Chapter 42
Lucy
Iwill not pick a best date, just like I could never pick one of them as my favorite.
But I also can’t deny the way it feels, for Cole to look at me and see me so clearly. It’s like he peered into my head and plucked up fantasies I didn’t even know enough to have.
When the picnic is finished, Cole pushes me down on the blanket and kisses me, draping his body over mine. He’s hard where I’m soft, hot where I’m cool, and I sink into the kiss, becoming nothing more than breath and sensation.
Cole is impossibly handsome, and I see it now, best, in the slanting light through the windows, in the slope of his biceps and the hidden strength under his simple clothes.
His hair is longer now, falling near his shoulders in spiraling, messy curls.
He’s let his facial hair grow out too, so I can feel it scraping against my cheek as he nuzzles his face against me, into the crook of my neck.
It doesn’t go further than the kissing, than his warm hand on my breast over my sweater, because then we’re touching down in Europe, and he’s pulling me to my feet, helping me fix my hair and clothes.
Dane and Nico wear who they are on the outside, for the most part. Dane, strong, capable, and serious. Nico, flashy and fun, all boyish grins and a hand in his hair.
But Cole is quieter. There’s a certain reward to being let in to really see him.
At each museum we visit, there’s a representative there to greet us. Each museum is empty, devoid of the normal crowds that make it take forever to get through. I have an unobstructed view of the Mona Lisa. I can linger as long as I want on each piece.
While I’ve never really been that interested in getting a degree in art history, I enjoy the guides telling me about the paintings, speculating on what an artist was thinking, providing us with the context and history that show each piece in a new light.
Painted during the bombings of World War II, or while the artist was pregnant, or during one of the many art renaissances throughout the world.
The Louvre, specifically, leaves me feeling breathless after a miraculous tour.
I paused specifically in front of The Winged Victory of Samothrace, taken with the sheer skill it took to create movement from stone.
To make a woman’s body so realistically, to emulate that feeling of a breeze against fabric so completely.
“A peculiar piece,” Viktor, the guide, said, his voice a respectful murmur. “In that the sight before you was created both by the artist and the ravages of time. The original surely would have had arms and a head, but this is how they recovered it, so this is how it remains.”
“Do they know that for sure?” I asked, wondering what kind of artist would depict this woman with wings, but no arms or head. It feels impactful.
“They recovered part of a hand,” he explained, standing with his hands clasped behind him, gazing up at the sculpture before us. “So it’s only reasonable to assume it would be connected to an arm.”
Cole is fetching my coat when Viktor asks, “So, how do you know Cole?”
My stomach tightens. Viktor is an older man—maybe ten years or so older than Cole. He’s been perfectly polite, but I don’t like the idea of telling him about the fact that I was Cole’s assistant before we started our relationship.
“We worked together,” I say, then, to redirect, “How do you know him?”
The tour guide smiles, “Cole saved my daughter’s life.”
Blinking, I pull my head back in surprise, “He did?”
“My daughter had a semi-rare degenerative disease,” Viktor explains, through his sharp Parisian accent.
“Not very flashy, not a lot of grant money there to find a cure. But Cole led the research, dumped all his money from those early companies into building medical teams and developing cures. The treatment she went through nearly five years ago was all due to him. It was the least I could do to provide him with this private tour, especially considering the donation.”
Donations—of course Cole must have donated significant sums to the museums, to get tours like this. I’d read over his Wikipedia page, of course, and about his work with research and development of several medical technologies. And I knew about his sister.
But I put the pieces together here, standing in one of the majestic lobbies of the Louvre, and it breaks my heart.
The thought of Cole, with all his brains, struggling to find an answer to a disease.
Not doing it in time, not for his sister, anyway.
Then, gaining the favor of all the people that cure was able to save. Consolation prizes.
Cole comes to collect me, and we find ourselves back in another car, this time with a driver.
“Cole?” I ask, after we sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes. He looks over at me, his face flashing golden occasionally from the lights that pass us by outside the window.
“Yes?” He swipes his thumb over the back of my hand in a gesture I’m learning is very him.
