6. Ryan #2
Camille inclines his head, as though I’ve finally arrived at the inevitable conclusion he knew I would.
Asshole.
The roofer says something rapid and technical in French. I smile with earnest confusion.
“He needs to see the damage inside before he goes up,” Camille interprets.
“Right. Of course.” I move aside and let Monsieur Barthes step in first. Camille follows. He crosses the threshold into my home—my private space—and I shut the door behind him, suddenly at a loss for what to do with my hands.
Camille’s gaze roams over exposed floorboards, the patch of stripped trim, the corridor toward the kitchen. There’s an appraisal in his eyes, too thorough to be casual.
“You’ve been busy,” Camille says, after a long, clinical pause.
His gaze is eating the room alive, mapping every exposed support beam and tangled length of stripped wire, every pale patch of drywall where I’d tried and catastrophically failed to sand away a century of paint.
“I’ve been trying,” I answer.
Camille’s focus flickers back to my face, and that weighted silence presses again, like he’s waiting for me to crack.
“I can see that,” he says, not unkindly, but not kindly either.
“Is that an insult?” I ask, bracing for it, because every interaction with him seems to be a prelude to some slow-burning humiliation.
“No.”
“It sounded like one,” I push, aware that I sound petulant.
He doesn’t correct me. Instead, his lips part in a rare, full smile—a flash of white and wolfishness, glinting with something I can’t name.
“Your work is improving,” he says, deadpan, but the trace of pride goes through me like a drug.
I want to hate it, but I feel weirdly seen, which is honestly kind of worse.
“That was definitely an insult,” I say, but my voice stumbles.
I turn away before my face can betray me, almost bumping into Monsieur Barthes, who is making himself at home by poking at a sagging door frame and muttering unintelligible French into the ether.
He makes a slow circuit of the living room—really just the front two meters, since the rest is a demolition zone—occasionally tapping walls, testing windows, making the sort of noises that would be comforting coming from a doctor but alarming from a mechanic.
“He says the western section needs opening,” Camille translates, after a brief volley of French.
“That sounds expensive,” I say, dreading the answer.
“It will be.”
“Fuck… Of course it will,” I mutter. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“He can replace damaged tiles and repair the underlayment. But there’s rot near the chimney.” Camille’s voice is soft, almost sympathetic, but I hear the disappointment in it, like he’s sad for the house the way other people are sad for abandoned pets.
“Also expensive?” I prompt.
“Yes.”
“Fantastic.”
I can’t tell if Camille is enjoying this, or just resigned to it. The roofer says something else—too fast for me to catch, as always—but this time Camille’s expression tightens, just a little.
“What?” I ask, my paranoia sharpening.
“He wants to know if you plan to stay through winter.” Camille looks at me, not unkind but measuring, and I feel instantly five years old.
“Why?”
“He thinks the roof’s just the first problem,” Camille says, sounding genuinely apologetic.
“Meaning?”
“He’s found moisture in multiple walls, windows that need replacing, and movement in the foundation. The chimney must be inspected before any fire is lit, and an engineer should assess the lower structure before any major renovations.”
I feel my stomach drop through the floor. “Lower structure?”
“The foundation,” he says, and his gaze flicks purposefully toward the kitchen, to the loose tiles.
I clamp my arms around myself, like it will hold the house together through sheer force of will.
“Do you know something about the foundation?” I ask, and I try to sound bored, but it comes out like a dare.
“It’s as I told you before. Your grandfather made modifications to the place.” Camille’s voice is smooth and maddeningly neutral, like he’s warning me but refusing to say why.
“That’s not really an answer, Camille,” I say.
“It is the answer I have,” he says, voice going flat.
I step forward, risking the edge of anger. “No, it’s the answer you’ve decided to give me.”
He holds my gaze, but something in him closes, like a door locking. “Ryan…”
“What?” I snap.
“This is not the time,” he says, and I swear the temperature in the room drops by several degrees.
“For what?” I ask, and it feels like a fight, suddenly.
“To discuss this,” he answers, voice barely above a whisper, but still final.
I glance at Monsieur Barthes, who is studiously examining the water stains on the ceiling, pretending not to listen but clearly catching every word.
“Fine,” I say, and I sink onto the edge of a creaking chair.
Camille mutters something to the roofer, who nods and heads outside, the click of the door closing behind him a tiny relief. My hands shake, and I dig my nails into my thighs just to feel something real.
“What do you know about the cottage? Why have you been so weird about it?” I ask quietly, looking up at him.
Camille studies me, as if he’s weighing whether I can handle the answer. At last, he says, “I told you this is not the time, Ryan.”
“Oh, fuck you,” I say, because it’s all I have left.
His eyebrows rise, but instead of anger, there’s something almost wounded in his eyes. And then—like he can’t stop himself—his gaze drops to my mouth, just for a second, and he smirks.
My whole face goes hot.
I mutter, “Poor choice of words.”
“Was it?” Camille says, and the room is suddenly so charged I feel like I’m standing in a thunderstorm.
I stare at him, every muscle in my body at full alert. His gaze is steady, unblinking, predatory, but not unkind. I look away first, because I always lose this game.
“I meant—tell me what you know. Stop being so cryptic all the time.”
“I have done nothing cryptic,” Camille says, almost laughing, and for a second I want to kick him and kiss him in equal measure. He steps closer, closing the distance between us so abruptly that I feel the heat off his body. I want to bolt, but I can’t move. “Have dinner with me tonight.”
“Huh?” I say, because my brain can’t process normal words anymore.
“Dinner,” he repeats, like it’s a dare.
“…Why?”
“Because you have questions.”
“And if I join you for dinner, you’ll answer them? Really answer them?”
He inclines his head. “Some, yes.”
“That sounds conditional.”
“It is.”
I cross my arms. “What do you get out of it?”
“Company,” Camille answers instantly, no hesitation or irony.
“Are you saying you don’t have friends who could join you?”
Camille’s mouth twitches, a slow unfurling of his wolfish smile. “Would that cause you to accept? If I am lonely?”
“I… guess,” I say, my words sounding more like a question than an answer.
He laughs, for real this time—low and brief, but not at my expense. I want to hear it again, and the realization destabilizes me completely.
The front door then opens, and Monsieur Barthes calls to us from the landing.
Camille glances back, then fixes me with a final, unreadable look. “Seven,” he says.
“That wasn’t a yes,” I force out.
“It wasn’t a no.”
I want to argue, but my tongue is frozen. His gaze drifts to my throat—a microsecond of attention, but it leaves a heat trail across my skin.
“Wear whatever makes you comfortable,” he says, the words so innocent that my brain immediately twists them into filth.
Camille leaves before I can recover enough to retort. I stand there, rooted by the afterimage of his smile and the echo of his voice in the hollowed-out house. I can’t stop replaying the conversation—the way he watched me, the way he said company, like it was the only thing he wanted.
I should feel triumphant, but mostly I feel like I’ve just been tackled at the fifty-yard line in front of a roaring crowd.
The hall is empty. The air is heavy with dust, sawdust, and the faint smell of male sweat. My chest is still tight, my head buzzing with a million questions and the certainty that the answers will hurt.
My hands shake as I pick up the pry bar from the floor and pretend to get back to work, but the rhythm is gone. I keep glancing at the clock, counting the hours until seven.
I can’t help but wonder if Camille’s invitation is a threat or a promise.
Or potentially, both.