yes, I guess I want that too.”
Mal grinned, victorious.
“Great,” he said. “So you’ll let me date you?”
Jo laughed. It was a full-bodied sound, rich, reminiscent of poured honey and smooth jazz in the mornings.
“I’ll let you date me,” she agreed.