At the sight, I shove everything aside. I have Powell’s all to myself with the most beautiful man on the planet and I’m wasting time being an idiot.
“Come,” I say, getting out of the car. The change must show on my face because he smiles. With a final whisper at Benson, he uncoils out of the car. His eyes scan the sidewalk as always. Then, taking me by the waist, he strides to the doors and opens them for me.
“After you, Elisa.”
I know this place like Denton’s lab, yet today it feels new. It’s quiet, the only sound a mild concerto over the sound system. Two employees work quietly behind the counter, sorting and stacking endless books in towers. The smell of parchment wafts in the air. But the biggest difference is not the emptiness. It’s this sense that today, Powell’s feels like my own story. I snap a picture even though I know I will never forget this.
Aiden chuckles next to me. “You look lovely when you’re astonished.”
I grin, reaching on my tiptoes and kissing him on the mouth, not caring if I’m nauseating the diligent employees. “I think this merits a ‘Best Date Ever’ trophy.”
“Well, that scraps my trip to NASA idea.”
I laugh and pull him behind me into Powell’s color-coded maze. “I think Fleming’s talk is upstairs, in the Purple Room.”
He follows me dutifully, kissing me in each aisle we visit like he did with his house and the roses. I stare at the shelves loaded to the brim with books, feeling like my eyes are not wide enough for the sight. By the time I’ve finished my third detour into the Isaac Newton section and head for the American Studies, Aiden yanks me back by my waist, laughing.
“Elisa, I may be going on a limb here but you seem a tad distracted.”
“Are you kidding? This is Powell’s! The largest independent bookstore in the world. One million volumes, 122 subject areas, 3,500 subsections and a Rare Book Room. Bloody hell, how am I going to have time for all of it?” My voice is rising in panic.
He laughs again. “Maybe I can help but let’s go see Fleming first.”
“Fleming, yes, right, okay. Then modern chemistry, Mendeleev, Curie, Austen, Dostoyevsky, Neruda, Dickinson—”
His mouth swoops on mine, wiping away all thought, and I sag limply in his arms.
“Then Fifty Shades of Grey.” He chuckles.
I blush garnet red. “Umm, technically, the human eye can discern about two hundred fifty-six shades of gray,” I mumble and head for the Purple Room, tripping twice.
Nigel Fleming waits in the book signing area, standing by a lectern with a mess of papers and a few copies of his book. He looks exactly as he does in pictures. Short, with a bit of a belly, a white mustache, goggle-like spectacles and a tweed suit. I take a picture of him, feeling a lump parachuting in my throat. What would Dad have done if he were here?
Fleming looks up and smiles. “Ah, you must be Mr. Hale!” he says with a thick Manchester accent. At the sound, the faithful crater implodes in my chest. Aiden tightens his hand at my waist. Does he guess?
“Professor, thank you for this last-minute accommodation,” Aiden says, shaking Fleming’s hand. “I apologize we could not make the talk but we couldn’t miss the chance to meet you. Your work on the interaction between agouti-related protein and proopiomelanocortin has greatly influenced this budding chemist, Elisa Snow.”
Fleming looks at me but I’m too stunned to look anywhere else but at Aiden. I don’t know what my face looks like but I feel Powell’s air conditioning in my tonsils. How does Aiden know chemical terms? He turns to me with a smile, arching his eyebrows subtly. I blink and recover.
“How do you do Professor Fleming? It’s a great honor meeting you, sir.”
“Blimey! An Oxonian!” he exclaims, taking my hand and shaking it so vigorously that my teeth chatter.
“How do you do, Miss Snow, how do you do! What is a lovely lady such as yourself doing in Portland, Oregon?” Fleming’s belly rises and drops with each overly pronounced Mancunian vowel.
“I just graduated from Reed. My father and I used a lot of your work on ghrelin and melanocortin for our first article together.”
“That’s well mint that. Would I know your father?”
“Peter Snow, Professor.”
“Oh, darling girl, yes, yes, of course. Met him in a few conferences meself. Fine chemist, your father. Me sympathies.”
“Thank you, Professor.”
“Now then, do have a seat both of you and we’ll have a nice chat about the arcuate nucleus and bump our gums about chemists who don’t believe in the genetics of conscience.” He fists his hands in excitement, in a mirror image of my grip on Aiden’s hand. For his part, Aiden is smiling more than I have seen him smile in all the precious time I’ve spent with him.