26. Ryan
Ryan
Six Months Later
“Tu es en retard.” You’re late.
Camille stops halfway through my new garden gate. He has one hand wrapped around a white bakery box and the other still resting on the iron latch, his expression shifting from mild surprise to immediate suspicion as he looks across the yard at me.
“Pardon?” Excuse me?
I lower my paintbrush. “You heard me.”
“I did.” His mouth twitches. “I am simply deciding whether I should correct you.”
My confidence falters. “Was it wrong?”
“No.”
“Then why would you correct me?”
“Your pronunciation.”
I narrow my eyes.
Camille steps through the gate and closes it carefully behind him, because the gate is new, the hinges are new, and I have spent the last three weeks making it extremely clear that anyone who slams it will be buried beneath my garden.
“Your pronunciation was understandable,” he allows.
“That is not the same as good.”
“No.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“And yet you continue inviting me over.”
“I don’t remember inviting you today.”
He lifts the bakery box, and I immediately forgive him.
“What’s in there?”
“Your French has disappeared remarkably quickly.”
“Qu’est-ce que…” I hesitate, mentally reaching for the rest. “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a dans la bo?te ?” What’s in the box?
Camille’s eyebrows rise. That expression is far too pleased for a man who has done absolutely nothing to earn credit for my Duolingo streak.
“Très bien.” Very good.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I complimented you.”
“You complimented me in French. It sounded smug.”
“I am French. Everything sounds smug to you.”
That is unfortunately difficult to argue with.
I set my brush across the top of the paint can and climb carefully down from the short ladder propped against the side of the cottage.
Six months ago, Camille would have put both hands beneath my ass and attempted to physically remove me from the ladder because he had decided anything more than eighteen inches above the ground constituted a fall risk.
He still wants to. I can tell by the way his eyes track my feet all the way down.
But he doesn’t—progress.
The cottage behind me barely looks like the place I inherited.
I have tried very hard not to turn it into something unrecognizable, so the pale stone exterior has been cleaned rather than replaced; the little imperfections remain—the chips around the windows, the uneven places where repairs were made decades apart, the faint discoloration near the foundation that no amount of scrubbing completely removed.
The shutters are no longer peeling badly enough to pose a tetanus risk, although the one beside me is currently half-painted a muted green after I spent two solid weeks changing my mind about the color.
The roof doesn’t leak anymore, the plumbing no longer survives exclusively through spite and French witchcraft, and there is actual insulation in the attic.
Two windows have been replaced, the rest restored, and the kitchen floor no longer dips alarmingly beside the sink.
The kitchen itself still looks old, because I wanted it to.
I kept the battered wooden table and had somebody repair the chairs instead of throwing them out, and the cabinet doors have been sanded and painted rather than ripped away for whatever minimalist monstrosity the contractor originally suggested.
I did repair the gaping hole I made in the wall. Though I can’t help picturing a little secret cubby there, the kind of hidey-hole you’d crawl into on a rainy afternoon.
The bathroom is brand-new, tiled in soft dove-gray stone and polished chrome, every faucet gleaming as if it’s never been touched—thank God.
But most importantly, there are no more secrets behind these walls.
Probably.
Camille sets the bakery box on my wrought-iron table, its ceramic top mottled with paint flecks and sunlight. He tilts his head toward the shutter propped against the wall and says, “You missed a spot.” He’s pointing at a pale streak of unpainted wood just above the latch.
I flip him off.
“Ah,” he says, folding his sunglasses by the arms and slipping them into his breast pocket. “The universal language.”
“Fluent,” I reply, and I mean it.
Damn, he looks good.
Annoyingly good.
Six months have changed some things about him, and none of the things that matter.
There is still a faint scar near his temple where Henri’s cane split the skin, lighter than the surrounding brown now but not too bad.
The swelling disappeared within weeks. The concussion took longer, although Camille spent the entire recovery period insisting headaches were “manageable” even when they were very clearly not.
“You’re staring,” Camille says.
“I’m objectifying you.”
“Thank you for clarifying.”
“You’re welcome.”
His gaze drifts over me as though he’s evaluating a work in progress.
I’m wearing faded shorts spattered with emerald and sage paint, an ancient T-shirt with the sleeves chopped off, and sneakers that were white once, back when they were new.
My hair clings damp to my neck, and I’m sure my forearms look polka-dotted.
He’s imagining something very different.
I gesture toward the bakery box.
