25 I Would Have Asked Him to Stay
25
I Would Have Asked Him to Stay
I saw him as soon as I walked through the glass doors. He was leaning against a column paging through a newspaper, wearing a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, gray jeans, and black sneakers. To say he was handsome would be the understatement of the century.
He looked up, at me, through me. I tried to act normal, not like a person hopelessly in love; but I was one, and I failed. The words I love you danced on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back.
Trey walked toward me and raised a finger, motioning for me to walk toward him. I hurried over and threw myself into his arms. His lips covered mine with a hot kiss.
“Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey.”
“Everything good?”
I knew what he meant. I had just said goodbye to an important part of my life, and I still felt like I was wandering in a cloud, and nothing seemed quite real.
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Then let’s go celebrate.”
He guided me to the car and put my suitcase in the trunk, and we drove away.
“Where are we headed?”
“I thought we could get dinner somewhere relaxing and then have a drink after. Maybe go dancing.”
“Dancing?”
“Yeah, dancing. Is that weird? You say it like it was something for girls to enjoy and for guys to force themselves to do so they can get laid afterwards.”
“No!” I shouted. “It’s just… I’ve never gone out with a guy who liked to dance before.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Have you gone out with a lot of guys?”
“Why is that any of your business?”
“Just curious…”
He smiled, and I did, too. It was fun, talking nonsense with him, not thinking of anything, really, and certainly not of tomorrow. It was liberating.
“Well, what’s clear to me is you were never going to get anywhere with those guys. You were obviously waiting for me.”
“Now that’s self-assurance,” I said. I looked over at him, and he returned the gesture as we waited for the light to change. “What about you… Have you been with lots of girls?”
He rested his hand on my thigh and rubbed it softly.
“One-night stands. Friends with benefits. Nothing exclusive, nothing serious. I was waiting for you, too.”
I leaned over and gave him a quick kiss.
He had waited for me.
I had waited for him.
Maybe we’d always been waiting for each other, even since before we had met.
***
We decided to go to L’Gros Luxe, a bar close to my house. It wasn’t busy, and we took a corner table by the window and ordered a few dishes to share.
“So, when will your things get here?” he asked.
“Tomorrow, if the moving guys are on time.”
“Let me know if you need any help.”
“It’s just a couple of boxes of books and clothes. I’ll be fine.”
He gave me a surprised look. “You hired movers just for clothes and books? You don’t have any electronics, posters, appliances? How many books are we talking?”
I dipped a carrot stick in dressing. “I guess…thousands? I did inherit a bookstore, remember? My grandmother picked me for a reason. Being surrounded by books is heaven to me.”
“I thought I was heaven to you.”
“Trey, don’t get offended, but if I had to choose between my books and you… You might well come up short.”
He bent over, reached under my shirt, and stroked my lower back while I studied every inch of his lips.
“Books aren’t everything. You know that, right? A woman has needs, basic needs…” I had to admit, he knew how to get to me. “A book can’t kiss you, a book can’t caress you. A book can only go so deep…”
“I don’t know about that.”
He responded with an inquisitive look. I was having fun. He liked being in control, but he also liked pretending nothing mattered to him, and it was entertaining, watching him go back and forth between expressive and indifferent.
“Well, you’d have to show me,” he said, “because what I’m imagining right now is very, very weird. I’m trying to keep an open mind, but…”
I laughed and stuck a piece of celery in his mouth to get him to be quiet, but he chewed around it and said, “I’m glad you find me funny.”
We paid and walked outside holding hands, very close, ignoring the entire rest of the world. Trey hadn’t been kidding about dancing, so we went to Les Foufounes électriques, a club and concert hall in the Latin Quarter.
With him everything was fun, even walking down streets I knew by heart, his arm around my waist, him leaning in to whisper something every few steps, unable to keep away from me. It was hard for me, too, to go for long without staring at him. His eyes intoxicated me. He had a childish tenderness, but with a manly firmness that could inflame me inside in an instant. He seduced me with his easygoing attitude, which hid an impulsive, passionate heart. He was life distilled, and everything paled beside him, beside the mirage of what we could be someday.
He made me laugh with his games and his stupid, often shameless questions, which I answered without the least bit of embarrassment. He liked that about me, and he’d give me kisses on the neck to hide his hoarse, sexy laugh when people passing by started to stare.
“Hey,” someone said, “sorry. Excuse me, can you help me with something?”
We turned and saw a couple on the opposite sidewalk. The guy waved.
“Hi,” he repeated, crossing the street toward us. “We’re looking for MTelus, the concert venue. We were told it was close to here, but I think we’ve missed it.”
“Have you heard of it?” I asked Trey.
He nodded.
“Yeah, it’s the former Métropolis.” He let my hand go and approached the couple. “It’s close by. We’re going to a place right next door. We can walk there together.”
“Wow, that would be great,” the girl said.
She was blond, with bright, expressive eyes, and very pretty. When she turned, I saw a tattoo on her neck, a little bird taking flight. The guy was tall, with brown hair and a friendly smile. I thought I might have seen him somewhere before.
