Chapter 17 #2
Yellow and pink clouds bulge across the sky like cotton candy. The streets and alleyways of Paris stretch out in all directions, a sea of white stone, curved roofs, and chimney smoke. Below, the Champ de Mars spreads out like a green lake. Behind Nelle, the Seine mirrors the sky, only grayer.
Atop the tower with them, people are taking pictures, laughing, kissing.
Unable to contain the emotion blooming in her like dahlias, Nelle feels hot tears spill down her cheeks.
After Quill tore her drawing to pieces, she never let herself dream of this.
Nearly a thousand feet high, atop the Eiffel Tower, leaning out over the world.
Her chest seizes, and she laughs, still crying.
James’s hand finds hers. Their fingers intertwine, knuckles locking like puzzle pieces.
“It’s beautiful,” he says, watching her.
Nelle takes in the city putting on its nighttime attire. Shops closing up. Bars opening doors. Music getting louder and lights brighter. To the west, the sun sets.
Nelle soaks in Paris with watery eyes, her lips parting, rosy with gloss.
Back in the airport, James wrote for her to explore a beauty store—Jessie’s friends inspired her to try makeup.
She came back with a single tube of lip gloss and James with a new book.
When Nelle saw the cover, her face dropped.
Ravel by Wallace Quill. They are both haunted, and being hunted, by Quill.
James at least has to know if their stalker is a good writer, or if Quill only wrote one good thing in his miserable life: a woman made of laughter and fire and ink.
Even in James’s lightest moments, the book in his back pocket weighs him down.
He shoves Quill from his thoughts and steps closer to Nelle. “Do you think this is the right moment?”
That breaks her trance. Nelle’s hand trails up his shirt.
“Every moment’s been right enough for me,” she says.
The inch between them disappears. Feather soft, a breath passes back and forth.
Nelle lets out a little half gasp, half moan, and James is undone.
Crushes his lips against hers. Tastes the salt of tears on her tongue as it flickers against his.
His hand curves up her back, fingers entangled in her hair.
He dissolves into this kiss—into her—until time ceases.
He doesn’t care how many people are around.
If they can’t full-on make out atop the Eiffel Tower, then what’s the city of love for?
Nelle nearly dies a little death. So this is kissing. Her internal organs become hot goo as James grips her hip, fingers digging in. His kiss is gentle but strong, and his mouth tastes like coffee and mint. She is on the beach again, watching the waves crash, losing track of time.
He breaks away, lips swollen, cheeks flushed gold in the setting sunlight.
Nelle holds the back of his neck, his curls like satin between her fingers. She wants to taste him again, to put her mouth all over his precious little face.
“Do you want to know a secret?” James asks, his voice low.
She rises on tiptoe, bumps the tip of her nose to his. “What?”
The corner of his mouth lifts, dimple creasing. “You’re my best friend.”
Nelle’s heart sizzles. “You’re my best friend.”
He runs the pad of his thumb over her brow, down her temple, to her ear, his brown hair mussed from her fingers. “Do you want to kiss again?”
“I fear . . .” She moves closer, until she can taste his breath. “That I may never want to stop.”
After they stepped into the hotel room, Nelle kissed James good night and crashed. Now he sits on the bed beside her, unsure whether she is still awake or if she actually snapped into unconsciousness that fast.
“Nelle?”
“Hmm.”
“If you’re going to sleep, would you be okay with me going downstairs to see if there’s a computer I can use?”
“Sure,” she murmurs. “Have fun. Watch for Quill.”
He dips down and kisses the warm pulse of her temple. “Good night.”
Four floors down, the hotel business center turns out to be a glorified closet off the lobby, crammed with three dinosaur computers.
Through the wall, he can hear the concierge arguing with the guests.
The overhead light is out, so once the computer boots on after three minutes of low humming, James sits in the dark in front of a shaky electronic glow.
He signs in to his student account, the keyboard gentle and foreign after weeks of using a manual typewriter.
Five unanswered emails ask him to pay his fall fees.
Two of his upcoming professors have already sent out their syllabi.
He takes a deep breath. Upstairs, Nelle is asleep, oblivious to his inner turmoil.
Ten days until the fall semester starts.
The two months he has known Nelle have felt like two days.
What will the next ten feel like? A minute?
A few poems spring to mind, all about making choices, none of them helpful.
He knows which path will make him happiest right now, but who knows how he will feel in seven years.
Still, the old James would gawk at where he’s standing now.
The decision before him, so far beyond simply adding another major.
Return to hell, or to keep flying with Nelle?
Fingers trembling like twigs in a rainstorm, James logs in to his account and withdraws from all his classes.
He sends the school an email informing them that he will be dropping out for a semester, but that he hopes to join them in the spring.
It’s a lie, something to soften the blow. He will never go back.
He logs out and shuts down the computer.
For a few minutes, he sits in the quiet darkness of the lobby.
How long has he been drowning in the quicksand of school, knowing that his time with Nelle would then end prematurely?
Now it’s clear: he doesn’t want to go back to no friends and endless studying.
Yes, money will be an issue eventually, but Jessie’s gifted plane tickets bought them at least a few weeks.
A month if he’s frugal. And afterward, he envisions a life in New York, working to rent his own place.
Maybe a place he can share with a certain ink-bleeding girl.
He goes back to the hotel room, clicks on the lamp, and sits at the edge of the bed. Watching Nelle sleep soothes him. The breath flowing in and out of her parted lips, hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. A subtle reminder that although her origin is unusual, she is real.
Her dahlias, tinged with brown decay, sit on the table beside the king-size bed. James kicks off his shoes and, swearing to start pinching his pennies tomorrow, orders a room-service burger. A sense of calm settles over him. Finally, he feels weightless.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when he wakes to pale morning light and an uneaten burger outside the door, he comes back to bed and whispers to Nelle. She doesn’t stir. He rubs her shoulder for a minute or two before she squints angrily at the light.
“Is it morning?” she groans.
“Yes,” he says. “And I have good news.”
She sits up against the headboard, hair frizzy. “Why are you this perky without any coffee?”
“I’m no longer a student,” he says.
Nelle blinks. “You’re no longer . . . what?”
“I unenrolled. We can keep traveling, no time restrictions.”
“Jessie’s gonna kill you.”
She’s shaking her head. Why is she shaking her head?
“What about your career?” Nelle asks.
“I told you, I don’t want to be a doctor, and Jessie will be okay. She will understand, especially when I tell her—”
“Your mom? Your dad?”
“They’ll be all right, too. This isn’t about them, it’s about me. It’s about us.”
“Are you sure?” Nelle asks. “You don’t have to drop out. We can go back now. You can go to school next week, and I’ll—”
“It’s already done,” James says. He adds, with real confidence, “I know I made the right decision.”
Nelle’s worried face cracks. “Really? So this means you want to keep traveling the world with me?”
He stands and holds out his hand. “Coffee first, then the world.”
Yet he can’t ignore the sinking in his stomach.
Part attraction, part warning. It is the feeling of tumbling through the unknown and having a blast while doing it.
But as with all free falls, the landing will be rough.
He dreads having to tell Nelle the truth.
His money won’t last forever, and at the end of this rainbow, he wants to stay in New York.