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Chapter 1. Meeting My Match

(Taddeo’s POV)

The burette in my hand clicked steadily, each drop of sodium hydroxide falling with metronomic precision into the flask below. I’d been at this station for two hours, watching the phenolphthalein indicator hover at the edge of its color change—that perfect moment between clear and pink that told me everything about the reaction’s endpoint. The lab was quiet except for the hum of the fume hoods and the occasional clink of glassware, just how I preferred it.

Then the door opened.

I didn’t look up—new faces appeared in the lab every week, exchange students cycling through like seasonal weather. But something about the way this one moved caught my peripheral vision. Deliberate steps, no hesitation about which bench to claim. She set her bag down at the station directly opposite mine, the confrontational geometry of it impossible to miss.

“Interesting technique.” Her voice carried across the narrow aisle between our benches. “Though I’m curious why you’re using that concentration of base for a weak acid titration.”

My hand paused mid-drop. I still didn’t look up, but something in her tone—not quite criticism, not quite question—made me recalibrate. “Because the sample’s buffered. Standard concentration would give a sluggish endpoint.”

“Unless you account for the ionic strength in your calculations.” She was already pulling on her lab coat, buttoning it with the kind of precision that suggested this was ritual, not mere protocol. “But I suppose shortcuts have their appeal.”

Now I did look up. She was blonde, her hair pulled back in a way that looked effortless but probably wasn’t, her eyes the kind of blue that belonged in expensive jewelry advertisements. But it was the way she held my gaze—steady, evaluating, like she was running her own titration and I was the unknown sample—that made me pay attention.

“Sabrina Conti,” she said, not extending her hand because her gloves were already on. “Bologna. Exchange semester.”

“Taddeo.” I turned back to my burette, added another drop. The solution flickered pink, then cleared. “And it’s not a shortcut. It’s understanding the system well enough to know which variables actually matter.”

She laughed—a short, surprised sound. “Finally. Someone who doesn’t just follow the manual like scripture.”

Over the next hour, we worked in parallel, and I found myself hyperaware of her presence. Not in the way I usually noticed attractive women in the lab—that careful distance I maintained, professional and safe. This was different. She moved through her setup with an economy that spoke of real understanding, not just memorized technique. When she reached for reagents, she knew exactly where her hand was going. When she adjusted her hot plate, it was to the precise temperature she needed, not a degree of trial and error.

But it was when she started her own titration that I really paid attention. She wasn’t using the standard method at all—she’d modified the approach, using a different indicator system that I’d only seen in advanced papers. It was elegant. It was also showing off, and we both knew it.

“Bromothymol blue?” I couldn’t help asking. “For a phenolic compound?”

“Why not?” She didn’t look up from her burette. “The pH range is perfect if you know what you’re looking for.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Then you shouldn’t be in this lab.”

The words should have irritated me. Instead, I found myself fighting a smile. It had been months—maybe years—since someone had challenged me like this in my own space. Most students either deferred to my Federico Giolitti scholarship status or ignored me entirely. She did neither.

We worked in loaded silence after that, but I could feel the charge building between us. Every time she moved, I tracked it. Every time I adjusted my apparatus, I felt her watching. The air between our benches had become something almost tangible, like the shimmer above a hot plate, distorting everything that passed through it.

I was reaching for my wash bottle when it happened. My elbow caught the edge of my burette stand, and time slowed as I watched it tip. The glass snapped cleanly at the stopcock, sending thirty milliliters of concentrated base spreading across the bench in a caustic pool.

“Shit.” I was already moving, grabbing paper towels.

She moved at the same instant, coming around the bench with the spill kit from the wall. “Get the bicarbonate,” she said, all challenge gone from her voice, replaced by pure efficiency. “I’ll contain it.”

We converged behind the LC-MS machine, where the spill was threatening to drip onto the floor. The space was narrow—barely room for one person, let alone two. Her shoulder pressed against mine as we worked, laying down absorbent pads, neutralizing the base. I could smell her shampoo, something clean and expensive, mixing with the sharp scent of the sodium bicarbonate.

“Your calculation was off,” she said quietly, her mouth suddenly close to my ear. “Earlier. You forgot to account for the temperature coefficient.”

Her breath was warm against my neck. The criticism should have stung—I didn’t make calculation errors. But the way she delivered it, low and private, like a secret between us, made it feel like something else entirely.

“I didn’t forget,” I managed, still focused on the spill. “I was compensating for the age of the indicator solution.”

“Mm.” The sound hummed against my skin. “Clever.”

We stayed there three seconds longer than necessary, pressed together in that narrow space, the crisis already contained but neither of us moving. Her hand brushed mine as she reached for another paper towel. The touch was electric, sending a jolt up my arm that had nothing to do with static discharge.

Then she stepped back, and the spell broke. We cleaned up the rest of the spill in silence, professional distance restored. She returned to her bench. I salvaged what I could of my experiment. But something fundamental had shifted in the lab’s atmosphere, like a reaction that couldn’t be reversed.

When I finally packed up, sliding my silver carabiner keychain into my bag, I was irritated to find my hands weren’t quite steady. She was still working, bent over her notebook, recording data with the same precision she brought to everything else.

I left without saying goodbye, but I knew—with the same certainty I knew when a reaction had reached completion—that this wasn’t over. I’d met my match in this lab, and the recognition of it unsettled me more than any failed experiment ever had.

Walking out into the Padua afternoon, I found myself already replaying the moment behind the LC-MS machine. Three seconds. Her breath on my neck. The way she’d said “clever” like it meant something more.

