Chapter 8
MAX
A Marinara Incident
It’s the day of our first official date and I’m giving myself a pep-talk. It goes like this: Don’t antagonize her, Donovan. Don’t make this feel awkward for her. And for the love of every platinum plaque on your wall, don’t let the world see you staring at her mouth like a starving man in a bakery.
I push open the door to La Cucina Felice and step into the kind of aroma that could bribe a monk—fresh basil, roasted garlic, yeast just beginning to bloom.
The studio is half cooking classroom, half Instagram trap: reclaimed-wood workstations under chandeliers made of upside-down colanders.
Nora is already here, hip propped against a marble countertop, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth while she studies the prep list. A mustard-yellow apron cinches her waist; tiny flour fingerprints ghost the fabric where she’s clearly wiped nervous hands.
My pulse lands somewhere in the pocket of a groove I haven’t written yet.
She doesn’t notice me at first, so I let myself watch—just a second—the way that errant curl of chestnut hair keeps sliding from her bun, the way she tucks it back with a huff that makes her nose crinkle.
The air conditioner kicks on and the strand rebels again. Without thinking I step forward.
“Let me,” I say, gentle as I can manage with a voice that usually fills arenas. Fingers brush that curl behind her ear. Her head jerks up, storm-gray-green eyes flaring in surprise before smoothing into a cool, guarded caution.
“Personal-space violation, Chef Donovan,” she murmurs, but the corner of her mouth hooks. “You’re late.”
“That’s because I’m terrified.” I gesture at the rows of copper pans. “These things look like they cost more than my first Les Paul guitar.”
“Still wouldn’t swap your guitar for a couple of pans, would you?” she asks, deadpan.
“Not in this lifetime,” I laugh.
Relief flickers—she’s opting for small talk instead of ice. Maybe she’s just wringing the best out of a messy morning.
We’re inches apart and the studio’s tall windows throw spears of morning light across her cheekbones, turning them to marble. She flicks her gaze to the apron hanging loose in my fist. “Put that on backwards and you’ll ruin the optics, Max.”
She lingers on my real name—half snark, half warmth.
“Always knew I needed a stylist.”
I loop the apron around my neck, then turn so she can tie the straps. Her knuckles brush my spine; heat ricochets under my skin. We haven’t touched since the elevator incident, but my body remembers every millimeter of hers pressed against me. Calm down, Donovan.
Chef Luigi—a barrel-chested Italian with a mustache worthy of a silent-film villain—sweeps forward to shake our hands.
“Ah, the innamorati,” he proclaims, planting both hands on his ample hips. “I recognize the glow. It is the same shine my mamma got when Papà brought her fresh cannoli.”
Nora coughs into her sleeve. “We’re not—uh—”
I cut her off. “We’re very much in love, it’s true,” I say, reaching for Nora’s hand. She let’s me take it and it feels warm. I think I hear a small gasp when our hands touch.
Luigi’s index finger launches skyward. “I recognize amore when I see it. When you name your first child, please—‘Luigi’ is flexible for boy or girl.”
Nora lets out a strangled sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. “We’ll—um—keep a list.”
Luigi twirls away, declaiming to the ceiling. “Bellissimo! The kitchen blesses this union—may your pasta never be al dente, and may your fights be short like fresh gnocchi!”
I grin at Nora. She looks slightly flushed, I notice.
Chef Luigi claps twice for emphasis, then snaps into teacher mode. “Now, amoretti, let’s get started with our class.”
Vivienne lingers in the corner with the PR photographer, Gavin—her expression all raptor: pleased, predatory, perfect. She lifts her phone, mouths wholesome. I give her a mild thumbs-up that very much means go away.
Luigi walks us through the lesson: mix semolina and water, knead until “soft like a lover’s thigh,” crank it through the hand roller. His accent turns every instruction into a double entendre. Nora’s ears flush red. Gorgeous.
“Semolina is temperamental,” Luigi warns. “Treat it gentle, but do not be timid!”
Nora levels me a look. “Temperamental dough, temperamental rockstar. I see a theme.”
“Way I hear it, librarians can be ferocious under their cardigans,” I shoot back.
She hums, noncommittal, and dives into the bowl. Idiot that I am, I match her vigor: extra water, fresh bravado—anything to keep pace with her
The dough clings, gloopy. Luigi strolls past, tuts. “More flour, signore.”
I snap Luigi a mock salute, waggle my eyebrows at Nora, and lift the flour canister with all the swagger of a Food-Network finalist. One tiny, graceful shake—that’s the plan. Instead, the lid zings off and the entire canister upends.
