10 “Being free to decide without hindrances.”
10
“Being free to decide without hindrances.”
If I could control the time compass that’s dragging me from one point to another in my history with Tristan, right now I would ask to go to the end, to the café on Calle de Fuencarral, so I could flip the table as soon as I got there and toss that fucking cortado in his face. I wouldn’t add much else. Maybe flip him off and toss out a “This is what I should have known from the beginning, you piece of shit.”
Just like in fashion, less is more when it comes to this stuff.
Why am I so mad? Come on. Getting dumped twice in the same week (the last seven days I’ve lived through should always be called a week, even if they’re in different years), especially by the same person, sucks. But falling asleep running through all the sharp edges of our relationship doesn’t make it any easier, I promise.
Always demanding attention.
Always saying his sister’s right.
Always pressuring me to make important decisions.
Always hiding behind his “I hate Madrid.”
Always blaming me for all our problems.
“It’s not a good time.” “You love your job too much.” “You spent too much last month.” “I need a little peace.” “You’re too restless.” “I can’t handle all these plans.” “You seem annoyed that I want to spend time with you.”
Before I fell asleep, I did something I don’t recommend. These stunts are performed by skilled professionals; don’t try this at home. I made a mental list of all the things in my life that weren’t going well, all the ones that I could possibly blame on Tristan. And there were way more than I thought there would be…but the first one would’ve been plenty. I didn’t need all the others that came after. It’s his fault I’m going to bed today and I’m going to wake up who knows when, in what fucking month, in what fucking year. And how do I know it’s his fault? I mean, it never happened to me before. The first time was after he dumped me. This is his fault. I don’t have proof, but I have no doubt either.
I hate his turtleneck.
I hate the ring he wore on his right hand when I met him.
I hate the way he always looked at other women.
I hate how insecure he made me feel for the last year.
I hate that he made me consider choosing between the time I spent on work and the time I spent on him.
I hate a lot of things right now but most of all that he dumped me.
I should add one aggravating circumstance: today, when I woke up, I discovered something about my new time-traveling condition. Turns out I’m not just capable of changing the “when.” Also the “where.” What does this mean? Well, that I can wake up four years before and in a different bed. And if not knowing the date is worrying, opening your eyes and not recognizing the room you’re sleeping in is a nightmare.
All I see is darkness, and it’s not a familiar darkness. There are thick curtains over the windows, like in a hotel. I rub the sheets with my feet, feeling how soft they are. The temperature is pretty high, probably because two bodies create a lot of heat under one blanket. Two. Because there’s someone next to me, and I curse when I glance over and get a glimpse of his black hair and hear a slightly muffled snore.
I want to smother him with a pillow and see if tomorrow he shows up with no warning on my own fucking mattress. I want to pounce on him like a shit-throwing gorilla and slap him until my arms get tired. I want to wax both his eyebrows off before he wakes up and make his life a hell where he can’t make facial expressions for a few months.
I shoot my hand out of the sheets and grope around the bedside table until I find my phone. A new one, of course. One that’s not in a ditch, with the screen smashed, in the middle of the M-30. One whose screen lights up when you touch it.
07:02 Monday, September 25
Great. What year?
I never thought asking that question would start to feel so normal.
I try to remember, but it’s impossible because I’m enraged and half-asleep, so I grab my phone and open the calendar app, where a hellish schedule is laid out before me. There are more than fifteen events (meetings or things to deal with) on every day from here to the day after tomorrow. Why am I in a hotel with so much to do?
Wait. I know where I am.
September 25, four years ago. Paris. One day before fashion week starts.
When it’s time to hire new people for internships or work-study at the magazine, I’m usually part of the team that conducts the interviews. I hate it because I never know if I’ll be too strict or if I’ll crack up in front of the wrong people, but the truth is there are some pretty funny moments. One of them is when we give the new girl (and I say “girl” because most of the applicants are women) the opportunity to ask questions about the position she’s being interviewed for. I’m usually with the head of the department the newcomer is interviewing for, so both of us, whoever we are (Marta and I, Rita and I, Cris and I), hold our breath waiting for the question. The question.
“Can I go to Paris fashion week?”
“Yes, sweetie, and the one in New York. Would both be okay?”
