Page 27 of Inventing Mr Darcy

I was just about to text you.

You free for dinner?

Yes

Great! Come by my house whenever you’re hungry

Be there soon

I pull out of the bookstore parking lot at a speed that borders on reckless. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is hunger—at least, not in any conventional sense.

What I do know is that Fisher Davis is the only person I’m close to who never read Pride and Prejudice. When he first admitted it, I was horrified, but now his ignorance of my favorite book has an unexpected appeal: at least he can’t be affected by its disappearance.

ELEVEN

You think you’re prepared for a person to open his front door, and then you see he hasn’t shaved since you last saw him two days ago, and all that dark scruff is so deliciously at odds with your admittedly narrow idea of how a computer nerd ought to look, so you get caught standing and gaping on his porch.

Again.

Based on the hint of color that streaks across Fisher’s cheekbones and the slight curve of his surprised but pleased smile, I don’t think he minds.

When my wits are sufficiently gathered to step across the threshold, he takes my coat and hangs it on the rack behind the door. There’s a low fire in the hearth and I wander toward it with outstretched hands, not willing after the day I’ve had to investigate the potential dangers of how at home I feel here.

“So, what did you do today?” he asks, and more tension eases from my shoulders.

Because, thank God, he didn’t ask the question most dreaded by grad students everywhere: how’s your dissertation coming along?

“Oh, ran some errands,” I tell him.

Had a breakdown in the Children’s section of a popular bookstore.

And also in my car.

“Did you work up an appetite?”

“Definitely.”

He motions me to follow him deeper into the house. As much as I don’t really want to leave the haven that is his living room, I’m curious too. We pass through a large dining room, with a table and chairs for eight, and emerge into the kitchen, which has obviously been redone and fairly recently, but in a style perfectly in keeping with the character of the house. No stark white quartz and cold stainless steel here. I wonder whether his father purchased the place in this condition or had it fixed up as part of the property’s investment potential.

“Do you like fettucine alfredo?” Fisher asks.

“Sure.”

He washes his hands, then opens a refrigerator of a kind I’ve only seen on cooking shows—who knew people had them in their homes, too? When he reappears with butter, cream, and a block of cheese, I realize we’re not talking about sharing some Olive Garden carry-out. He intends to make the dish from scratch.

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble,” I say.

He’s rummaging in a cupboard for a box of pasta, so his reply is muffled. “It’s no trouble at all.”

I help with the basic stuff—boiling water, grating cheese—though he insists it’s all perfectly simple, something anyone can do. While we wait for the sauce to come together, he grabs two goblets from a glass-front cabinet. “Wine?”

“Mmm, what is this?” I demand after my first sip; it’s crisp and fruity without being too sweet.

“Proprietary blend,” he says, twisting the bottle so I can read the label: Gaby’s Good Grapes—Your Favorite White. “My sister runs a vineyard in northern California. She’s brilliant. Took it from failing to thriving in less than two years.”

“Oh.” I can’t quite hide my surprise. “I suppose that’s a branch of your family business?”

“No.”