“We’ve been walking in circles for a while, and we were starting to think we’d never find it,” he said. “By the way, I’m Nick, and this is my wife, Novalie.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“A pleasure,” I responded.
“It’s this way,” Trey said. “I’m assuming you’re not from Montreal.”
“We’re not even Canadian. We live in Boston, but we spend a lot of time in Bluehaven. We’re in Canada for our honeymoon, traveling from coast to coast,” Nick said.
“Congratulations! Why’d you pick Canada, though? Didn’t you want somewhere warmer, with exotic beaches and daiquiris?” I asked.
“We’ve got a little sailboat, and we go out a couple of times a year, usually to the south. This time, we wanted to do something different,” Novalie said.
“Well, I hope it’s been special,” I told her.
“It’s been amazing. Are you both from Montreal?”
“Yeah, and we both live here. Trey’s an architect and I own a bookstore.”
“You own a bookstore?” Novalie asked, excited. “My aunt has one in Bluehaven. I like to help her out whenever I visit her. It’s such a special place for me. You can’t imagine…”
Nick looked at her over his shoulder. By now, the men had moved ahead of us, and she and I were walking together.
“I inherited my shop from my grandmother. She died not long ago.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks.” I shrugged. I felt so comfortable with her that I made a little confession. “The bookstore was her life, and she held it together through thick and thin for decades. I hope I can do the same. It means a lot to me. I basically grew up in the place.”
“I’m sure you’ll do great.”
“It’s kind of a calling for me.”
“Why just ‘kind of’?”
“Because my other thing is writing. I’m going to try to do both and pray that I’ve made the right decision.”
Novalie’s green eyes didn’t blink as she looked over, trying to see something inside me. “You know, since I was really little, I’ve always liked dance. Ballet. My mother was a dancer. She was really good, and I always wanted to be like her.”
“You said was .”
“Yeah, she died years ago.”
“I’m sorry.” She and I had more things in common than I would have guessed.
“After her death, I gave up dancing. It wasn’t until I started college that I enrolled in a dance academy. It was nothing big, just a way to scratch the itch while I was studying comparative literature. Then, when I was finished with school, I had a revelation, and I ended up starting my own ballet school. It barely sustains itself, but I don’t regret it because it’s what I was meant to do. When you do something because you like it, it’s always the right decision.”
“You’re right. And it took me too long to figure that out. By the way, I studied literature, too.”
“For real?” I nodded. “You and I seem to have a lot in common,” she said.
“Harper,” Trey called. “They’ve got two extra tickets for Bring Me the Horizon tonight at MTelus. You want to go?”
“Please do,” Novalie said. “We were supposed to take my friend Lucy and her boyfriend, Roberto, but they missed their flight,” Novalie said.
“Yeah, why not? We were already planning to get a drink and go dancing,” I replied.
“Cool!” Nick said.
“Nick’s a musician,” Novalie told me as we kept walking. “He teaches at Berklee. He tries to catch as many concerts as he can. He says it’s the best way to discover new sounds and styles and appreciate the nuances… I don’t really know what that means. Half the time what he says goes over my head.”
“The same thing happens to me when Trey goes into detail about his projects. All I see is blueprints and they might as well be hieroglyphics.”
“Yep. That’s exactly what I feel when I see sheet music.”
We laughed.
“So who is Bring Me the Horizon?”
“You’ve never heard them?” she asked. “You’ll love them if you like death metal, screamo, that kind of thing…”
“Screamo?”
Novalie giggled and covered her mouth before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a little white package. “Here, you might need these.”
Inside, I found a pair of earplugs. “Are you kidding?”
She shook her head.
When we got there, we had to wait a few minutes to get inside. Trey and Nick had hit it off and were chatting away about their pets. They seemed to be competing to see which dog was cooler, Sisuei or Ozzy, Nick’s Labrador.
We flashed our tickets and went inside. The place was packed, and we struggled to make our way toward the stage. Fifteen minutes later, the lights went down. The crowd shouted until every voice was one deep roar just as the band came onstage. My heart was racing. Though I didn’t mention this to Novalie, I’d never been to a concert like that. The closest thing I’d been to was an open-air folk festival! Those are the breaks when you have no social life or group of friends to do things with.
The lights came up, the screams grew louder, and the band started playing the first chords. The sound coming from the amplifiers was deafening.
That night was probably the most fun I had ever had. I laughed and shouted until I could barely speak.
And I danced. After an hour, they played a slower tune, almost sensual, if music that heavy can be called sensual. I felt Trey’s hands on my hips and his body against my back moving softly back and forth. I was stiff at first, but then I gave in, and my muscles loosened.
The music echoed through my head, then through my entire body. As he gripped me tighter, I turned around and looked into his eyes. Our foreheads touched, our lips came together, and we swayed to the rhythm, fluid, body to body, speeding up as the drumbeats started pounding.
We kissed, our hearts beating a thousand beats per minute, holding onto each other tight. If I had known all the stupid things I would do after that night was over, I’d never have let him go. I’d have held him until our bodies were one.
I’d have asked him to stay.
Stay.
Please stay.