I’m not an idiot. It’s just…how gullible can they be? In a magazine like ours, where we all get along really well, much better than you would expect from most work environments, there are still tension and (metaphorical) fisticuffs every time the opportunity to go to a fashion week comes, wherever it might be. Because we all want to go, duh. And as deputy editor, I wish the whole team could experience it at least once in their lives, but we do the best we can. The fashion world, and all of us who fall under that umbrella, is no longer the land of milk and honey. So there’s not always the opportunity to cover the act in person. Sometimes we syndicate the content, which means someone from our North American “mother” flies to Paris, covers the runways, and then doles out the material, which is then translated or adjusted for each country. There have even been times when our French colleagues take care of everything.
But there are good years. Of course there are. I’ve sat front row at a show in Tokyo’s fashion week. And in Paris in the second row several times. I even went to New York once. For years now, the best opportunities have been offered up by brands; that year was one example.
A really famous cosmetics brand teamed up with a few sponsors to invite some of the editors from fashion publications to the most anticipated event of the year, which was a total luxury. Marisol was one of them, but…
“I don’t feel like it.”
When she said that to me, I felt like someone had to pinch me so hard they’d draw blood.
“Excuse me?”
“I said I don’t feel like it.” She shrugged and took off her black plastic glasses, letting them dangle on her chest. A little smile floated on her lips. “You go.”
“But, Marisol…”
“You don’t want to? Should I ask the intern?”
“Wait, hold up…” I was standing in front of her desk, looking at her, unable to believe what she was saying. “A suite in one of the most beautiful hotels in Paris, the Shangri-La. Passes for the second or third row to Christian Dior, Saint Laurent, Lanvin, Chloe, and Isabel Marant. An invitation-only cocktail party at the Louvre. A gala. Invitation only. At the Louvre. I don’t know, Marisol…I feel obligated to insist.”
“You’re going to have a great time.” She smiled.
And then some. That fashion week was kind of my baptism as deputy editor of the magazine, and she knew it. It was something special. Magical. Hard because it pushed me to my limits, but magical.
We had to call in a lot of favors to make sure my look was always on point. And I wanted to go unnoticed, but there are certain idiosyncrasies that come with attending a runway show. If you’re ever in doubt, you should wear black. That’s what I did and what I always do in my normal life, so it wouldn’t be a problem out there. But I’m the deputy editor of a publication, not an it girl, influencer, or hot actress of the moment, so my wardrobe didn’t have many special pieces. A few, because when I started working at the magazine, I felt like I had to invest in a few pieces that would last years and wouldn’t go out of fashion, but not enough to build the carousel of styles I needed for this trip.
So we called in favors. And I tried on a lot of things that weren’t my size. Some of them zipped up (watch for the skirts, they’re tricky), others we forced to fasten with some tricks, and for the rest…we had to use our imaginations. Anyway, it wasn’t like I was going to be posing in front of the photographers. I just couldn’t get caught in a fashion faux pas, like wearing white Decathlon socks under my suit, being identified, and making the magazine look terrible.
Two thrilled interns were dispatched to my house to help me pack. Rita too, because she’d been packed for weeks already and had even included a portable steamer to keep the outfits in mint condition. And I was gripped by a kind of terror the whole time. And I say “kind of” because I guessed it would be an extraordinary experience and because I’m leaving out one of the most important parts about that trip when it came to my personal life: I was going to Paris with Tristan.
Okay, okay. Rewind. How?
Well. Okay. In February of that year, he told me, standing outside my father’s store, that he didn’t want what we had, but remember that back then, I thought it was simply a misunderstanding. So…well. I guess after two months without seeing each other or talking, when it started to become obvious that I couldn’t get him out of my head, I started operation “run into each other randomly.” And it must’ve been mutual, because it didn’t take long for us to run into each other in a café one day.
And we said hi awkwardly.
And we chatted.
And he asked me if I would mind if he joined me for a coffee.
And we walked home together.
And he texted me that same night.
And the next day.
And the next day, I was wildly fucking him on his couch like the world was ending.
What? Don’t look at me like that. That’s what a rekindled love story calls for, right?
Now I think, what a shitty love story. It was like reverse ghosting. First you kick me to the curb, and then, when you think about it in the light of day, you come looking for me. I should wax one of his eyebrows off right now.
We easily fell back into the relationship that seemed like too much before, and before we realized what was happening, he was coming to Paris with me. Marisol told me that as long as having company wouldn’t stop me from doing what I was there to do, I could take whomever I wanted, as long as they paid for their ticket. And the big whore paid.
