Chapter 9
It takesa few hours for my eyes to feel normal again. Zola is back in my apartment, Emma is back in her apartment, and I’ve had some time to calm down.
It’s much easier to think with a clear head, though after a long day and being pepper-sprayed, my eyes are tired enough to give me a headache. I’m on the couch, wearing my reading glasses and trying to read a recently published paper on environmentalism in the battery industry.
It’s also much easier to relax when I’ve got a four-kilo purring ball of fluff sitting on my chest. Zola in her favorite position, ass in my lap and face-planted between my pecs. Lord knows how she breathes.
Emma had been scared. It hadn’t really been my intention to chase her down. I honestly don’t know what I’d been thinking. But looking back at it now, I can see that I made her uncomfortable.
And in her new home, no less.
With a sigh, I move Zola off my chest. She hisses at me, but she’s all smoke and no roast. She’ll get over it.
A few moments later—after I make sure Zola remains inside and the door closes properly—I’m knocking at Emma’s apartment. There’s a smell in the air—sweet and warm. I think someone is baking.
Emma opens the door. She’s changed into loose cotton pants and a T-shirt. It’s a tight T-shirt that says “Save the Ta-Tas” on it with big pink handprints over her breasts. I tear my eyes away and back up to her face. Her cheeks are rosy, and the smell of sugar and spices gets stronger.
“Hi,” she says, a little guarded.
Right. Out with it. “I wanted to apologize.”
Her eyes widen.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Emma’s body relaxes against the door. “You actually didn’t—” she starts, but a timer going off in her apartment interrupts her. “Oh, hang on, that’s the cookies. Why don’t you come in?”
She walks away, leaving the door open, and I step into the apartment. Like mine, the ceiling is bare wood rafters, but that’s where the similarities end. This is one of the unrenovated apartments offered at a reduced rate to students. The kitchen is along the right wall and small—almost more kitchenette than full kitchen—and there’s a loveseat and low table facing away from me and toward the outside wall, with a tall window over a dining table.
On the armrest of the loveseat is an open laptop, and a chilled glass of wine sits opposite it on the coffee table, freshly poured and condensing.
Noises draw my attention back to Emma, who is pulling a cooking sheet out of the efficiency oven using kitchen towels to protect her hands.
“It smells good,” I offer as she places the hot pan on the stovetop.
“Well, that’s good,” she says, putting the towel aside. “I made them for you. Unless you have a nut allergy?”
“No allergies,” I say, leaning in to look at the cookies. Chocolate chip, it looks like. “What nuts are in there?”
“It’s got almond butter in it. They’re vegan cookies, so the almond replaces the butter and eggs. I’m not vegan,” she hastens to add, “but one of my best friends is. And she introduced these “best ever vegan chocolate chip cookies” to us, and well, they are really damn good.”
“Was this the friend you were with?”
Emma, who’s already flushed from the heat of cooking in a small space, blushes even further at the non-mention of that night. “Yes, that’s Sara.”
“I had thought that you ladies were on vacation,” I admit.
“We were. I mean, they were. They all live in Europe too, so we came together for a weekend here to, I guess, drop me off at school.”
“This in unbelievable,” I say. “I’ve been single for years, and have brought home plenty of women, but I have never brought home a student.” I run my hands through my hair and curse again.
Emma waves at the loveseat. “Sit,” she says. “These need to cool.”
Perching on the arm of the loveseat, I watch her carefully maneuver the parchment paper from the baking sheet to the counter and then rip off a section of fresh paper to line it again. “I owe you an apology, too. It wasn’t your fault that I was on edge.”
What? Oh right. Just before she pepper-sprayed me, she mentioned a guy. “Who is bothering you, Emma?”
Emma reaches into a bowl and pulls out a glob of dough. She thinks carefully before answering, paying a lot of attention to the ball of dough and not to me.
“There was this man this morning who was following me,” she says at last, placing the dough on the parchment paper.
My hands tighten into fists. “Where? When?”
“Well, so far, it was just this one run in with him this morning. I shouldn’t have told him my name, and it had me jumpy. So, when you called my name, but I didn’t know who it was, I freaked out a little.” She gives a tight laugh. “This happens in Italy, I know that. I just wasn’t expecting it to be so personal.”