I needed something simpler. Something that didn’t feel like handling volatile compounds without proper protection. Something that didn’t threaten to explode if I wasn’t careful.

What I felt with Sabrina was definitely not simple.

Chapter 2. Someone Easier

(Taddeo’s POV)

The rain had driven everyone under the portici, turning the usual sparse morning foot traffic into a dense stream of umbrellas and hurried steps. I pressed myself against a recessed doorway, the green paint flaking under my shoulder, and waited for the worst of it to pass. Four days since the lab incident with Sabrina, and I still felt off-balance, like I’d been running a reaction without proper temperature control.

“Taddeo?”

I turned to find Alissa approaching, a paper bag clutched against her chest to protect it from the spray. Her hair was damp at the edges, curling more than usual, and she was smiling in that uncomplicated way that made you want to smile back.

“I brought maritozzi,” she said, lifting the bag. “Made them this morning. The cream’s still fresh.”

She squeezed into the doorway beside me, close enough that I could smell vanilla and butter mixing with the rain. It was different from Sabrina’s expensive shampoo—warmer, more accessible. When she handed me one of the pastries, her fingers brushed mine without any electric charge, just simple human warmth.

“You’re a lifesaver,” I said, biting into the soft brioche. The cream was perfect—light, not too sweet, with a hint of orange zest. “How do you have time to bake with Ferretti’s pharmaceutical analysis course?”

“It’s how I think,” she said, taking a bite of her own. A dot of cream caught at the corner of her mouth. “Some people pace, some people go for runs. I fold dough and wait for it to rise. Very meditative.”

She wiped away the cream with her thumb, unselfconscious, and I found myself relaxing for the first time in days. This was easy. This was normal. Two chemistry students sharing breakfast in a doorway, talking about coursework.

“How’s your kinetics project going?” she asked. “Still fighting with the temperature coefficients?”

“Getting there. The new apparatus helps.” I paused, then found myself adding, “Though I had a visiting student question my entire methodology yesterday. From Bologna.”

“The blonde girl? Sabrina?” Alissa’s voice carried no judgment, just mild curiosity. “I saw her in the organic lab. Very... precise.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Difficult collaboration?”

I thought about Sabrina’s breath on my neck, the way she’d said “clever” like a challenge and a confirmation at once. “Something like that.”

Alissa studied me for a moment, then offered me the last maritozzo from the bag. “Well, if you need a break from difficult collaborations, I’m running buffer calculations all afternoon. Deeply boring, but very peaceful. You’re welcome to join.”

The invitation was sincere, uncomplicated. No subtext, no challenge, no electric charge waiting to short-circuit. Just Alissa, offering to share her quiet afternoon because she thought I might need it.

“I might take you up on that,” I said.

Later that evening, I found Adel at the alimentari on Via Zabarella, contemplating the olive oil selection with the intensity he usually reserved for reaction mechanisms. The shop was nearly empty, just us and the owner reading a newspaper behind the counter.

“Your mother send you a recipe?” I asked.

“Fattoush,” he said, selecting a bottle. “But I think I’ll modify it. Add sumac to the dressing.”

We wandered the narrow aisles while he gathered ingredients. I picked up things I didn’t need—a jar of capers, some expensive chocolate—just to have something to do with my hands.

“I met someone,” I said finally, when we reached the back corner where they kept the specialty flours. “Well, two someones.”

Adel added bulgur to his basket and waited.

“Alissa Moretti. Medicinal chemistry. She’s...” I tried to find the right word. “Easy. Warm. We talk about normal things. She bakes.”

“The maritozzi girl,” Adel said. “I’ve seen her. Seems nice.”

“She is nice. Very nice.” I picked up a bag of semolina, put it back. “And then there’s Sabrina. Exchange student from Bologna. Organic synthesis.”

“Ah.” Adel’s tone shifted, recognizing something in my voice. “Not nice?”

“I don’t know what she is.” The words came out more forcefully than I intended. “Brilliant. Infuriating. She questioned my titration methodology within five minutes of meeting me. We had to clean up a spill together and—” I stopped, realizing I couldn’t explain what had happened without sounding insane. “She gets under my skin.”

“And you like that?”

“I hate it.” I grabbed a packet of pine nuts, tossed them in his basket without asking. “But I can’t stop thinking about it. Her. The way she just... assumed she could challenge me. Like she saw right through the Federico Giolitti scholarship to something else.”

Adel was quiet for a long moment, reading the label on a jar of tahini with apparent fascination. “My cousin in Beirut,” he said finally, “he married a nice girl. Very suitable. His mother picked her out. They have three kids now, a good apartment, dinner every Friday with the families.”

I waited, knowing there was more.

“He also keeps every letter his high school girlfriend ever wrote him. In a box in his office. Twenty years later.” Adel put the tahini in his basket. “Some people fit your life. Some people reshape it.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Wasn’t trying to be helpful.” He headed toward the register. “Just observing.”

“I don’t even know what I want,” I admitted, following him.

“Sure you do.” He placed his items on the counter, nodding to the owner. “You just don’t know if you want to want it.”

Outside, the rain had stopped. The streets smelled clean and mineral, puddles reflecting the shop lights. Adel shifted his grocery bag to one arm.

“You going to see the nice girl again?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tomorrow, probably. She invited me to study.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “And the other one?”

I thought about Sabrina at her bench, the absolute certainty in her movements, the way she’d made my familiar lab feel like uncharted territory.