Bex
Paris is a very different city when you’re ridiculously infatuated.
The tourists—jostling for space on the sidewalk and stopping right in front of you—seem more cheerful and less bothersome. The snotty waiter deriding your accent is perhaps just having a bad day as opposed to being a fucking dick who deserves the zero percent tip you’re now leaving him.
And yes, every once in a while, there’s this sharp spike of fear in my chest when I consider the fact that all this happiness rides on the behavior of a man who lives on a different continent and who keeps every inch of his life—his love life, specifically—on lockdown.
I brush it away by insisting that it’s nothing I need to worry about right now, though I’m not sure that’s true.
“How was your interview?” he asks when he calls that night, casual as can be. As if we’re a couple. I fight an insane impulse to hope we are. “Fuck this. Hang on.”
A moment later he’s calling me back on video. My smile is too wide, too giddy. Ridiculous. I can’t make it stop.
“Are you calling on video to make sure Caden’s not in the room?” I ask.
“Are you bringing up Caden just so that I take the train back there in a fit of jealousy?” he counters.
My teeth sink into my lower lip. “Would it work?”
He leans back in his desk chair. “If you took it far enough, yes.”
I prop the phone on the table and continue to shove clothes into my suitcase. “I’m tempted, but this is almost like having you here anyway.”
A voice in my head is already saying, See? Being on two different continents could work! You’re already making it work. We’ve only spent one night together and I’m already a month, a year, a decade ahead. It’s the exact kind of shit I used to ridicule Bronwyn over.
“It’s nothing like having me there,” he replies. “Because if I were, you wouldn’t be packing. You also wouldn’t be clothed.”
Spoken like a man I want in the picture a month, a year, a decade from now. God, I hope I’m right.
· · ·
I fly back to New Jersey the next day. It’s my favorite time of year at home, but that’s sort of like having a favorite season in hell—you can pick one but that doesn’t mean you actually want to be there.
There’s a heaviness inside me the minute I walk into the house. It isn’t new—but until recently, I felt so low most of the time that being here wasn’t noticeably worse.
I sink onto the stairs as I look around this house I never was happy in. Theo was right: I need to get out of here.
I’m clinging to this place because letting it go means admitting they’re not coming back. But remaining is like having a wound I won’t allow to heal.
I rise. Unpacking my suitcase can wait.
I go to Jessie’s bookshelves and start throwing out the knickknacks. I’ll start small, and eventually, when I’m ready, I’ll put the house on the market. I’ll move somewhere new, and I’ll become someone new. I suspect I’m already doing the latter.
After the knickknacks, I box up the weird collection of cups from a local restaurant and my dad’s old college textbooks, though I’m not sure anyone will want them.
I’m lighter and emptier at the same time when it’s done. I’ve been weighed down by these things, yes, but their absence leaves a hole I’ll need to fill with something else.
A hole I want to fill with talking to Theo, texting Theo, seducing Theo, though I probably need to do something slightly more productive as well.
“Huacachina,” I announce as we talk on the phone that night.
He opens a carryout container on the table in front of him and I examine the little I can see of his apartment like a lovesick stalker, hungry for the smallest details—the table is glass, there’s nothing on the walls, the blinds behind him are open but it’s too dark to see the view.
It’s less enlightening than I might have hoped.
“I have no idea what you just said,” he replies.
“Huacachina. In Peru. I think Families Travel should offer a trip there. You can ski or snowboard in the sand.” I open up my laptop and show him the video I’ve saved.
“There’s not a ton of lodging available, so it’s exactly the sort of thing you’d want a company to plan for you if you were traveling with kids. Maybe combine that with Machu Picchu.”
His head tilts. “If you’re willing to do the research on it, maybe. Figure out the best hotel, the best way to get to each place, and how long you’d want to stay.”
I grin. “Are you hiring me?”
He raises a brow. “It’s more like I’m asking you to finally earn your keep.”
He lowers the blinds behind him. It’s ridiculous that I still have no clue if he lives amid skyscrapers or pasture.
“Do you live near that hotel I stayed in?” I ask.
“Not especially near it, no,” he replies.
“Are you a spy?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Is there a reason you provide me so few details about your life?”
He laughs and puts his fork down on the table. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be participating in this ridiculous show if I were. What detail is it you seek?”
I throw out my hands, exasperated. “I don’t even know where you live. And don’t say London. You ask me all these complicated questions about my life, but I only get one-word answers about yours.”
“Hoxton, near the park,” he replies, his head cocked. “Do you feel as if you know me now? I can send you a location pin on Google Maps if it helps.”
I release an aggravated groan. “I’m not trying to find out shit I could just look up online, Theo. I want to know things like…” I scan my head but only one question comes to mind: What happened to the complication?
I can’t ask it. Not yet. It’s way too early to show him all my Bronwyn-like neediness.
And if I was going to take on one quality of my sister’s…
it shouldn’t be her only flaw. “Why was Samia so weird with you that night we met her?” I ask instead.
“She said something about knowing who you were, but the way you’d say it to, like, a convicted rapist.”
“Is that really what you want to discuss right now?” he asks, frowning.
He’s not going to frown me into dropping this. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
He sighs. “I made a few unfortunate decisions after I ended things with Fiona. I was just well-known enough for people to care.”
“What sort of decisions?”
“This feels like more than one question,” he says tersely.
“I never promised I was going to ask only one question.”
He pushes the carryout container away. I’m not sure if he’s done or if he’s simply lost his appetite. “Among other things, I slept with someone the press follows. Unbeknownst to me, it was filmed. That was dealt with, but people were talking.”
Wow. I’m a little jealous. I shouldn’t be. It’s not like I thought I was his first. I might not even be his only. But he slept with someone famous enough that the press would care. I’m not sure how I compete with that.
“Okay,” I reply, doing my best to hide these thoughts. “Next question. You said Wendy and Bryce were both—”
“Ahem.” He raises a brow. “I believe you’ve had your question. And, by the way, you’re wearing a lot of clothes, which begs the question…were you wearing next to nothing every time I came to your home intentionally?”
He’s probably just trying to distract me, but it’s working. He’s already got that soft, playful smile on his face as if he knows the answer.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “I am wearing a lot of clothes. I should probably remove a layer or two, huh?”
There’s a shift in his face. “I’m taking this call to the bedroom.”
I shouldn’t be having phone sex with a guy who is still hiding so much of himself. I shouldn’t know so little about him that I’m thrilled to finally see his bedroom…over the phone.
No matter how right this feels, that wiser girl inside me suspects that this is still going to go very wrong. If Bronwyn was in my place, I’d be telling her to cut her losses.