Chapter Fourteen
Sparrow
The shop has long closed. Rafe told me earlier over his croissant and coffee that the studio in town is booked tonight and asked if I minded him using the bakery. I told him as long as he remembers me when his songs make it around the world, it’s a deal. His invitation to stop by probably has nothing to do with knowing what it feels like to have a lightness in your lungs and hope in your heart again. And just like when you’re caught in the flash of a camera, I don’t know how I’m going to see clearly when he’s gone.
His comment about ten Jacques not being worthy of me had me speechless. It won’t quit my consciousness. And I think his math must be wrong. Because I’m starting to believe that ten Jacques could never equal one Rafe. Oh, what have I done?
In this moment, I’m just doing my best to feel a little more like the woman I would want to be if he were mine and we were meeting or going out for an evening instead of the coffee-laden woman always offering baked goods. I love her, but she’s not the feeling I want tonight.
I find my blue dress, which I haven’t worn since my father was alive, and pull it over my head. It feels casual but looks elegant. To be warm, I throw a cashmere sweater over the top. I tackle my hair, gathering it in a hair scarf and creating a messy low bun. Throwing on some boxed-toe flats with satin bows, a coat (even though I only have to go fifteen steps), and some of my favorite red lipstick—the very same one I wore when I first saw him sing—I rush down the stairs.
I hope I look classy and like I’m trying in the five minutes it took me to put this together. But this is me. I take five minutes to get ready. Maybe it’s the former dancer in me, but give me anything that feels like satin and add lipstick, and I’m ready to take on the world.
Pausing just outside the back door to the bakery, I clutch my waist. My breathing has turned shallow, but I’m instantly at ease when I hear a sound from inside the café. Rafe is humming, and the strumming of his guitar casts a spell around the space. I open the door and see that, in the short time I’ve been away, someone else has been busy too.
The lights are off, and a few candles are lit throughout the front of the store. Rafe must’ve brought them. He’s also changed into a light denim button-up shirt under a mahogany-colored jacket, dark-blue jeans, and his signature, vintage-style sneakers. When he sees me enter, he stops strumming and stands. He walks over to me with his hands outstretched to take my coat. I slip it off, still a bit chilled from the brief encounter with the cold, and smile. He drapes the coat over his arm and places it carefully on one of the stools before turning back toward me.
I don’t miss the moment his eyes scan my body in a polite but lingering way. His dimples are on full display as he gives me a closed-mouth smile. His eyes crinkle slightly in the corners, and I nearly melt. If I thought he looked great on the stage, it’s nothing compared to seeing him by the soft light of the lamp in the corner mixed with candlelight.
“You look beautiful,” he says. And the way he says it so sincerely, so effortlessly, I actually believe him.
I motion to his guitar. “What were you playing?”
He rubs the back of his neck with his hand, and his eyes sparkle. “Oh, just a cover I’m working on for my next show.” Rafe doesn’t move, and I can’t help but adore how we’re both just kind of lost in this moment.
I move toward his guitar.
“May I?”
This earns me a full smile, and I almost fall into the instrument. Rafe catches me, his arms sturdy beneath my own. We each let out a breathy laugh.
“Do you play?” he asks, thankfully ignoring my clumsiness.
We haven’t yet let each other go.
“No,” I say seriously. “But you do.”
He laughs, and as I reach for the guitar, he tugs me closer to him. “How about we play something else right now?”
I look into his eyes, which are a mixture of mischief and vulnerability. “What do you have in mind?”
He moves to the corner and turns off the lamp so that only candlelight illuminates the space. “I thought it was safest if you could see where you were going when you first arrived.” He closes the space between us in a few steps. His hands glide softly along my arms until his hands are loosely around my waist. He grips a bit of fabric from my dress and, with his index fingers and thumbs, pulls me an inch closer. “Dance with me, Sugar?”
It’s not what I was expecting him to say. I haven’t danced since my father was alive.
“Only if you want to,” he says, probably noticing that words have failed me. He’s already playing music from a Bluetooth speaker resting on the coffee bar, the sounds of French jazz floating through the air.
“I mean, full warning, I’m not an expert—I’ve never had official training ... ” he continues. I want so badly to join him. This is pure romance. I wrap my arms up and over his shoulders, my fingers lacing at the back of his neck. The ends of his hair brush the tops of my fingers, and we hover in front of each other, inches from being pressed together.
“You’ve convinced me,” I say quietly. He chuckles, gazing deeply into my eyes.
“I’m so glad.”
We have just started to sway when he breaks the silence, his voice a whisper through the charged air encircling us. “I don’t think I’ve told you yet, but this place is special, Sparrow. I mean it. Your boulangerie could rival any place in Paris.”
I feel my jaw drop a bit. “You can’t mean that.” I know we’ve been blurring some of the lines between fiction and truth, but this is something I would hope would be clearly true.