“You never answered me.”
“Sit.”
“That was not the question.”
“Sit, and I will show you.”
“Bossy.”
He watches as I lower myself into the chipped metal chair, then takes the one beside mine rather than across from me. We learned early that “across” can feel like an interrogation, while “beside” is always a choice.
He lifts the lid on the bakery box, and I inhale a cloud of powdered sugar. Inside sits a cream puff the size of my fist, a warm golden dome of choux pastry crackling at the edges, its custard filling quivering. “You love me.”
“Yes,” he says, voice smooth. He doesn’t have to fight for the words anymore, the way he did at first.
I reach in and lift half the pastry, letting the sweet weight warm my palm. “Je t’aime aussi,” I say, the French rolling off my tongue like a song. I love you too.
He nods, pleasure lighting his eyes. “Bien.”
I squint. “Did you just grade my declaration of love?”
“I was complimenting your French.”
“After I said I love you.”
“Yes.”
He splits his half of the cream puff, and I steal the larger piece. He sighs, affectionate and exasperated all at once.
Custard beads at my chin as I take a bite. “Mm, fuck, that’s good. Where did you get this?”
“That little place by the square.”
“The one with the grumpy woman who hates me?”
“She likes you.”
“She told me my accent wounds her.”
“That was affection.”
“France is terrible.”
“And yet.”
And yet.
I look past him to the cottage. The late afternoon sun filters through the trees, painting the stone walls honey-warm. Beyond the newly rebuilt boundary wall, thick ivy masks his estate except for a solitary roof tile peeking through the leaves.
The wall is solid now—every stone mortared tight. Except for the wrought-iron gate. My gate. Our gate, technically, though I’m the one who paid for it, so I claim naming rights. Its slender bars curve in an elegant arch, still waiting for a fresh coat of paint.
“You chose green,” he says, nodding at the half-painted shutter leaning against the wall.
“For now.”
“You said blue last week.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Before that, you said cream.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain indecision.”
“Va te faire foutre.” Go fuck yourself.
“Your French lessons are broadening your vocabulary,” he says, chuckling under his breath.
I grin. Actually, they are. I can order a baguette without the baker switching to English, ask for directions, and follow most of what Camille says when he slows down and treats me like I’m five. I still can’t parse two locals haggling at the market—they sound like machine-gun fire.
He pushes a stray lock from my sweaty forehead. “Tu veux du café?” he asks. Do you want coffee?
“Yes,” I snap, and immediately wince at my tone.
He arches an eyebrow. “Oui, s’il te pla?t ?” he suggests.
“Oui, s’il te pla?t.” I straighten my back, stick my tongue out at him, then get up to go grab coffee. Because no, that wasn’t him asking me if I wanted coffee, more like telling me I look like I probably need coffee.
The kitchen still smells faintly of fresh wood and paint when I step inside, though it increasingly smells like me, too.
There is a pile of mail on the table, most of it junk.
One envelope sits on top because I have looked at it at least twelve times today, even though there is nothing new inside.
My residence permit paperwork.
Approved.
Official.
Real.
As I pick it up again, Camille appears in the doorway. “You are checking whether it changed?”
“No.”
“You have checked repeatedly.”
“I just like looking at it.”
I turn the envelope in my hands.
Six months ago, France was temporary.
I was going to come here, deal with my grandfather’s house, sell it, take the money, go back to America, and figure out what the hell came next.
Then Alberte turned out to have the wildest backstory.
Camille turned out to be a manipulative snake scientist with boundary issues.
Then he turned out to be a manipulative snake scientist with boundary issues who was trying very hard to become a better person.
Then I stabbed an old man with venom.
Plans evolve.
The police portion of that story is less funny.
The police interviewed me so often I dreamed in their questions. In the end, it was self-defense. Defense of another. No charges. Case closed.
But it started with:
Where was I standing?
Where was Henri?
When did I find the syringe?
Why did I leave the laboratory?
Did I believe Camille was in immediate danger?
Why?
Did I believe Henri intended to take me against my will?
Why?
Had Henri threatened me directly?
Had his men been armed?
Had Camille already been assaulted?
Had I had an opportunity to escape?
That question bothered me the most.
Because technically, yes.
That was the whole point.
Camille had given me an exit.
I chose not to take it.
It took lawyers to explain the difference between having a route out and being required to abandon someone else to what I reasonably believed was going to be his murder.
Camille’s injuries helped a lot.