Five pounds of superfine white powder pour from the rim, striking the marble workstation with a muffled thud before billowing upward.
The plume rises like a miniature volcanic eruption, filling the air in a dense, swirling fog.
Coughs echo around the studio, and someone lets out a startled yelp as visibility drops to zero.
When the cloud finally begins to settle, and everyone reemerges, their hair, shoulders, and aprons coated in chalky white.
Nora takes the worst of it: a thick veil of flour has landed squarely on her head and lashes, frosting her chestnut-brown hair and turning her blink into slow motion.
Chef Luigi reacts as though he’s just witnessed the sack of Rome.
He stands frozen—flour swirling around his handlebar mustache—then clamps both hands to his cheeks and emits a theatrical gasp that would shame a silent-film star. “Santa Maria!” he bellows, staggering backward. “My studio! My beautiful, stainless sanctuary… what would my nonna say?”
I lunge forward with a towel, determined to rescue my dignity.
Instead, my elbow clips the bowl of tomato passata perched on the counter’s edge.
The bowl flips; red sauce arcs through the air and smacks my shirt, then hers, with a wet, unmistakable splat.
Bright crimson streaks down the front of our aprons and spatters across the surrounding expensive copper pans, the sound ringing in the sudden hush.
For a heartbeat, no one moves. The only noise is the soft hiss of flour settling on stainless steel.
Then, from somewhere behind us, a camera shutter clicks—the photographer, bless his ruthless heart, is already snapping Pulitzer-winning shots of the whole spectacle.
Nora blinks through a mask of white and red.
For one sick heartbeat I think she might cry.
Instead she snorts. A tiny, incredulous burst that cracks the tension like a cymbal crash.
And then she laughs—deep, glorious laughter that sends flour dust swirling.
The grateful roar in my chest almost drops me to my knees.
“Red really is your color,” she says, voice ragged with mirth.
“Thanks, I guess,” I say sheepishly.
I find a tea towel, blot her sleeve. The passata streak stops right at the curve of her breast; my hand almost follows it. I redirect. Boundaries.
We launch into damage control—she dabs, I dab—but every pat only spreads the mess, and the flour congeals into pink paste that creeps across our aprons like blotchy water-colors.
Luigi surveys the carnage, hands on hips. “Amore is messy,” he pronounces.
Nora’s laugh falters into something quieter, something new. In that softening space between us, it’s terrifying how much I want to memorize the shape of her mouth with my own.
FLASH. Another photo.
From the edge of the chaos Vivienne hisses a stage-whisper sharp enough to slice mozzarella. “Make it look cute—NOW.”
“Cute,” Nora repeats, deadpan.
The photographer’s flash begins its impatient strobe.
With exaggerated care I scoop a dollop of flour paste from my shoulder, tap it gently onto the tip of Nora’s nose.
She gives me a glare that could curdle cream but doesn’t swat me away—small victory.
I lean in with a folded towel and, as delicately as possible for a man who currently resembles a lasagna, dab the flour off her nose.
Click—flash.Click—flash.
The camera captures us mid-laugh: two tomato-drenched idiots, her hand pressed to my marinara-slicked chest, my thumb still poised at the tip of her freshly cleaned nose—a snapshot that will look, at a merciful distance, like playful affection.
Flash pops one final time. Vivienne’s satisfied “Perfect” sails across the studio just as a blob of sauce dribbles from my hair onto Nora’s apron. She sighs, but the corners of her mouth stay lifted.
On the far side of the studio, an aide from the photographer loses her footing on the slick of flour we have just created.
She windmills for balance, but her outstretched hand lands squarely on the gas range’s ignition knob.
The burner flares to life with a loud whoosh, and a narrow pillar of blue-orange flame shoots upward, licking the bottom of a copper pan.
The sudden flash trips the heat sensor overhead.
The smoke alarm wails—shrill enough to rattle the baking sheets—and a heartbeat later the ceiling sprinklers click open.
Cool, misty water pours down in neat vertical streams, instantly turning the flour coating every surface into a gluey white paste.
The transformation is grotesquely impressive. Paste plasters to my forearms and soaks into my ruined T-shirt. Water pools on the marble floor, swirling pink where it mixes with stray splashes of tomato sauce.
It’s absurd. It’s spectacular. It’s the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
Nora exhales, shoulders shaking—adrenaline or hilarity, maybe both. I slide an arm around her waist before I can second-guess. She doesn’t pull away. Her head tips toward my shoulder in weary camaraderie, tomato sauce trickling down the curve of her neck. I resist the impulse to lick it clean.
