Chapter 21
Tyler’s mouth feels surprised at first, but then it softens. As his arms tighten around me, there’s a slight bitterness on his tongue from his one sip of beer. I wrap my arms around him, too. His hair is soft, like down feathers—non-imitation—between my fingers.
We kiss and we kiss and we kiss, the busy bar blurring around us.
When I open my eyes again and step back, it’s like the whole world has shifted. Tyler looks at me with his wide gray eyes, a small curl to his lips. His cheeks are pink and his lips are parted. He’s the same Tyler, but different, too.
And I am, too. Ben but a different Ben. A Ben who knows what it’s like to kiss Tyler.
It’s amazing.
“Okay, wow,” Tyler says, and I wonder if he’s feeling the same thing I am—that everything has changed, in the best way.
“I’ve been wanting to do that since Les Deux Magots,” I admit.
“I’ve been wanting this for a lot longer than that,” Tyler says.
“Wait, really?” I say. I want to ask him more, but then I don’t get a chance to, because he’s kissing me again.
Talking can wait. Everything can wait. Everything but this—kissing each other in the middle of this crowded, noisy bar like our lives depend on it.
Someone bumps into me from behind, and I lurch forward, stepping on Tyler’s foot.
“Sorry,” I say, breaking our kiss.
“It’s too crowded in here,” Tyler says. “Let’s go outside.”
He takes my hand and I follow him without a word, my whole body humming with anticipation.
* * *
Out on the street, it’s like we’re addicted.
We’re so all over each other we’re practically trying to share the same pant leg, step into each other’s bodies.
We can’t take three steps without going in for another kiss.
It’s a little cold outside in the predawn air, but our mutual body heat keeps us warm.
“Wait, who are we right now?” I manage to say between kisses. “Nneka and Gaston?”
“What?! We’re nothing like those two,” Tyler says, right into my mouth.
“But hey, it’s Paris,” I say, feeling euphoric. “Parisians encourage PDA here. City of Love.”
“Umm, I’m quite sure that’s not true,” Tyler mumbles, his lips muffled by mine. “But I approve of the logic.”
Soon we’re fully making out on the corner. I drink in his smell. The fading freshness of the fabric softener, more than a little bit of sweat, the trace of beer on his lips. It’s a delicious combination.
We stop kissing for a moment to look at each other, as if surprised by each other’s existence. I get to kiss Tyler Travers. He’s right here. It feels like a miracle. I start laughing, and so does he. I’m giddy. We’re giddy.
The world feels newly benevolent somehow. Rue Vieille-du-Temple is so brightly lit, it looks like daytime. Maybe I’m just seeing la vie en rose—life in pink—but everyone, all these strangers around us, seem to be rooting for us.
“Ah, it’s puppy love!” a silver-haired man in a dapper plaid blazer exclaims as he passes by.
“Allez à l’h?tel pour ca, les garcons!” calls out a guy with an ironic mustache and mullet—Get a room, boys—but he says it with a smile.
Tyler and I start walking again, our hands linked.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I murmur, leaning my head against Tyler’s shoulder.
“I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve known you all my life,” he says as he musses the hair on top of my head.
“Very funny.”
Tyler laughs, his breath warm on my ear. “I guess this part wasn’t on your to-do list?” he murmurs.
“No, it was not,” I say, blushing at the thought of putting Make out nonstop with Tyler Travers on my list. “But wait, it kind of was.” I reach into my tote bag, pulling out my to-do list. “ ‘Explore gay Pareeeeeeee in the Marais,’ ” I read out loud happily. “Done and done. Thank you, Tsui Ennui!”
“Thank you, Tsui Ennui,” Tyler echoes, grinning. “I guess we’re being pretty gay right now, aren’t we?” he says, putting his arms around my waist.
Instead of replying, I go in for another kiss. We stand on the street corner, kissing for a long time. When we come up for air, I grin back at him. “Yep, I’m feeling pretty gay right now.”
