Chapter 24
24
Joe’s sentence settled in silence for a moment.
I was flabbergasted.
Joe was still smiling.
Ethan leaned forward. ‘She’s not your baby,’ Ethan snapped at him.
Joe’s smile didn’t falter an inch. ‘Isn’t she?’
Juliette arrived with the first course then, stopping by the table suddenly when she heard the conversation. She looked over at me. ‘Are you okay?’ she mouthed while Joe and Ethan stared at one another as if locked in a silent battle.
Juliette shook me out of my silence. ‘Can you both stop?’ I pleaded. ‘This is crazy. You’re best friends. Look, Joe, I’m confused why you’re here. I needed to get away after everything and I’ve been having a good time.’
‘I don’t want to ruin that,’ Joe promised. ‘I am so proud of you, coming to Paris alone and setting your new book here. I bet it’s amazing.’
I tried to not let on that anything was wrong. ‘So, why are you here? ’
‘We didn’t get a chance to talk that night… You left our flat in such a hurry, and we were both angry and upset. Now we’ve had a chance to have some space and think, I thought we needed to get… closure, I suppose.’
‘Oh.’ He was right that everything moved so fast. One minute, I was at his works do trying to meet his colleagues and prove to him I could be the kind of girlfriend he wanted, and the next I found out he’d been seeing another woman, and then I was moving out of our flat.
‘Why couldn’t that wait until Tessa’s trip was over?’ Juliette broke in then.
She made another excellent point. I was so glad she was here. Joe was so charming, it was hard sometimes to think he could be capable of what he had done to me. I supposed that was how he had been able to get away with it for six months.
‘Because I also have something important to talk to Ethan about. So I thought why not come and spend some time with two of my favourite people?’ Joe said. ‘Food looks great, Juliette.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She placed our plates down, flustered. I knew the feeling. Joe was being very disconcerting. He seemed relaxed and happy and polite, like nothing was wrong right now. Like we hadn’t had a bad breakup or I hadn’t just been kissing his best friend. Whereas me, Ethan and Juliette were tense and confused and snapping not only at him, but also at each other. I envied Joe’s confidence and ease like I always had. Maybe I had hoped it might rub off on me if we spent enough time together.
It hadn’t though.
‘Yeah, I have something to tell you that you’re really going to want to hear,’ Joe offered to Ethan.
‘What the hell are you on about?’ he replied heavily.
‘Well, I’d rather talk about it just us two. No offence, Tessa or Juliette,’ Joe said, smiling at us. He tasted the first course Juliette had bought. I wasn’t even paying attention to what it was. ‘This is great. Anyway, yeah, Ethan, it’s something my dad has been keeping a secret. You’ll want to hear it, trust me.’
‘Can I trust you?’ Ethan replied.
‘I wasn’t able to,’ I added quietly.
‘How about this for an idea…’ Joe said, ignoring Ethan’s question and my response easily. ‘I’ll meet you for a coffee tomorrow morning, Ethan. I was thinking of taking Tessa somewhere she wanted to go when we planned this trip. I think it would help with your book. So, I could meet you after I speak to Ethan, Tessa. What do you both think?’ he asked.
Ethan looked at me. I had no idea what to say. ‘You’re playing games with us, Joe.’
Joe held up his hands. ‘I’m not. I just want to make amends. To both of you, okay? While I’m here in Paris. Will you let me do that, please?’
‘Why should they?’ Juliette asked him.
‘It’s a fair point, Juliette. As I said, Ethan will want to hear my news. And you’ll be pleased about it too. I know what you two always dreamed about…’ He let that tantalising thought hang in the air before looking at me again. ‘And, Tessa, as I said, we have a lot to say to each other, don’t we? Let me take you out and if nothing else, it’ll be inspiration for your novel. But hopefully, it will give the closure that I bet you’ve been looking for. I know you; you haven’t been able to move on properly, have you?’
I could feel all their eyes on me. I hated that he knew he was still on my mind. He maybe didn’t realise how much he had shattered my trust and hope in love, but he guessed enough to know I must have been struggling to come to Paris alone, and not want to return home yet. If this was my chance to finally put me and Joe in the past and move on then I had to take it, didn’t I?