Lying here, I know that if I let everything go the way it actually went, it’s going to be a fucking awesome trip. Despite all my predictions, Tristan won’t get bored. Not at all. It’s going to give him time to miss me and make how he feels about me a little clearer. It will only make him admire me more, as a person and as a professional, which, if anyone asks me, is the base of the pyramid true love is built on. We’ll live through incredibly spectacular experiences, like a cocktail behind closed doors at the Louvre. And we’ll come back very clear that this is what we want.
Beautiful, right? Well, I’m not in the fucking mood.
I jump out of bed and wrench the curtains open tactlessly. The light is too thin at this time of day to have the dramatic effect I was hoping for (burning his retinas, for example), but it wakes him up at least and not how I think he’d like to be. In the original memory, I woke him up with a fucking blow job. I’m an idiot.
“Good morning,” he says in a small, raspy voice, peering at me from the white sheets of the huge bed in the Chaillot suite in the Shangri-La hotel, which is truly spectacular. He checks the time on his phone and then turns back to me. “What are you doing up so early? Come on, come back here.” He pats the bed next to him.
Tempting.
“Up. I have a million things to do,” I reply dryly.
“Can I help you? Like last night.” He smiles like a saint.
During this so-called “last night,” according to my memory, he helped me unpack my suitcases and steamed everything that seemed wrinkly. He also, under my guidance, organized the accessories according to looks, so that when I got dressed, I had everything ready and I would have a little extra time. And then he went down on me.
So cute.
No, he’s not cute. He’s a death trap. He’s like an anaconda dressed as a baby. He’s still an anaconda. Just like the one he has now standing to attention under his boxers, fuck.
I look away when he gets up and head into the bathroom. He follows me.
“Tristan, for god’s sake, I want to take a piss,” I blurt out rudely.
“Um.”
I pull away and slam the door in his face. What’s my plan? I don’t know. To make the trip go badly. Badly enough that he gets fed up, wants to leave, and changes his flight. Or so that the two days left in the trip (which I’m not even going to experience because with my luck, I’ll wake up tomorrow on our trip to the beach, probably, unfortunately) don’t make up for what an asshole I’ve been today. He’ll find himself with a woman he’s not going to like. A cold woman only interested in her own comfort and desires. A woman who he’s not a priority for, not even close, because he’s really not used to that.
So why don’t I just tell him to leave and be done with it? Because it’s becoming clear that if I’m the one to reject him, the next day, I’m still stuck in this same old song. Let’s see what happens if he gets sick of me.
I take a long shower. I get ready calmly. And with the door closed and locked. His bladder must be bursting at the seams, which doesn’t exactly push me to hurry.
But when I go out, he doesn’t show any signs of being in a bad mood. He just goes to the bathroom and, before he closes the door with a smile, tells me I look very pretty. My hair is still a little damp, and I’m wearing a bathrobe. I look like a yeti on vacation, but he thinks I look nice.
We’ll see each other at the end of the day, my love, if you’re not fuming by then.
A few minutes after he goes in and closes the door, I hear the shower, and it’s not that I weaken, but something makes me feel miserable. It’s easy to remember when we were happy, but now it all seems like a lie to me, a fucking farce that will end up with me licking the floor. Could I be in the bathroom right now? Yes. And I’d definitely be in the shower with my face pressed against the tiles, moaning like a cat, but I’d rather be out here. Here, sitting on the bed in a room that’s six thousand euros a night, very bitter, wishing he was too.
There it is. Time travel turns you into a bad person.
When he comes out of the bathroom, he’s wearing a robe too, and he’s barefoot. He dried his hair with the blow-dryer (such a fucking shitty peacock) and combed it to one side with his fingers, like always. He’s disgustingly handsome. With his five- or six-day-old beard. His slightly cloudy gaze because he hasn’t put his contact lenses in yet.
“Did you see where I left my glasses last night?” he asks.
On the coffee table in the living room, right when you enter the suite.
“No clue.”
He spends a long time looking for them, irritated. He keeps saying “How can this be possible?” while he crisscrosses the room, but just when I think he’s never going to find them and that I could sit on them, some knuckles rap on the door, and when he comes back, he sees them.
“There they are! Phew.”
I hate his glasses. I’ve always hated them, even though he looks cute in them. They’re trendy. I never told him because I didn’t want to offend him (I don’t like commenting on people’s bodies or preferences as a matter of empathy. He could tell me he didn’t like my double chin, and it wouldn’t feel good), but I don’t like them. He’d look so good in plastic ones…
With his glasses firmly on, he opens the door and then moves to one side, making way for two waiters decked out in uniform to roll a cart into the room and straight out to the balcony. It’s one of the details the brand who sponsored the trip has gifted us. Every guest is awoken with a room-service breakfast. Ours is served al fresco.
