Annie bangs her head against the window.
“Fill her right up,” I add, because now I can’t help it. “And yes,it’sashenow.”
I take her on a tour of Duke campus. I try to make it fun and pretty. We start at the Duke Chapel, its towering Gothic spires cutting into the sky like something out of a book. A fairy tale. Inside, the stained-glass windows cast colorful patterns onto the stone floors, and the hush of the space feels almost sacred. She tilts her head back, taking it all in, and I can’t help but smile ‘cause this place has that effect on everyone.
We walk through the bustling West Campus, past students hanging out on the quad and racing between classes. I lead her toward the Perkins and Bostock Libraries, pointing out the glass bridge that connects them. But it’s the Rubenstein Library that I really want to show her. It has a certain smell—the smell of history itself—with its rare manuscripts and archives and shit. Centuries-old books. I watch her trace a tattooed finger over the spines of leather-bound volumes, her expression shifting from curiosity to something more reverent. I think of the way I traced those tattooed fingers with the exact same sort of reverence.
We wander towards the gardens for some more tragically beautiful nature shit, where the scent of fresh flowers lingers in the air. The winding paths lead us past koi ponds and cherry blossoms, and for a short moment when no one else is around, the world closes in, just like it did in that clearing in the forest, like it did at the overlook in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Annie drops her walls again. “I think the quiet beauty of places like these makes everything feel softer and easier,” she says into the air. “There’s not so much noise. I feel like I can breathe.”
God fuckin’ damnit, where the heck does she come up with this shit? It makes me wanna kiss the hell outta her.
We eventually end up at the Science Center, home to Duke’s chemistry department. The sleek, modern building stands in contrast to the older Gothic architecture on campus, its glass windows reflecting the late afternoon light.
“Wanna go in and see where the real magic happens?” I ask her with a grin.
She laughs. “Sure, Dr. Nico.”
“This is actually where Dr. Nico’s origin story began.”
I lead her inside, past rows of bustling labs and whiteboard-covered walls filled with complex equations. She pauses at a display showcasing breakthrough research. She hovers two fingers, the ones with the spade and the heart, over a diagram of molecular structures.
I take those two fingers and rub my thumb over those tattoos again. “I like these two,” I admit.
She stares at my hand holding hers. “Why? They’re so small.”
“I dunno. I can’t stop looking at them. They stand out. A heart and a spade? Love and a little bit of chaos.”
That gets another small smile.
“What doesPLUMmean?” I ask, referring to the tattoos she has on the knuckles of her other hand.
“It’s May’s nickname.”
“Why Plum?”
“It’s an inside joke we had as kids. May thought she hated plums. Thought they tasted like garlic.”
I frown. “Why?”
“Turns out someone always used the same knife used for cutting garlic for cutting the fruit for dessert afterwards,” she says with a laugh. “What’s the science behind that?”
I grin, because finally—something in my wheelhouse. “Garlic’s loaded with sulfur compounds, things like allicin, thatbind like Velcro to surfaces. Metal, plastic, knives, cutting boards, whatever. They’re oil-soluble, so once they stick, they spread into whatever fatty or porous food comes next. Plums, peaches, chocolate cake. You name it, they all end up tasting like the ghost of garlic.”
She wrinkles her nose. “A lot of things about my childhood are starting to make sense.”
“Yeah. Once it’s on the blade, it doesn’t rinse off easily. Soap works, but you have to actually scrub because those sulfur molecules cling to surfaces. Some people swear the stainless steel trick helps, but the real solution is cleaning the knife well or switching to a fresh one for fruit or sweets.”
“Huh. Cool,” she says, then: “What’s your bad tattoo that Tom was talking about on the beach?”
I shrug, feeling the back of my neck get hot. “Just a dumb joke.” I walk away before she can ask me anything else. There’s no way she subscribes toNakedReactions, but I ain’t riskin’ it.
A bit later, I’m in the middle of explaining some of the classes and research I did here when I hear: “Is that Nicholas Giannuzzi I see?”Fuck. Of all the fuckin’ people…
“This fuckin asshole,” I mutter under my breath. I turn, body already tense. “Hey, Turney,” I manage.
The man whose skin always reminded me of cottage cheese ambles over. “Nicholas, what are you doing in Durham? Aren’t you supposed to be up in New York? Line cook for the Times Square Olive Garden, right?” He chuckles at his little fuckin’ joke.