‘I want closure,’ I said, making sure he knew that was all this was. ‘I’ll hear you out but then that’s it. After tomorrow, you’ll go home again?’
‘Mate?’ Joe turned to him.
Ethan sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll hear you out too.’
‘Neither of you will regret it.’ He stood up quickly. ‘I’ll message you both where and when to meet me. The starter was great, Juliette, but I need to make a call so I’ll leave you all to it. It’s on me though.’ He waved his credit card. ‘Goodnight!’
I watched him go and realised he hadn’t replied to me asking if after tomorrow, he would go back to London.
‘This is a very bad idea,’ Juliette said, and neither Ethan nor I could disagree with her.
The next morning dawned dry and bright, the promise of a new season in the air.
I woke up early at Juliette’s, restless after our encounter with Joe at her restaurant. When he had left, Juliette had joined us and we had picked at her lovely food before deciding we all needed an early night. Ethan and I had shared an awkward goodbye, only a hug, not a kiss, before going to our separate apartments to sleep. I hated that Joe’s arrival had forced a pause in our time together. If he hadn’t turned up, maybe we would have spent last night together. Instead, I looked out of Juliette’s guest bedroom window at the way the sun peeked through the Parisian rooftops, casting the city in a golden glow.
Juliette had stayed out last night with her older man and so her apartment was quiet. I made myself a cup of tea and grabbed a croissant and took both to her writing desk, deciding the only way I could put the fact Ethan was meeting up with my ex, and I soon would be, out of mind was to work on my book before I needed to have a shower and get ready.
I had finished chapter three with my leading lady meeting a French man in a café in Paris on a rainy night and, after too much wine, confessing she had given up on love. He had made her promise to let him show her she shouldn’t give up on it. I started the next chapter with them meeting the next day and him taking her to The Wall of Love.
Writing about it brought back the day Ethan had taken me there. It was the first moment that I had felt hope that I would believe in love again. I was so grateful to Ethan for that. I lost myself in writing, using my experience of seeing all the ways you could say ‘I love you’ in the story, and when my characters had a moment by the wall, the first spark between them showing up, I stopped writing to think about how there had been a spark between Ethan and me when we had gone there. I had no idea when I’d gone to the wall with him that we’d end up kissing, or that my writer’s block would finally clear while I was in Paris. I was still a long way from where I had been before I met Joe, but I knew I was so much closer than I would have been if I had stayed in London.
Checking the time, I closed my laptop and went to the bathroom to get ready. Ethan had promised to get in touch after his coffee with Joe before my own meeting with him so I would know what he had told him. I hadn’t heard anything yet though. I was anxious about my ex and the man I had been kissing meeting up without me. What if Joe put Ethan off me somehow? Or Ethan decided his friendship with Joe meant more than whatever we had started? Joe had seemed to take us seeing one another in his stride, but I had no idea if that had been a front and if he might beg Ethan to stop seeing me. My anxious mind was overthinking hard as I got ready .
After my shower, I put on jeans and a white shirt along with my trainers as it was a lovely day. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and put on some light makeup. As I glanced in Juliette’s mirror, I realised this outfit was really me. Back when I was with Joe, meeting him like this would probably have worried me because he would think I was too casual, not dressed ‘girly’ enough for his tastes. But we weren’t together now. I could dress exactly how I liked. That helped calm my nerves at seeing him again and hearing what he had to say to me. This meeting was for closure, he had said, and I needed that. I hoped after this, I would finally move on from our time together and get my old spark fully back. I would be able to finish my novel, and whatever was happening with me and Ethan could carry on as if he hadn’t interrupted us.
It was time to head to the spot Joe had asked to meet me at. I checked my phone again but there had been no contact from Ethan. I bit my lip, hoping that wasn’t a bad sign.
So I sent a quick message.
Are you okay? What happened with Joe? I’m just about to meet him…
I waited five minutes but there was no reply and I needed to leave or I would be late. Maybe Ethan would be there with Joe and would tell me face-to-face. I tried to hope for that as I left Juliette’s apartment, but my stomach swirled with nerves regardless.