“You okay?” I murmur into damp curls.
“I smell like tomato,” she answers, breath warm against my ear. “But yes. You?”
“I’m considering a career pivot to slapstick.”
She grins. “Already nailed the grand finale.”
The alarm finally cuts off, leaving only the hiss of sprinklers and the splat of flour paste hitting the floor.
Chef Luigi lifts a soaked dish towel like a white flag, wiggles it above his head, and declares in mournful, theatrical resignation, “Class postponed!”
We’re officially dismissed, and the room empties in a hurry.
Vivienne intercepts us at the door for one last order. “Great coverage,” she tells the photographer, then turns to Nora. “I’ll send you a few selects for approval—you two looked positively charming.”
Nora exhales but nods. “Three shots, max—and none of the sprinkler fiasco.”
With a brisk nod, Vivienne sweeps off to smooth things over with Luigi. The photographer snaps a mock salute, holsters his camera, and melts into the crowd.
The door closes, and my stomach growls so loudly a passing tourist startles. Nora’s midsection answers in perfect harmony. She presses a hand to her belly, eyes wide. “Two hours in a gourmet kitchen and not a single bite.”
“Criminal,” I agree. “How about we remedy that with actual pasta?”
“Please.”
We head east on Ninth, following the smell of garlic like bloodhounds. Flour paste flakes off our aprons with every step, leaving a Hansel-and-Gretel trail behind us. People stare, but Manhattan is constitutionally incapable of staring for longer than three seconds, so nobody slows down.
At a corner trattoria with a walk-up window, Nora orders cacio e pepe in a cardboard bowl; I grab rigatoni alla vodka. We claim a wrought-iron bench facing a postage-stamp park—really just two trees and a newsstand. Noon sun glints off the plastic cutlery as we dig in like we’ve been shipwrecked.
Halfway through my first bite I notice a streak of crimson dried along the curve of her neck, just under her jawline—a perfect brushstroke of marinara.
“There’s still a bit of sauce,” I murmur, tilting my fork as if that’s a normal pointing device.
She sighs through a laugh. “Of course there is. Where?”
I set my pasta down and lift a napkin. “May I?”
She tips her chin in answer, exposing the porcelain sweep of her throat.
I lean in carefully, dabbing the soft skin.
The streak dissolves, leaving a faint pink flush that’s mine only by accident.
Up close she smells like basil, flour dust, and something warmer—lilac maybe.
Her pulse ticks against the napkin; I feel the rhythm under my fingertips and fight the urge to replace paper with lips.
“All gone,” I whisper.
Nora’s eyes meet mine—storm-glass clear, no lightning for once. “Thank you,” she says, voice lower than before, a note I want to sample and loop forever. The city noise melts into ambient static.
A faint rustle breaks the spell. From beneath the bench slinks a tangle of tortoiseshell fur and watchful green eyes. The cat sniffs the air, ears flicking, then pads toward Nora on silent paws and lets out a rusty-hinged meow.
Nora bends at the waist, slow and graceful, her hand extended like she’s greeting royalty.
“And who might you be?” she coos, all gentle librarian tones and coaxing fingers.
The cat—skinny, scrappy, and speckled like she’s been patched together from sidewalk shadows—sniffs Nora’s outstretched hand.
Pauses.
Considers.
And then, without warning, veers hard left… and makes a beeline straight for me.
“What the—?” I blink as she leaps onto the bench like she owns it, hops into my lap like I do, and begins kneading her needle-sharp claws into my jeans with a purr so loud it borders on smug.
Nora straightens slowly. “Excuse me?”
I hold up both hands, as if surrendering to a tiny, fuzzy dictator. “I didn’t do anything.”
“She ignored me.” Nora sounds personally offended. “I’m the one who spoke first.”
“Yeah, well…” I peer down at the kitten, who is now full-blown biscuit-making on my thigh and purring like a malfunctioning engine. “Clearly, she has taste.”
“Clearly,” Nora deadpans. “She likes disaster men.”
“She’s obviously got abandonment issues,” I retort. “Drawn to fellow strays.”
The cat yawns—big and toothy—and then headbutts my stomach before curling up like she’s found her forever home.
Nora watches us, brow lifted. “She just claimed you.”
I look at the cat. Then at Nora. Then back at the cat.
“Great,” I mutter. “I’ve been chosen.”