Finn holds my face gently. “That can’t have been easy. Thank you for letting me in.”
I close my eyes, taking his comfort, needing it. That was hard, but it feels so good. This wasn’t on the Paris list—telling my father’s best friend the truth about my mental health. But I’ve done it and somehow it makes me feel even better about all of the sex that we’ve had.
When I let go, I take his hand, and we walk until it’s time for work.
We make plans again for dinner that evening. As the twilight darkens the sky, we duck into a bistro with a back patio, hemmed in by tall hedges. “No one can find us here,” I say.
“Where?” he deadpans.
“Exactly.”
“It’s just us,” he says as we settle in at a small green table in the corner.
It sure feels that way all through drinks and dinner. After the server clears our plates, Finn’s phone rings with a FaceTime call from his son.
“Mind if I answer?”
“Not at all,” I say, glad he’s not thinking twice about talking to Zach around me.
Finn chats with him at the table, then adds, “Jules is here. Got any burning Captain Dude questions?”
My heart skips a beat that Finn’s so easily bringing me into the conversation.
“No, but I want to tell her something else,” Zach says, then Finn adjusts the screen so I can see his kid.
Zach’s hair is a wild mess. He’s unkempt and probably unwashed, but he’s lit up with excitement as he tells us about making a dam with David, then asks me if I’ve ever made one, then says he and David are going to try the Diet Coke and Mentos experiment at home. “Can you come over and join us?”
For a few delirious seconds, I feel like I can say yes.
Like saying yes would be part of the just us deal his dad and I made an hour ago.
But I can’t. That’s the rose-colored glasses of Paris making me feel like anything’s possible. Instead I say, “Thanks for the invite.”
I won’t be able to accept, but I’m lucky to have received it.
The next day, Finn and I meet as soon as the workday ends, heading to a brasserie on Île de la Cité, a little island in the middle of the river. It feels like an escape within an escape, like we’re tunneling farther into this make-believe dream of us.
As we eat at a sidewalk table, Finn tells me about his family, how he was raised, all the things he wished for as a kid. They grew up with little, and he wasn’t even sure he’d be able to afford college. “I put all my focus into soccer and went on a scholarship,” he tells me over wine, then he shrugs. “But I wasn’t so good that I could make a living at that. So, the business degree helped.”
“I’ll say. And now you own the world.”
He laughs. “Not quite. Not yet. But at least I don’t have to worry about taking care of myself or my family.” His expression turns serious. “That was important to me.”
His drive is sexy. “And you’ve done it. So what will you conquer now? Streamer?”
“Well,” he says, a little sheepish, “the deal is a big one, don’t get me wrong. I wanted to expand. To make sure I’m secure, and my family’s secure.” He takes a pause, drinks some wine. “But honestly, I really just want to be a good father.”
My heart thumps. “That’s a perfect life goal. The best one, really.”
“Thanks,” he says, then drags a hand through his hair. “It’s hard. And it’s weird, starting at age seven. But I want to give him everything.”
Funny, how I don’t even know if I want children. And I’ve never been attracted to single dads before. But then, I haven’t been attracted to anyone in a long time, until Finn. Now, each detail I learn about him as a person and as a father makes me wish we could be together beyond Paris. “You are, Finn,” I assure him, meaning it.
He takes my hand, runs his thumb over the top of it. “It was nice seeing you talk so easily to him in the bookstore, and at the diner, and on the phone last night,” he says, and oh god. Oh hell.
This man is opening his heart to me here. I don’t know what to do with it after this trip. But right now, I say, “He’s great. I liked being invited.”
“Do you…” He stops, shakes his head as if admonishing himself. But I know he was about to ask if I want kids, and I don’t want the question to go unanswered. If he’s asking it, or trying to, it’s important to him.
“Do I want children?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “We don’t need to talk about it. It’s not…”
But he wants to know. And he listened to me discuss my hard thing. This is probably hard for him, given what he told me about his wife. “Maybe someday,” I say, before he can back out.
The corner of his lips twitches in a grin. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” It’s not a false promise like his ex made to him, but it’s not a lie either.
After dinner, Finn takes my hand as we walk through the moonlit streets. We reach an open iron gate, and he peers past it into a courtyard, teeming with flowers, lifting a brow in a partners-in-crime invitation. I say yes, and seconds later, he’s kissing me against a vine-covered brick wall under the Paris moon. If kisses were words, this one would say I’m falling for you.
The next night, I pick a hole-in-the-wall vegetarian café in the Latin Quarter, tucked into an alley where no one can find us. Finn doesn’t even grumble about ordering a spicy eggplant sandwich. When we sit to wait for our orders, I cross my legs, but he reaches for my ankle, runs his thumb over the star anklet, and says, “This was how I knew it was you. I saw it in your father’s office that day, but I didn’t make the link until I went to The Scene again.” He doesn’t linger on uncomfortable reminders of our connection. “You wear it all the time. It must be important to you.”
I fiddle with the stars on it, but I don’t feel sad thinking of Willa. I don’t always, or even often, feel sad when she comes up. I’ve had six years to adjust to life without my first best friend. Sometimes, I just want to talk about her. “My sister gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. It was a thing we did. We used to give ankle bracelets to each other. Especially when we learned what they originally were used for.”
“I have no idea what they stand for so you’d better tell me.”
I picture Willa and me at sixteen and seventeen, curled up on my bed, overstuffed with pillows, a laptop on my knees as we searched out info on anklets. Then, we were rolling our eyes and giggling when we learned the ancient meanings behind them. “We read that sometimes women in olden days would wear them so men could hear them coming and not say naughty things in front of them. And then they were worn to show social status. So we’d give them to each other and say, Now I can hear you sneaking into my room to steal my shirt. Or, this means I’m the favorite daughter since I did the dishes.” I glance at Finn, and his smile says keep talking. “But in the end, we decided that to us, they meant fuck the patriarchy.”
A laugh bursts from him—a rich, vibrant sound that I’ll miss when our time here ends. “The patriarchy should be fucked, toppled, drawn, and quartered.”