His face shifts. There’s not a hint of amusement now. “I’m serious. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”
I want to believe him. The music has stopped for some reason. My guess is the occasionally spotty Wi-Fi, but I don’t mention it. We seem to be moving with or without a track. “Why don’t you ever call me Rory?”
He shifts back, and his shoulders shrug as he wraps my hand tighter in his. Cradling it near his heart, I feel the beat of it against his chest. “When I was little, we went to church every Easter Sunday. It was memorable because it was the one day out of the year where my parents let me be me—there was no pressure except to attend. I just got to focus on the music and the words from the priest.” He pauses, and I think I’ve lost him in the story until he shifts back to me. “There was a verse spoken once ... about not worrying about our lives. That if God watches over the sparrows—”
“He’ll watch over us too.”
He gives a sad smile.
“I’ve heard it,” I say simply, emotion creeping up my spine. It’s hard to picture a young Rafe who needed a reminder that he was seen. “That must’ve been comforting for you.”
“Yes ... always stuck with me.” He holds my hand a little tighter. “Actually . . .” he continues, and I don’t miss the hesitation in his voice.
“What is it?” I whisper, my body warming as I go deeper into the forest within his eyes.
“I—well, I should probably just show you.” Hesitantly, he releases me and starts to unbutton the top of his denim shirt. My mouth goes dry, and my heart starts kicking my ribs. I remind myself to breathe when he stops a third of the way down.
His beautifully calloused hand, its tan a contrast against the lightness of his shirt, reveals a spot of skin over his heart. I lean closer without thinking and stop myself. His eyes not only give me permission; they ask me to see for myself. I let the tips of my fingers trace the tattoo, and I shiver at the sensation. Raised skin. Electric feelings. And the image of a small sparrow tattooed over Rafe’s heart that will forever mark my dreams.
“I got it when I was angry for being sent away for another year of boarding school. I went for a walk and sat on a bench. A sparrow landed beside me. It just sat there. I don’t even know for how long. I don’t know, it ... it felt like a sign.” He gives a sheepish smile. “I was underage, so I made a fake ID.” He smiles. “But I got the one thing I thought I wouldn’t mind having on me for the rest of my life.”
I trace the outline of the most perfect little image I’ve ever seen. I don’t know quite what it is about this man—who can hold up the world and yet still notice all its details—that has me undone. Realizing I’m still touching him, I move my hand away. He starts to slowly close the buttons, and the image of the sparrow flies away within his shirt.
“That’s why you’re Sparrow to me, and I just can’t bring myself to call you Rory. Not sure I ever will.” He reaches out his arms, and without hesitation, we’re back to swaying in the silence.
“Rafe?” His intensity surrounds me. “Never call me Rory.”
He drops his head closer to mine with a smile, his unruly hair brushing mine. “What about Sugar?”
“Oh, well, that’s just a given.”
He laughs, and I join him. Until we still, and it’s so quiet again, there’s only the sound of our breathing and the sliding of our shoes across the bakery floor.
“What about the music?” I whisper.
We continue to sway as he replies, “Oh, I know a guy.”
At this, Rafe begins to hum. And I’m mesmerized. I can feel his body vibrating with the sound, the way his breath moves in and out of his frame, and I feel the workings of his mind through the energy of his hands. He’s a living instrument, and I feel it all around and within me.
The tune he’s singing is a classic, a song my father used to play to remember my mother. He said they danced to it when they needed a break from the world. I still have the record from the great édithPiaf, except Rafe’s adding his own touch to it and has slowed down the tempo enough for us to move steady and slow.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose
In the song, a woman speaks about a man taking her in his arms and speaking softly to her, making her see the world differently. He pulls me a little closer, and this moment feels like magic. If it was wonderful hearing him sing to a crowd, it’s infinitely better when he’s singing only to me.
And as he plays with the edges of my sweater near my waist, I know it’s a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
Il me dit des mots d’amour
Des mots de tous les jours
Et ?a me fait quelque chose
He slows even more, and I lean back to catch his gaze. The song speaks of words of love being spoken and that they are everyday words that do something. And his words have been doing something to me since we met.
Before I think better of it, I reach a hand toward the scar through his left eyebrow. He holds his breath as my hand hovers. I almost touch him and then pull back. His eyes search my face, and he nods. Ever so gently, I trace my thumb across the mark, and he breathes again. His eyes slowly close before they open again to burn through me.
“What happened?” I ask into the quiet space.
“Hmm, you’re just getting all my stories out of me tonight, aren’t you?”
I nod enthusiastically as he laughs.
“It was a fall when I was little. I tried to help my mother bake muffins in the kitchen, and I fell off the counter with a wooden spoon.”
“You did not!” My mouth opens as I try to process that the scar I find so appealing happens to be from one of my most-used baking utensils.
“I did too.” He pretends that he’s suddenly realizing we’re standing in a bakery. “It’s amazing I can even stand in here without twitching.” A grin covers his face. “It took a few stitches, but I kind of like the look. Gives me an edge, you know?”