“Would you… tell me about Claire?” Cole blinks, and a flash of grief moves over his face. I’ve blindsided him. Instantly, I regret asking like that. “Sorry, I was just—”
He squeezes my hand, shakes his head, “Don’t apologize, Lucy. I…” he trails off, looks out the window, swallows. Outside, Paris scrolls past us in a blur of streetlights and golden puddles on cobblestone streets.
Then, Cole turns back to me and tells me about his sister.
Claire, his twin. She helped him through elementary school.
Saw his weirdness and protected it. She was cool and effortless, making sense of social cues when Cole couldn’t.
Claire loved peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, often pulled him into impromptu dancing sessions, and advocated to their parents for him.
“She was the reason I got to go to science camp.”
Claire guided him, and he needed her, and she got sick their freshman year of college. It reminds me of Frankie, and I can’t keep the tears from my eyes as he tells me about the horror of losing her, bit by bit, then all at once.
“I think we would have been friends,” I say, when he trails off again. My voice is soft, impacted by the enormity of his grief.
Cole turns and looks at me, gaze flicking down to my lips before returning to my eyes. Then, slowly, he smiles. “I think so, too.”
When Cole opens the ridiculously lavish door to the ridiculously lavish Parisian hotel suite, he reveals two men already inside the room, deep in discussion with one another.
“Nico?” I breathe, laughing. “Dane?”
They turn to look at me, their brows wrinkling before they glance over my shoulder, at Cole.
“What—?” Nico asks, a hand in his hair.
“Is this why you brought us here?” Dane follows, his mouth a stern, straight line.
“Cole?” I spin around, already laughing at the smug look of victory on the man’s face. “You brought them here? For our date? Didn’t you want me all to yourself?”
He closes the door and gives me a meaningful look, “I had you to myself all day, and yesterday. But I know you like having all of us.”
My face flushes, and when I turn around, Nico is laughing, while Dane stews.
“Oh, fuck, fine,” Nico rolls his eyes, throwing his hands in the air. “You win, Cole.”
“There are no winners,” I rush to say, even as I’m kicking off my shoes, elated with the impossibility of the day. Private tours at the most prestigious art museums in the world.
It’s a privilege I never thought I would get, and it makes me feel legitimate in a way I couldn’t before. Now, applying to art school, I have a clearer idea of what I want to do with my painting. A firmer foundation of what art is, and what it means to me.
And Cole made that happen in just a day.
Now here I am, standing just inside the door of a massive, luxurious suite. Another chandelier hangs from the ceiling, and plush red velvet chairs are scattered throughout the space. The drapes are that fancy, particular kind, where they swoop across to the side, layered down to the blinds.
Through the bay windows, Paris sparkles, a collection of jewels strewn about in the night. The Eiffel Tower is visible, glittering just as brightly for a moment, before blinking off again.
Everything is red and gold and charcoal, and the room smells like the fresh red roses scattered about in vases.
Staring at Dane, and Nico, I’m reminded of our dates, what each of them did to me, for me. Dane behind me, guiding that toy in and out. Opening me up, showing me how to relax. Nico, unabashedly eating me in a way I’d never anticipated, bringing a flavor of pleasure completely new to me.
Maybe I’m not ready. But I feel ready.
I turn and step into Cole, barely registering the dull thunk of our bags as he drops them to the floor, his arms coming around me, pulling me in. He’d specifically turned down the offer for the bell hop—we only had the two duffel bags, and he wanted to protect our privacy.
As I kiss Cole, I’m aware of the sounds behind me, the movement. Then, Cole walks me backward, and I’m in a massive gilded bathroom, which also has a chandelier.
I pull back from him to laugh, but then the guys are stripping me down, their hands all over me, thumbs brushing against nipples and palms skating over the hair at the apex of my thighs.
It’s overwhelming in the best way. Together, a single unit, we step into the shower, which rains down over us as we soap each other. I touch them, breathe them in, run my fingers and lips and teeth over their skin, warm and water-softened.
Then I’m toweled off, and Dane picks me up. I wrap my legs around him automatically, remembering that night in the hotel, when I fell in the shower.
If I hadn’t fallen, would any of this be happening right now?
Holding me the entire time, he sits at the edge of the massive bed and scoots to the middle, his cock sliding against me with each jostle. Dane grabs the pillows from the top of the bed, dragging them down so there’s room over his head.