The spread they lay out for us before they disappear is a true marvel. There is coffee, juice, toast, eggs, croissants and pain au chocolat, butter, jams, fruit, and flowers. In the background, there’s a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower with the morning sun bouncing off it. This city’s light is so special it turns out it’s impossible to find it in any other city in the planet.
Fuck. It’s pretty hard to be bitter in Paris on an all-expenses-paid trip.
He’s dressed when he takes his seat next to me. He’s wearing jeans and a blue cotton shirt that looks especially good on him even though there’s nothing special about it. It’s a blue cotton shirt, but he’s wearing it.
I switched the hotel bathrobe for my silk robe that makes me feel powerful. I packed it so that I can do my hair and makeup without staining any of my outfits. But today is a relatively relaxed schedule, because the brand is wining and dining us for a day in Paris before the city turns into a madhouse tomorrow. That…and the cocktail party at the Louvre that I managed to snag a plus-one for.
Ever since he sat down, I’ve been trying to give him the cold shoulder, but he seems content and calm. This guy is too fucking good at silence. I hate him even more today because, in spite of everything, I can’t stop seeing the good in him. He eats breakfast quietly, looking out at the view, snapping photos on his phone, putting his hand on the nape of my neck sometimes, affectionately, as if the silence doesn’t bother him. Of course. It actually doesn’t bother him.
I look at my phone, trawling the emails and details of the day over and over again even though I already know it all by heart. I start drafting an email to Marisol that I’m not going to send because it’s pointless, and when he tries to talk to me, I raise my phone, thrust it between us, and declare:
“I’m sending an important email. Please, be quiet.”
He seems weirded out by my behavior, but instead of the effect I thought it would have, he leans toward me, kisses my neck, half-seductive, half-complicit, and whispers:
“Don’t worry, you’re going to kill it. It’s all gonna go great. You have no reason to be nervous.”
I want to push his head into the table, but I don’t do it. I. Don’t. Do It. It’s called anger management.
“Do you want to go for a walk?”
“I’m still in a robe,” I retort.
“When you get dressed.”
“I’m not getting dressed yet.”
“Well then, let’s go back to bed for a bit.” He smiles, and his row of pearly whites is like a middle finger.
It’s not possible. This dude can’t have this much patience.
“Why don’t you go see the city for a bit by yourself? I have stuff to do.”
He seems disappointed for a minute, but he fixes his face fast.
“Oh, of course. Fuck…I’m sorry. I didn’t want to… I didn’t mean to bother you.” I almost feel bad. Almost. Until I remember the café on Calle de Fuencarral. “How about this? I’ll go walk around, and we can meet up at lunchtime. Okay? I’ll send you my location right before and…I’ll have a glass of wine while I wait for you. Sound good?”
What a piece of shit.
I spend the morning in the hotel, pretending to be really busy. Actually, after a while, I get so bored that I end up working on something for the next issue that I can get ahead of myself.
Rita’s eyes bulge when she sees me.
“What are you doing here working? I didn’t call you because I assumed you were making the most of the free day with Tristan.”
“Tristan is sightseeing,” I respond, my eyes glued to the laptop screen.
“He seems so cute,” she says, because I introduced them at the airport and they chatted a little. “Pretty shy, that’s true…”
“He’s not shy. He’s cold.”
“Not at all!”
“I would know.”
Rita yanks the laptop away and fills my whole range of vision with her face.
“What the fuck are you working on? You’re in Paris.”
“But there’s a lot of work.”
“Well, fuck that. Call Tristan right now, and go meet him. Tomorrow, the whirlwind starts, and you won’t have a chance to enjoy the city. The most you’ll be able to enjoy him is if he gives you a foot rub when you get back from the shows.”
I curl my lip, but I don’t add anything. I try to snatch my computer back, but she flicks me on the forehead.
“You’re acting like a jerk. And you’re not a jerk, so explain it to me. Either you had terrible sex last night, or he has such a small thing that the rest doesn’t make up for it. Or you’ve had another of your psychotic breaks where you don’t know what year it is.”
My eyebrows shoot up. So that wasn’t erased! If she remembers the first day this happened to me, Ivan must remember yesterday too. I need to call him…
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” I defend myself.