Tyler’s eyes are sparkling. He nods to my list. “I say we finish the rest of the list with the time we have left. We still need to take a picture of the Emily in Paris street, right? And then there’s your baguette-and-cheese picnic on the Seine.”
I smile, impressed that he’s memorized the list.
“That’s right. But—what time is it?” I ask. I’m all disoriented and in a haze from our kissing, and now I’m wondering if the hostel door will actually be opening soon. Maybe we should head back?
Tyler pulls out his phone to show me the time.
It hits me like a punch to realize that this night has to end so soon.
And we only just started kissing. What if my first instinct was right, and this magic between us vanishes when it’s not nighttime in Paris anymore?
This thing just started, and it feels way, way too good to be true.
I try my best to swallow down my anxiety. Live in the moment—that’s what I came here to do.
“You better not be thinking about going back to the hostel now,” Tyler says, and I raise an eyebrow at how well he knows me.
I try to calculate the remaining time in my head. “If we want to be back at the hostel by seven, though, maybe we should skip the prettiest street and just go straight to the Seine now to have our picnic?”
And keep making out there, I don’t say out loud, though I’m pretty sure Tyler is thinking that, too. For a moment, he looks tempted, but then he shakes his head.
“Non, non, non,” says Tyler in a French accent, grinning and wagging his finger. “The Seine picnic has to come last. We can watch the sunrise while we eat our baguette.”
“Okay, fine,” I say. “We must do as the list commands.” I hold the list high above my head, which I realize is dorky, but whatever. I’m dorky, and I love it.
“Oh my God,” Tyler murmurs, locking me in a smoldering, longing stare. “You’re such a dork.”
“I was just thinking that,” I tell him.
Tyler holds my gaze. “I’ve literally never been more turned on in my life.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, trying to sound seductive as my heart races. “Well, hearing you talk about Proust and flaneurs and madeleines turns me on.”
“Come here, you.”
We start kissing again, pressed together on the sidewalk. I manage to stuff the list back in my tote bag at some point. Then we try to walk and kiss at the same time, which is a little tricky.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” growls a voice with a loud American accent.
I look up. We’ve walked straight into a wall of drunk American dudes, a trio of tall twentysomething guys walking together.
“Sorry,” Tyler and I say at the same time.
We’re totally not looking where we’re going—guilty as charged.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” smirks the drunk American dude in the center, who’s wearing a Yankees hat high on his head. “You guys … aren’t together, are you?”
I’m getting the worst vibes, not to mention eye-watering alcohol fumes emanating from their pores. I try to pull Tyler away, but Tyler stays put.
“Yeah, we are. Jealous?” blares Tyler, his face reddening.
“Forget it, Tyler, let’s just go,” I mutter, tugging on his arm.
Normally, I’d be excited that Tyler would say we’re together just fifteen minutes after our first kiss, but I’m panicked.
I can predict the type of thing this obnoxious American guy’s going to say next, and I’m desperate to spare myself from hearing it.
He’s giving me Topher Willis energy, only at least a decade older.
“Dude, stop being an idiot—leave them alone,” urges Yankee Hat’s friend to the right, an also-drunk dude with a mop of curly hair.
Yankee Hat doesn’t budge, and neither does Tyler. Tyler squares his shoulders and says, “You got something to say?”
There’s a brutal look in Tyler’s eyes I don’t recognize.
“Tyler, come on,” I say through clenched teeth, remembering what Mom always tells me: There’s nothing in this world worth getting hurt over. And: You’re a target.
Yankee Hat looks me over with unfocused eyes, and I feel an ice cube slide down my spine as a sneer hooks his upper lip. “Hey, I’m just looking out for you, man,” he slurs, tapping Tyler’s chest. “You’re hot. Don’t you know you don’t settle for Asian till you’re at least fifty?”
It happens in a nanosecond. Tyler lunges at Yankee Hat, and they’re both on the ground.