We take the two chairs in front of the projector screen. Fleming fiddles with a remote control, mumbling to it about cooperation. I laugh that even a chemist like him is confounded by American technology.
“Ah! Bob’s your uncle,” he cries as the screen illuminates and the Purple Room darkens. A diagram of the human brain appears on the screen. Fleming begins with the theory that started it for my dad and me. Because Aiden’s arm is around me, the Manchester dialect does not corrode my insides. I lean my head on his shoulder, stealing glances at his omniscient eyes. He is absorbed but meets my gaze every few moments. Once or twice, he kisses my hair.
“How did you know about the hunger proteins?” I whisper.
“I read about them.”
“When?”
“When you were getting ready in your apartment. Shush.” He indicates the screen with his chin.
I listen to Fleming, but a part of my brain has latched itself irrevocably on Aiden. How could he have absorbed enough in ten minutes to follow this? Impossibly, in the course of twenty-four hours, the rest of him has eclipsed even his beauty. I grip his hand, marveling at how new he is making everything feel. I see Dad in every slide, it’s true, but nothing about it feels like homage. Only like a brilliant date with a singular man.
When the presentation ends, Fleming demands to know about my work. Aiden buys me a signed copy of Fleming’s book, but when he catches me trying to buy a second one for Denton, he buys the whole stack. He also offers to connect Fleming with the owner of an international chain of bookstores.
“Ah, very good, very good, Mr. Hale. Me good fortune after all that you wanted a private audience. Elisa, darling, give your ’ead a wobble about graduate school. I’d be delighted to introduce you ’round Edinburgh.” He shakes my hand with a wide grin. I smile back, keeping my face composed. Professor Fleming has no idea how very soon he is going to hear from me.
When we emerge from the Purple Room, I launch myself at Aiden. “Thank you for that. It meant a lot to me.” I kiss him, feeling like the words are the most inadequate of the English language to really express gratitude.
“You’re welcome. That was actually quite interesting. Now, if I recall, you have a plan of attack for assimilating Powell’s.”
“Something else, first.” I take his hand and lead him to the Rose Room, which is about the size of his own library.
He chuckles. “More roses?”
“Not this time. Just a coincidence.”
“Good because Benson might quit if he has to learn origami for paper roses.”
I laugh, weaving through the aisles. He is always next to me or behind me—never ahead. Unwilling to miss a speck of him, I start walking backward.
“Right here,” I say as we reach Aisle 738. I start rolling down the ladder but Aiden stops me.
“Do you need to reach something?”
“Yes. Up there, on the seventh shelf.”
He grips my hips, lifts me like Fleming’s remote control and rests me on his shoulder. “I like this better,” he says.
“That’s a place my arse has not been before.”
“With some luck, your arse will find another place to sit soon, Elisa.” He imitates my accent so perfectly that I stop reaching and gape at him. He is making no effort at all to hide the fact that he is peeking under my dress.
“Your Oxford accent is flawless!” I blurt out—almost like an accusation. Now I’m seriously consumed with his brain. “Have you lived in England?” What else makes sense?
“I have visited.”
“But how do you get the pronunciation so right? I’ve tried to speak with an American accent for the last four years!”
He laughs. “It most definitely has not worked, although you’ve adopted the jargon. Now, I can stay here all day, staring at your delectable legs and these rather fetching cotton knickers but I’d prefer to shred them in private. So, show me what you need to show me because there is only so much a man can tolerate.” He slides his hand under my dress, tracing his fingers upward.
“Okay, okay, here it is.” I reach for the familiar tome. He slides me down, my body flush with his.
“The Science of Poverty Eradication?” he reads, his eyebrows arching.
“I know, I know, technical titles but look.” I flip to page 845 and point. “This is what you helped me live today.”
He takes the book, his pupils zooming in on the text. His mouth opens into a perfect O.
“‘The Hunger Genome’, by Peter Andrew Snow and Elisa Cecilia Snow,” he reads slowly. “This is what you wrote when you were sixteen!”
I nod, unable to speak. He looks utterly engrossed, unlike Reagan’s yawn or Javier’s roll of the eyes, which are much more understandable reactions than this fascination. He starts flipping through the pages but I yank it from his hands.