I straighten. “Who is it?”
She shrugs, still working on rolling cookie dough. “Just some guy.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, dark hair, olive skin. He was Italian?—”
“We’re all Italian!”
Emma throws up her hands. “I don’t know! I’m not a police sketch artist.” She closes her eyes, and I force my hand to unclench. She shakes her head. “No, I don’t remember. I would recognize him if I saw him but can’t…I don’t know how to describe his face.”
My gut twists. It was bad when I thought I had been the one responsible for scaring her. I knew my own intentions, but some idiot harassing her is an actual problem. Emma shouldn’t be wary in her own home, her own neighborhood, and the Via dei Banchi Nuovi has gotten a poor start. “If you see him hanging around, you tell me, okay?”
At that, Emma looks up, giving me a long stare before she answers. “Okay, I will.”
With a few swift movements, the new cookies are in the oven, and Emma has balled up another piece of dough. She takes the two steps from the oven to offer it to me. “Cookie dough?”
I take the ball and bite in while Emma fixes herself one. The dough is gritty from the sugar and greasy, but I hardly taste the almond butter over the sweetness. The chocolate chips crunch under my teeth, and I have to admit, the dough itself is very good.
“How are your eyes?” Emma asks.
“Much better, thank you.”
She’s taken a small bite of her dough ball, and she plays with the remainder while she chews. Her hands are greasy too. “I’ve never pepper-sprayed anyone before. It was a learning experience, though I’m sorry it happened.”
I pop the rest of the dough into my mouth and lick my fingertips before rubbing my hands together. Seeing Emma was such a surprise today, but as I stand here with her, eating raw cookie dough, it occurs to me that this is an opportunity to ask some questions and get answers I thought I would have to go without. “Why did you leave that night?”
She groans and moves to the sink to wash her hands. “Damn it. I’m sorry about that, too.” She dries her hands on a flour sack towel before facing me again, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter. “I left because I was too in my head. No one has done that to me in a very long time, and I was worrying about too many things, and it was easier just to go.”
Fuck. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. You had seemed into it?—”
“I was, I was. Or at least, into the idea of it. I mean, I was very turned on.” The tips of her ears are pink now too. “But when it comes down to it, I just don’t think I’m ready yet. I, uh, haven’t been with anyone since my husband. Ex-husband,” she adds quickly.
I hesitate before asking. “How long has it been?”
“Oh, um, like four years since he’s done that.”
What!? No one has gone down on this woman in four years? That’s a long time to go without, and clearly there are some mental blocks she needs to work through.
Then a thought occurs to me. “When did you get divorced?”
“A little over a year.”
So, the divorce is recent. And that means years of…
Okay, this is a dangerous train of thought to be having, and our conversation has veered into inappropriate territory. Emma must think so, too, because she turns back into the kitchen, brusquely pulling out a spatula and some aluminum foil, bundling up cookies for me.
“Do we need to do something at the school to protect your job?” Emma asks, glancing at me while folding the foil.
I scrape my hand over my beard and think. A few years ago we had a professor who quit to be with a student, but otherwise, there is no policy against relationships. Italy is not quite the United States for protecting gender equality.
Plus, we have a new program director, and I’m not sure how he will enforce policies. Even worse, what if he took advantage of her vulnerability? A few years ago, it came out that a former student had filed a sexual harassment claim at her company. Instead of resolving the issue, the HR Manager harassed her himself.
It would be a risk to approach him, especially since nothing further will happen with Emma.
“No,” I say. “My job will be fine.”
Emma agrees quickly, and hands me the cookie bundle. “Here you go. Thank you for the apology and again, I am so sorry about the pepper spray. And for running out.”
I take the dismissal and wish Emma a good night before stepping out of her apartment and closing the door behind me. Back at home, I bite into a still-warm cookie, the melted chips flooding my mouth with dark chocolate. Damn, this really is a good cookie.
I sigh. She’s beautiful, she bakes, she’s sweet and shy and sexually repressed. I’m going to see her frequently.
And she’s absolutely one hundred percent off limits.