“Definitely.”
“But you’re sworn to secrecy now.”
“Am I? I don’t think I agreed to that.”
“I can’t ruin my reputation.”
“Ok, fine.”
He grips my waist a bit tighter. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feeling of being held by this man. It’s like I’m anchored and no longer wandering.
“That easy? You’re not going to make me work harder to convince you?”
I lean my head on his chest. “Not as long as you keep singing.”
We sway without music for so long I lose track of time. At some point in the silence, without a note to be heard within the room, Rafe has taken most of my weight and is allowing me to lean on him as we move back and forth.
“What do you dream of, Sparrow? When you are by yourself, and no one needs anything from you . . . what do you dream of?”
I inhale deeply, uncomfortable with the attention but also realizing this is what I’ve been craving. Who typically has the courage to ask us what we dream about? And I can tell from the tension in his fingers around my waist and the way his breathing has quieted in anticipation of my answer that he really wants to know.
“My father and I had a plan to expand this place.” I catch his gaze and notice the way his brows lift in response. “Oh, not a franchise. But expand into possibly creating a book of my mother’s recipes. Move online so we could ship items beyond our little town.”
He brushes my fringe bangs away from my forehead with a hum.
“Except ...” I begin. And this is the part that’s the hardest for me to admit. He keeps us moving, not a hint of impatience at my delay. “Well, I think I’ve lost my courage.” I avoid his eyes. “I wanted to submit the bakery for a regional magazine feature, and I can’t even look at the papers without shutting down. He’s gone, and he was all I had left. I just . . . it was rough for me. For quite a while. Lily is the reason I’ve been able to keep moving. Lily and this town. Because they keep making sure I’m not drowning in grief, even when I have felt so alone, I could hardly breathe.”
As if to make my point, I release a breath. His grip only tightens.
“Do you feel alone right now?”
I meet his gaze. “Not at all.” I shrug lightly, a weight lifting with every sway and step of our feet. In a minute or ten, he breaks the silence.
“What is it about someone who’s French exactly?” He stiffens slightly though keeping the rhythm of our movement.
“Well ... my mother was French.” I pause. “She was . .. elegant. Magnetic. Beautiful.”
“Sounds like you,” he whispers.
My eyes burn from his words.
“My mother’s accident. It was sudden. She just went out to pick something up ...” I take a deep breath. “We spoke French together when I was little. And then, when she passed ... well, the sound of French in our home sort of died with her.”
“And your father?”
“Two years ago. Their love . . . it was something , you know. I felt it. I just remember my father always said to wait for a ‘French kind of love’ because he had my mother. And I know that wasn’t literal, but with Jacques, and before that, with the guy near the train asking me out ...”
“The guy near the train?” he says stiffly.
“Yes, another man asked me out the day before we met ... on the platform in Boston. And I panicked and said I couldn’t date him because he wasn’t French.” I rush the last part. “That’s what you overheard in the café when we actually met. I didn’t want to admit to Lily that I made a mistake by turning him down.”
Rafe’s hand draws a distracting pattern along my spine. Somehow, the silence feels like a safe space. He feels like a safe space.
“I’ve had tickets, you know. To Paris.”
“Why didn’t you go?” he asks without judgment. Just a question. I shake my head and meet his eyes.
“What if I don’t fit in there?”
Gently, he cups his palm around my jaw, and I feel myself lean in.
“You would fit there,” he says. “And you wouldn’t just enjoy it; you would add to it. Paris would be brighter with you. I know it would.” He leans down, his cheek brushing my own, and I feel his breath on my ear, the smell of spice and cedar calling me deeper.
“I’m not very brave,” I whisper into the little space there is between us.
“You’re brave. You are. And Sugar?” Rafe asks, his voice low and raspy from the late hour and something else I can’t quite name.
“Mm-hmm,” I manage.
He stops swaying, my face gently turned to his as he brushes his fingers behind my ear and rests his hand on one of my shoulders. “If you keep showing me your heart, I’m going to forget this is pretend.” His thumb traces a slow line across my collarbone before he reaches for my hand to hold it against his heart. As we continue to sway, he turns his stubbled cheek to rest lightly on my head.
“Who says I’m pretending?” I confess.
I feel one of his calloused hands travel up my back and lightly rest against the nape of my neck. He cradles my head and holds me close to him before placing a soft kiss on my forehead. The tenderness of it all has me pushing the burn from the back of my throat and the sting of tears from my eyes.
I don’t want to try to interpret what he means. I just want to enjoy this moment. A moment of feeling safe. A moment of not wondering what else is out there, because it feels like nothing is missing right where I am. So, instead of arguing or figuring out what we’re doing or what the outcome will be, I hold on to one of the best nights of my life and one of the best men I’ve ever met.
“Sing to me again?” I request.
And he does. With the candlelight long extinguished and the rosy pink of a morning sky peeking through the night and announcing a new day, we dance, the sound of Rafe’s voice swirling all around us.