Chapter Six #2
“That’s not crazy at all to imagine that a parent would want to know his child,” Nadim said gently. “Perhaps he feels he doesn’t know how to be a father. Maybe he’s even feeling guilt over his absence from your life, and he doesn’t know how to face that.”
Kayla thought about that for a moment. “Maybe. I guess I never considered that.”
“Maybe he truly doesn’t understand that you’re here to know him better,” Nadim said. “Could you invite him to meet you, perhaps at a café? Be honest with him about what’s on your mind?”
“Yeah,” Kayla said, nodding slowly. “Thanks, Nadim. That’s really good advice.”
“I think,” he said, picking up a pencil, “that anyone would be lucky to know you, Kayla. I hope your father sees that as clearly as I do.” Then, with an intensity she’d never seen before when a man looked at her, he studied her eyes and then her lips. Finally, he began to draw.
After they’d finished their bottle of champagne at Le Maison Grog, Shelby suggested heading back to their hotel to settle in and take a quick nap before dinner, but Corinne had already ordered a second bottle, and she and Vanessa seemed determined to stay.
Shelby guessed that this might have had something to do with the fact that the clock had just struck five, and the local businesses had apparently offloaded their young French male employees directly into the bar.
In the space of forty-five minutes, they had gone from being nearly the only ones in the place—aside from a group of older tourists, and one sad-looking middle-aged guy at the far end of the bar—to swimming in a sea of French men who seemed thrilled that there were already three on-the-way-to-drunk Americans ready and waiting for them.
Never mind that Shelby and her friends were at least a decade older than most of the men; no one seemed to care.
A few of the French men had tried to chat Shelby up, and she knew she should be flirting and giggling and throwing back glasses of champagne until her inhibitions vanished and all the warning bells in her head stopped ringing.
Shelby wondered, not for the first time, if there was something terribly wrong with her.
She knew she was supposed to be getting back on the horse, so to speak, with a hot French guy this week, so why was she standing here thinking about Brandon?
Not that it mattered; the other two women seemed happy to saddle up in Shelby’s place, and after a while, the guys who had tried to talk with her had realized they’d been focusing their attentions on the wrong American and had drifted away to where her two friends were currently holding court.
“Someone’s birthday, eh?” the bartender asked as he topped off her flute.
She looked at him, startled to have been spoken to.
She’d said hello to him when she’d first come in, but after that, he’d been busy serving the table of older folks, who were also American from the sound of it, and then the middle-aged guy had come in, and they’d gotten into a conversation that appeared to be about beer.
She looked over her shoulder, in case Vanessa or Corinne had snuck up behind her and were actually the ones the bartender was addressing in a tone that sounded flirtatious.
But they weren’t there, and when she turned back around, he was still looking right at her. “Um, something like that,” she said.
He smiled. “Bachelorette party, then? We get a lot of those here.” His Australian accent was thick, and Shelby resisted the urge to be charmed by it; she assumed he amped it up for the tourists, because who didn’t like a hot Aussie bartender?
Shelby hesitated. “Divorce party, actually.”
“A divorce party? Is that a thing?”
“Right? That’s what I said!” Shelby couldn’t help but smile back.
“So which one is the divorcée, then?” the bartender asked, craning his neck to get a look at her friends. “The redhead? She looks like she’s going a bit wild.”
“Corinne? No, that’s how she looks all the time.”
The bartender laughed. “The brunette beside her, then, I guess?”
Shelby hesitated. “Actually, it’s me.”
The bartender’s attention snapped back to her.
“You? But you’re sitting over here, and they’re—” He cut himself off, glancing at the other two women, both giggling away at something one of the French guys had said, and then looking back at Shelby.
“Ah. But you’re not celebrating. You still love him, then, do you? ”
“No, not exactly.” She wasn’t even sure anymore that it was Brandon she missed, or whether she just missed the future she’d assumed she’d have when they’d still been together.
“It’s just that… endings are sad, you know?
And I feel like… I’ve lost something.” She abruptly stopped talking.
What was wrong with her? “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“I don’t usually blurt out everything in my head to strangers. ”
The bartender looked amused. “In that case, I’m Russ.” He stuck out his hand, and she looked at it uncertainly. “Go on, then, tell me your name. Then we won’t be strangers anymore.”
She laughed and shook his hand. “I’m Shelby.”
“Well, Shelby, don’t look now, but there’s a toddler eyeing you up.”
Shelby turned to see one of the young French men, who couldn’t have been a day over twenty-one, ogling her. She turned back to Russ with a laugh. “Not my type, I’m afraid.”
“Luckily for him, he seems to be your redheaded friend’s type.”
They both watched as Corinne slung an arm drunkenly around the young man’s shoulders and planted a big kiss on his cheek.
“Everyone is Corinne’s type,” Shelby said.
“Well, aren’t those French boys lucky, then?”
Shelby laughed, but as the smile faded from her face, she just felt sad. “I’m supposed to be acting like that, you know. Flirting with all the boys. Putting my marriage behind me.”
“Ah, so that’s what a divorce party is? I was wondering.” Russ studied her for a moment. “Look, Shelby, I think that maybe the end of a relationship is like closing a chapter, but that can be hard to do when you’re not ready. I hope that isn’t too bold of me to say.”
“Bold? I basically just told you my life story. I think you’re entitled to weigh in.” She thought about his words for a moment. “But yeah. Maybe you’re right; I just wasn’t expecting the chapter to be over.”
“That’s the thing about chapters, though, you know? They’re only a part of your story.”
She looked up and met his gaze. His eyes were a deep, complex brown. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His eyes hadn’t moved from hers even though she was dimly aware now of Vanessa down the bar announcing that she was out of champagne.
The moment was interrupted by Corinne bouncing up beside her, her red hair wild and loose, her cheeks flushed. “Come on!” Corinne said, not even giving Russ a glance. “We’re going to get crepes!”
“Crepes?” Shelby echoed.
“With those cute guys.” Corinne pointed at the French guys who were currently laughing at something Vanessa had said. “They said there’s a place right down the street.”
“I—I don’t really feel like a crepe.”
“Oh, come on, Shelb!” Corinne giggled and hiccuped. “It’s Paris! They’re French! You’re about to be divorced!” Her exclamation was punctuated by a second hiccup, but that didn’t remove the sting from the final word. “You’re supposed to be hooking up to put Brandon behind you, remember?”
“Yeah, I know,” Shelby said quietly. She turned back to the bartender, but he had already moved away to take another customer’s order. Had she imagined the spark between them?
She shook her head at herself. She was projecting all her loneliness on a man whose job it was to charm his customers. Besides, she was here for a French fling—Vanessa and Corinne were insisting—and flings didn’t start with heart-to-heart conversations, did they?
“Okay,” she said, sliding off her barstool and forcing a smile. “Let’s go get some crepes.”
A moment later, as she was swept out of Le Maison Grog on a tide of eager, young French men, she resisted the urge to look back.