12. Ryan #2
Before I can decide how I feel about that, the shopkeeper reappears from the back, carrying a plastic-wrapped packet.
The old man straightens, shuffling a half-step away from me and toward the front counter, as if leaving behind the moment entirely.
He fixes his gaze on the shelf of screws and pretends not to exist.
The shopkeeper calls out to me in French, waving the packet, and I follow her up to the register, glancing once over my shoulder.
The old man is still there, but now he’s thumbing through something on the pegboard, entirely absorbed in the minute differences between two nearly identical lengths of twine.
The shopkeeper rings up my total, gives me my change, and as I’m collecting my things, the old man materializes by my side.
He waits until the shopkeeper is turned away, then says, very quietly, “You should ask your friend Moreau again. He knows more than he says.”
“Why?” I whisper back. “Why would he hide it?”
The man’s jaw tenses, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he says, “That… I do not know.”
“Did you—” I start, then stop, unable to finish the question. Did you hate them for it, too?
He seems to hear what I don’t say, because his expression softens for a fraction of a second. “Alberte was a good man,” he says. “He did not deserve what happened.”
Something cold passes through me. “What… did happen?”
But the shopkeeper is back, eyeing us both with bland suspicion, and the old man gives a tiny, stiff bow of his head.
“I must go,” he says, already turning for the door, his cane thumping lightly ahead of his feet. The sunlight catches his hair as he goes, flashing white-gold before he passes out of sight.
I stand there, holding my bag of window latches, adrenaline making my fingers shake.
On the walk home, I try to reason it out. Maybe the old man meant Alberte was run out of town. People don’t get exiled for being gay in the twenty-first century, not in France, right? I mean, if the village is that homophobic, I feel like Camille should’ve warned me.
Just a quick “hey, they hate queers here” would’ve worked.
I realize I never got the old man’s name.
It’s possible I’m still a little concussed from last night.
The sun is high when I reach the cottage. The house seems to be holding its breath, all the curtains drawn, the garden flattened by heat.
I push open the gate, then stop as I see that the front door isn’t fully closed. It’s open maybe an inch, so not much, but I know I closed and locked it before I left earlier.
My grocery bags suddenly feel much heavier.
“Hello?” I call out, creeping steadily into the yard. No one answers.
With my heart in my throat, I climb the steps onto the porch and set my bags down off to the side. I feel like I’m hardly breathing as I take another step closer to the door.
The lock plate is scratched.
Shaking, I take out my phone and go to call Camille. I haven’t used his phone number even once since he gave it to me a week or so ago, but this seems like an emergency.
Wait, no. What the hell am I thinking? If it’s an emergency, I should call the police, not my neighbor slash fuck buddy I may sort of like.
But as I go to dial, I pause.
What do I even tell them?
My shitty door was open?
I don’t even know whether anything happened.
Maybe a contractor came.
Maybe—
A sound comes from inside, and I freeze. It isn’t footsteps, but something settling, which, come on, Ryan, old houses do all the time. I’ve just started ignoring the sounds.
Unfortunately, given the situation, my brain won’t let me ignore this one.
“Fuck this.”
I back away from the door, but as I’m doing so, I happen to see into the cottage through the open gap.
The rug.
The small faded rug that normally sits beneath the entry table has been kicked sideways.
Every nerve in my body lights up, and I press the only contact my thumb seems capable of locating.
Camille answers on the second ring.
“Ryan?”
I swallow. “Are you home?”
“Yes.”
“Can you come over?” My voice edges up an octave.
There’s silence for half a beat before his voice lowers, and he asks, “What’s wrong?”
“I think somebody’s been in the cottage,” I say, trying hard to keep my voice from trembling.
“Do not go inside,” he commands.
“I haven’t.”
“Stay outside.” His voice is so controlled it somehow scares me more.
“I’m literally right by the door.”
“Move away from it.”
“Camille—”
“Ryan.”
I move, stepping off the porch back into the yard. “Okay.”
“I’m coming.”
The call ends.
My chest aches as if I’ve swallowed a stone, because all morning I’d promised myself I wouldn’t reach for him. But the first whisper of danger and instinct led me to dial his number. I hate how instinct feels like weakness.
I also hate how relieved I am when I hear the slam of his door less than a minute later.
He appears through the gap in the boundary wall fast enough that I’m not entirely convinced he walked over rather than materialized.
His eyes lock onto mine, then flick to the cottage door.
“Have you touched anything?” he asks sharply.
I shake my head.
He closes the gap between us in two long strides. His hands settle on my shoulders—firm, pressing, not possessive but searching, protective. His gaze sweeps over my face, down my arms, across my chest, as if reading every panic line.
“You are hurt?”
“No.”
“Certain?”
“Yes.”
He exhales, soft as wind over glass. Then he turns toward the cottage. His expression hardens—ice replacing concern. It’s the first time I’ve seen real cold in his eyes, not irritation or distance but something predatory, delivered in a single glance.
“Stay here.”
“No.” The word bursts out, defiance tremulous in my throat.
His head turns. “No?”
“It’s my house.”
“And someone may still be inside.”
“All the more reason I’m not standing outside while you go in alone.”
His jaw works, and I brace for an argument. Instead, he pulls out his phone.
“Then we wait for the gendarmerie.”
“You’re calling the police?” I ask, disbelief crackling through me.
“Yes.”