“Is this about the magazine? You proved that you deserve this position a long time ago, Miri. You have to relax and enjoy, or you’re gonna die really young. And that dude is worth it.”
“That dude is going to hurt me,” I say, unable to hold it in. “A lot.”
Her look is dripping with pity, and that kills me even more. I don’t want anyone to pity me. Did Tristan pity me when he dumped me?
“But, Miranda,” she says, sounding worried. “Are you really going to lose him over that? I thought you were brave.”
I don’t answer because I don’t know what to answer, but she takes advantage of the silence to keep talking.
“I have a very wise friend, my friend Tone, who says life is what happens to us. Maybe we die a little when things don’t happen. Haven’t you ever thought about that? While you’re hurting or laughing or running or crying or clapping…you’re living. Everything else…everything with no danger, is basically the same as being asleep. And you’ve always been really alive, girl. Don’t make yourself dead now.”
It’s a striking argument. I can’t fight against it. But I can ignore it a little, just a tiny bit, just enough so that I can’t justify the pain Tristan has put me through as “being alive.”
I tell her I’m just going to finish something up and then I’ll go. The thing I have to do is navel-gaze a little more. But right when I’m about to leave, Tristan texts me again:
Tristan:
Sorry to be annoying, but I’m sending you another location, okay? They kicked me out of the other place. They had people waiting.
Fine.
Between my heels and the traffic in Paris, it’s obvious I’m going to get there pretty late, so late I’m scared he’s going to send me another location, but the guy is smart, and he must have found a table somewhere with a “waiting list,” so by the time I spot the place, he’s just being seated.
The restaurant is called CoCo and it’s next to the Opéra Garnier. And it’s beautiful. Amazing. Disgustingly special. Light floods every corner, bouncing off the art deco touches in the decor. It’s pretty new but is clearly trying to be a time portal that takes us back to the beginning of the twentieth century. I hope I wake up tomorrow in those years, very far from Tristan.
They’ve given him a spot in the corner where the little tables for two are lined up without much separation. He’s sitting on the bench that curves against the wall, and opposite him, a comfortable velvet armchair awaits me. He smiles. He’s handsome. So handsome. He must have changed at some point when I was ignoring him and…he really gave it his all. Because when you go with the deputy editor of a fashion magazine on a work trip to Paris, you better work. At least if you like her. And I don’t remember him liking me that much, which makes me really, really, really, really sad.
Fuck. Seriously. Make it a little easier on me, for fuck’s sake. I was sure my changes would leave us eating shitty food in a tourist trap where the French onion soup would give us diarrhea. Not this.
He’s wearing a fine gray cashmere sweater so good it screams in your face. Paired with tailored pants but with a modern twist, cropped at the ankle, and Chelsea boots. Next to him, on the sofa, a black suede biker jacket lined with sheepskin. Fuck. I didn’t remember this.
I put my trench coat and bag on top of his jacket and sit down. We stare at each other for a few seconds before I pluck up the courage to speak.
“Your outfit…”
“Yes?”
“Is the total look,” I say in English, “from AllSaints?”
“What does ‘total look’ mean?”
“That you bought the whole thing from AllSaints.”
“Yes.” He nods. “I changed before I left. I thought you saw me.”
“No. I was busy. Listen…in Madrid, they only sell AllSaints clothes at El Corte Inglés, and they don’t carry much men’s stuff.”
“I bought it online.” He smiles. “Is it okay?”
I nod. Of course it’s okay, for fuck’s sake. It’s one of my favorite brands. It has that touch of grunge but still stylish…
“And how did you come across that brand?”
He calls the waiter over. I can tell he feels awkward. I know he does; that’s the point. I’m sick of feeling like he can handle every situation.
“Are you avoiding the question?” I insist.
“I mean, it’s not every day you get invited to spend a few days in Paris during fashion week. I was a little worried about fitting in with the crowd and standing out…in a bad way. You know what I mean.”
“Yes. I know. Well…looks good.”
“You always think I look good.”
He smiles at the waiter heading over to us, and he’s about to order when I snipe…
“No. Not always.”
He shoots me a side-eye, surprised. I don’t think he always looks good, but maybe in the past, I might have gone overboard telling him when I did think so. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. He takes a deep breath and, in pretty fluent French, orders a bottle of Perrier-Jou?t. Is the universe hitting me harder with every change I make? This is not how this went. After we strolled around Paris, we sat down in a little restaurant in Le Marais, and we ate unflashy food and drank a couple of glasses of house wine. What’s with this display?
