Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(17)
Carmen’s eyes lingered on his for a beat, and then she turned to Rosa, who was nodding emphatically. She turned back to him. “I guess so.”
oOo
Plans were made for Jordan, Rosa, and Carmen to shop tomorrow, and for all five of them to dine together in the evening, and then the conversation reverted to normal dinner chitchat.
After dinner, the bill for which Carmen insisted be split between them by family, ‘the youngsters’ decided that they were not done yet. They three went off clubbing, leaving Theo and Carmen on the sidewalk.
They were alone.
For a moment, they stood on the sidewalk. Carmen seemed to feel as suddenly awkward as he did. He knew what he wanted. But he wasn’t sure whether to go for it tonight.
Then she turned and looked up at him. “I have wine at the apartment. Red and white both. Will you drink wine?”
No, he wouldn’t. But there was a little market at the end of the block they were standing on. “I’d rather run down to the corner and grab a bottle of bourbon, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” She started off in that direction.
“Carmen, wait. What are we doing?”
She grinned. “Booty call. You in?”
A booty call was a place to start, at least. And with the aftereffects of the emotional deluge she’d caused inside him still swirling, he needed to get his hands on her. “Oh, yeah.” He needed to pick something else up at the market, too.
oOo
Compared to Hunter Anders’ opulent digs, the flat Carmen and Rosa were staying in was chic but modest—and much more comfortable, in Theo’s estimation. It was light and airy, the lamps and sconces in the room, and the white walls and trim, making it appear so even when the big, arched windows were dark with night.
She left him in the living room, nosing about the bookshelves, and took the bourbon into the kitchen. When she came back, she had an old-fashioned glass with about three fingers of bourbon for him and a large glass of red in a Bordeaux glass for her. She handed him his drink and gestured at the big, worn, comfy leather sofa. They sat.
“How do you have this place?”
She sipped her wine. “I told you—this is my friend’s flat. She and her husband are in India for a year or so. She offered, and the timing was good to bring Rosa for the summer.”
“Well, it’s nice. It feels like a home. In this neighborhood, the décor can get a little fussy, I’ve noticed. But this is comfortable.”
“Yeah. Izzie is pretty down to earth. What about you—are you in a hotel all this time, or how does the grant or whatever work?”
They were having a conversation. Considering her resistance to the idea earlier, Theo was glad to see that not only was she engaged, but she’d actually initiated it. “Like you, I’m staying as a guest in someone’s home. The man who awarded me the grant. He calls it his pied-à-terre, but that’s the false modesty of the wealthy.”
“Somebody is paying for you to spend time writing a memoir. I’m sorry—that boggles my mind. Just the idea that somebody can make a living writing about their own life. People are weird.” She took a long sip of her wine and set the glass down on the wide, rough-hewn table in front of the sofa.
“Who’s weird? Me, or the people—like you—who pay to read about my life?” He hoped his smile would show the joke in the challenge.
“Everybody. Just weird. We’re nosy *s, the lot of us.”
He laughed. “Maybe not the whole lot, but a lot, yes. I’d agree there. I don’t make a living writing about my own life, by the way. I made a little extra money, but not a huge pile. This grant is nice, but it’s an anomaly. What I really do is teach. And I’m not even a memoirist by training.”
“No?”
He finished his bourbon and let the fire ignite and then die down in his belly before he answered. “No. I’m a poet.”
“Oh, good lord. Seriously?”
“Seriously. I would never have written a memoir if Maggie hadn’t died. The Fates conspired to make me a memoirist, and now I guess I’m stuck.”
Her laugh was melancholy, and Theo sensed a story lying beneath it. “Yeah. That happens.” She picked up her glass and drained it, then set it down again. “I thought my philosophy degree was a dead-ender, but it seems like poet would be worse. How does one land on ‘poet’ as a career choice?”
A philosophy degree. Oh, he liked that. It spoke of keen wit and deep curiosity—things he’d already seen in her. He could imagine them having long, involved conversations over dinner. Or in bed.
“One doesn’t really have a choice. Words demand their due.” It was his standard answer to her common question. Most people let it lie where it landed, because they didn’t understand and didn’t want to appear as if they hadn’t understood.
She nodded. “I guess they would. There’s a quote by a writer I like: ‘When I cannot see words curling like rings of smoke round me I am in darkness—I am nothing.’ There wasn’t any poetry in Orchids—is that because the words weren’t there when your wife was dying? Is that what you mean?”
Jesus Christ. It was like she’d opened his head and chest and pulled out his deepest thoughts and feelings. “That’s Woolf. The Waves.” His voice broke on the last word, and he cleared his throat.