Published in 2024, Casey McQuiston’s The Pairing is a romantic comedy. Four years after their brutal breakup, faced with expiring vouchers for the food and wine tour they’d planned to take together, Theo and Kit individually decide to use their vouchers for a solo trip and accidentally find themselves traveling Europe together. To prove they’re truly over the relationship, they challenge each other to a hookup competition but slowly realize they have unresolved feelings for each other. Set against a backdrop of luscious meals and picturesque settings, the novel explores themes of love, pleasure, and self-acceptance. Casey McQuiston is known for writing queer romances, including the New York Times bestseller Red, White, and Royal Blue.

Citations in this study guide refer to the e-book edition released by St. Martin’s Press in 2024.

Plot Summary

Theo Flowerday and Kit Fairfield have been best friends since second grade, and they’ve been in love with each other since they were teenagers. When they’re 22 years old, they admit that they have feelings for one another and begin dating. Two years later, Theo and Kit book a culinary tour of Europe. During their flight to London, Theo learns that Kit intends for them to move to Paris and open a restaurant together. She feels betrayed that he planned a whole new life for them without consulting her, and they break up. Theo returns to California, and Kit moves to Paris and attends pastry school. The two stop speaking to one another.

Four years after the breakup, Theo decides to go on the culinary tour and prove to herself that she is over Kit. To her astonishment and frustration, he is on the same tour. When their bus stops at the White Cliffs of Dover, Kit apologizes for how things ended between them. Theo suggests that they set aside their past for the next three weeks and try to enjoy the trip. During the tour group’s time in Paris, Theo mistakenly suspects that Kit is dating a woman who attended pastry school with him. She later realizes that she’s been needlessly jealous and resolves to try to be Kit’s friend.

In Bordeaux, Theo and Kit decide to have a competition to see which of them can seduce the most locals in the cities they visit on the tour. Theo hopes that this friendly rivalry will distract them both from the lingering tension between them. Theo scores the first point in the competition by sleeping with a handsome vineyard worker named Florian. However, the plan hits a complication in Saint-Jean-de-Luz when Theo sees Kit kiss someone else. Theo’s longing expression prompts the woman she was flirting with to suggest that Theo is in love with Kit.

In San Sebastian, Theo and Kit finally discuss what happened four years ago at the airport in London. All this time, they each thought that the other had broken up with them by leaving them at the airport, but it was a misunderstanding. Later that night, Theo realizes that she’s still in love with Kit and hooks up with a stranger to distract herself. Meanwhile, Kit leaves a bar with a group of potential partners. The next stop on the tour is Barcelona. Theo and Kit sleep with locals who are next-door neighbors, and Theo imagines that she is the one eliciting the sounds she hears from Kit.

In Nice, Theo and Kit help a friend of Kit’s named Apolline with her understaffed bakery. As Theo and Kit work in perfect sync, Theo wonders if they could open a restaurant together someday. However, her hopes are dashed when she walks in on Kit and the baker kissing. Theo feels like a failure, and she seduces a stranger who somewhat resembles Kit as a deliberate act of self-sabotage. The next destination on the tour is Monaco. Theo feels uncharacteristically reckless and scores her and Kit invitations to a yacht party. The yacht’s owner, Émile, invites Theo and Kit to a ménage à trois and then leaves to attend to his duties as a host. Theo swipes a bottle of champagne and rushes off the yacht. Kit dashes through the streets of Monaco with her and then kisses her in an alley. Kit apologizes because he thinks he’s overstepped, but he later admits that he’s wanted to kiss her since they were reunited in London.

Theo suggests that they address the tension between them by having sex while refraining from kissing one another, and Kit agrees. During a visit to the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Theo tells Kit that she is nonbinary. This resonates with his understanding of Theo’s expansive nature and his memories of times when she operated outside of gender norms when they were younger. In Florence, they have another tryst and open up about how painful the breakup was for each of them.

During the tour group’s stay at a villa in Chianti, Theo and Kit are accidentally assigned to the same room. That night, Theo tells Kit that she considers herself a failure. Kit urges her not to give up on herself and accidentally says that he loves her. They have sex and fall asleep in each other’s arms. In the morning, Theo suggests that she and Kit go for a bike ride to a nearby castle, and the tour bus leaves for Rome without them. The villa’s owner gives them a ride to Rome. During the drive, Theo and Kit have an argument that dredges up their fight on the plane four years ago. Kit apologizes for planning a new life for the two of them in France without talking to Theo first, and this helps them both to heal.

On their first night in Rome, Kit realizes that the tour will end in four days, and he worries that he might have to adjust to life without Theo all over again. The next day, he considers moving back to California and pursuing a romantic relationship with her. However, he worries that he’s once again envisioning a life that she might not want. Their tour guide, Fabrizio, encourages Kit to tell Theo that he loves her, and he resolves to do so at the tour’s final destination, which is Palermo. Later that night, Theo and Kit call off their hookup competition.

During Theo and Kit’s first night in Palermo, a bar plays their song, and Theo tells Kit that she loves him. He confesses that his feelings for her never stopped, and they passionately make love in their hostel room. Theo and Kit decide that they should remain friends rather than attempt to make a romance work because they’re living on different continents. On the final night of the tour, Kit gives Theo a letter he wrote to her after their breakup.

Kit returns to Paris, and Theo has a layover there on her way back to California. She comes to his apartment just as he is about to dash to the airport in search of her. They decide to spend the rest of their lives together rather than remaining distant friends out of fear. Theo and Kit open a bar and bakery in Saint-Jean-de-Luz named Field Day. Although starting over was frightening for Theo, she and Kit love each other and the life they’ve built together.