“Did you have a chance to look at the menu?” he asks.
“No. Are you paying?”
An embarrassed chuckle escapes him.
“Well, yes. To thank you for the trip.”
“Right. Well…” I open it and decide at a glance. “The lobster linguine.”
If he doesn’t like that, he doesn’t say a word. Or give anything away. He just orders a rare entrec?te and adds a bottle of still water.
When the waiter leaves, he smiles at me.
“I hope I got the clothes right for tonight too. I’ve never been invited to something so…formal.”
I bite my upper lip carefully. I don’t want to smudge red lipstick all over my teeth, but the suit he wore tonight popped up in my head (how strange, conjugating in the past tense with the word “tonight”—I can’t get used to it). It was super expensive, and he bought it just for that trip, hoping to “get some use of it” in the coming years. A suit done right. A fucking suit that cost him that year’s bonus. This year’s. I can confirm he was able to use it again, and it always looked as good as that first day.
“I don’t know if you’re going to be able to come tonight,” I toss out there.
He raises his eyebrows.
“Oh yeah?”
“Well. It’s a pretty exclusive soiree. I’m here for work, not for pleasure.”
“I know.” He nods. “Well…um…it’s fine either way. Don’t worry.”
It stings a little, I’ll admit it. He dropped four figures on the perfect suit for the occasion, and he had a great time at that party. I know he was especially excited about it. But I realized how much I liked him that night, and I don’t think that’s really what I need right now.
“I’ll let you know.”
I look away toward the window and try to concentrate on the people walking by, but my head keeps turning over how worried he was about pleasing me on this trip. When did he stop caring about what I thought or felt about him?
“Miranda…” he whispers.
When I look up, his brow is slightly furrowed.
“Go ahead.”
“Did I do something that pissed you off?”
“No,” I answer, looking away.
“Why won’t you look at me?”
I look at him. Jesus. That mouth. So gross.
“No.” I give him a fake smile. “Nothing’s going on.”
“So why do I get the feeling there is?”
“I mean, I don’t know. Did you do something that should have pissed me off? You probably did, and I didn’t even notice.”
“Okay.” He sighs, like he’s working up to a speech, but the waiter interrupts him with our champagne. Yes, champagne. We are in Paris, you know.
The minutes drag on eternally as the waiter completes the champagne protocol. When he has finally opened the bottle and served the glasses and leaves again, Tristan sighs and leans forward over the table.
“Miranda, I know we never talked about it.”
“About what?”
“About how we stopped seeing each other for a few months because I wanted some space.”
“You wanted us to stop seeing each other.”
“A nuance.”
“An important nuance.” I nod. “And what does that have to do with right now?”
“Well, maybe you’re…hurt.”
“No.” I shake my head.
“But you don’t trust me.”
“I shouldn’t, no.” I’m getting more pissed off by the minute.
“Why?”
“Well, because I can see it coming.”
“You see it coming or you’re playing fortune teller again?”
“I’m not playing. I think if anyone’s playing here, it’s you.”
“Why?”
“Because. Because you’re inconsistent. Because you don’t like anyone long enough for them to become important. Because you don’t know how to commit. Because…”
“Slow down. Hit the brakes,” he says seriously. “When have we ever talked about committing?”
“Ah, here come the brakes.” I laugh disdainfully.
“No, no, Miranda. I’m just saying that you can’t blame me for not doing something we’ve never talked about.”
“Are you fucking other people?” I toss out.
“No.” He shakes his head. “But if you’re looking for an excuse to tell me to go to hell, I’ll say yes.”
I’m about to respond, but he puts his hand on mine to stop me.
“Miranda…I really like being with you. More than I was expecting. You’re a surprising woman. Like a minefield. And I can’t stop thinking about you, even when I don’t want to.”
I grab my champagne glass, evading his hand, and take a long sip.
“I don’t know how to talk about tomorrow, even though I’m not gonna tell you I don’t think about it. I’m rigid and not very brave. That’s why I need everything in order and to be really sure about what I’m doing. But I’m in Paris. With you. And the truth is right now there’s no place I’d rather be.”
I’m about to swig the last mouthful in my glass, but he leans across the table and stops me.
“Can we toast?”
“To what?”
“To anything. To all the possibilities. To nothing. To being free to decide without hindrances.”