Heat pricks the corners of my eyes as I watch her stare off into the distance, the most gut-wrenching ghost of a smile I’ve ever seen resting on her lips.
“DeeDee, I had no idea...”
“Of course you did not.” She barks a laugh. “I’m pretty good at hiding it, hein? When I started working at Taverne Toulouse, I was broken. It felt like I would never laugh or feel safe again. It felt like my whole future was gone. I couldn’t go to haircutting school, of course. I still can’t. It...It’s too hard without her, but when I met Monroe, and Roxy, and...and you, it made me feel okay. It felt like having a pack. It felt like having the friends I was always looking for in Trois-Rivières, and it didn’t matter if any of my maudit boyfriends ever worked out, because I had my little family of barflies there for me.”
“DeeDee.” I shift so I’m completely facing her. “I’m not some maudit boyfriend, okay? I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to make you believe it.”
She smiles, and it might not be the triumphant moment I’m looking for, but I see hope there. I look into her face, and I see a chance.
“I really want to. I really do, Zach.”
“Good.” I jump up off the couch. “Let me tell you something, DeeDee Beausoleil. I’ve had a lot of time to think of the perfect first date to take you on, and I have quite a few ideas. I think we should do all of them today.”
Thirteen
DeeDee
DIGESTIF: a typically sweet alcoholic beverage meant to be consumed after a meal
“I can’t, Zach. Tabarnak, I’m so full. I can’t walk anymore.”
I hold my stomach and try to keep up as Zach walks ahead of me. He’s going way too fast for somebody who just ate four tacos, two churros, and drank a margarita.
“Where even are we?” I complain.
We had dinner at a little Mexican place in the Old Port with the cutest terrace I’ve ever seen. Before that, we had brunch at a cute cafe in Saint-Henri and then got back on the metro to spend the afternoon hanging out in Parc Lafontaine, eating ice cream and joining in a game of Frisbee with some kids after they almost hit Zach in the head.
It’s been a perfect day, full of talking and laughing and holding hands. I’ve wanted to kiss him maybe two million times since we left the house. The way we both start breathing hard whenever we look at each other a certain way or stand extra close on the sidewalk lets me know he’s thinking it too, but I always look away or step aside. The moment just hasn’t seemed right yet. It’s stupid and girly and makes me sound like a fifteen year-old on her first date with a boy, but I want our first kiss to be romantic—perfect, even.
I’ve never felt like I needed things to be perfect with a guy. I’ve spent years behind the bar telling people to forget about perfect and just go for it, but the pressure to get this right is like a balloon in my chest that grows and grows the more I think about it until there’s no room for anything else.
“You’re falling behind, DeeDee,” Zach calls over his shoulder.
“Connard,” I mutter before shouting, “Tu es fou! You’re a crazy man!”
“Here.” He stops beside a rack of city bikes you can rent. “Let’s get a couple of these.”
I glare at him. “I’m so full I can’t even walk, Zach. How am I supposed to get on a bike?”
“Then you can ride with me.”
“What? How?”
He’s already putting his credit card in the machine next to the bike rack. “You can sit on the handlebars.”
“What? That is not safe!”
He looks at me like I’m the crazy one and grumbles, “City kids.”
After he’s got the bike all paid for, he wheels one out of the stand and raises an eyebrow at me. “Do you want one too, or are you getting on?”
I’m going to puke if I get my own bike, but I’m going to die if I get on his.
“You have to pay for my funeral,” I warn him. “I want a million pink roses.”
“Done.”
He swings one leg over the bike and keeps it steady while I try to wiggle onto the handlebars. They were really not made for a person’s ass.
“Esti! How do you do this?”
Zach laughs from behind me. “You’ve really never done this before, huh? Here, scooch back.”
One of his hands grabs onto my hip, and I suck in a breath like he shocked me. That’s what it’s felt like every time we’ve touched today; all I can think about is his skin and the way he smells and how my heart gets so fast it scares me every time he’s close. He tugs me back until I’m sitting on a part of the handlebars that doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to fall over and hit my face on the sidewalk.
“Shouldn’t we have helmets?”
“Probably.”
I snort to hide how nervous I am. “Wow, Zachy Zach. Look at you, being all brave. Usually I am the daredevil.”
“I can be surprising every now and then. Hold on, okay?”
“O—”
I don’t even finish the word. I start screaming as soon as he pushes forward and begins pedalling down the street. I don’t stop until we’ve gone almost a block and I realize he’s laughing behind me.
“What is so funny, you asshole? I’m gonna die!”
“DeeDee, we’re going like point two miles an hour on a perfectly flat street. You’re also screaming loud enough to wake the dead.”
“I’m gonna be the dead!”
He keeps laughing as we start going faster. I try not to scream again, just so he won’t have another reason to make fun of me, but I can’t help it every time we make a turn or hit a stop. We’ve been biking for about fifteen minutes by the time I realize where we are.
“Are we going across the bridge?”
I forget all about being scared as the lights of the Jacques Cartier Bridge come into view. The sky is already starting to turn pink from the sunset, with a streak of purple along the horizon where the light has faded most. The city is waking up for the night, twinkling and shining like a million bright eyes opening, waiting to see what the evening will bring.
“Yes, we are,” Zach answers. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, now you ask me if it’s okay.” I’m getting more used to the bike. It’s actually kind of fun, but I’m not going to tell Zach that. “I guess we can go across the bridge.”
The truth is that I’ve always wanted to walk across the Jacques Cartier Bridge at night.
There’s a special caged-in walking and biking lane along one side of the bridge. A few people pass us by, heading back towards the city. Some of them laugh at me on the handlebars. Some of them glare like we’re annoying teenagers, but I smile at all of them.
We’re about halfway across when Zach slows down. There’s a little lookout alcove off to the side for people to stop and take pictures. Zach turns the bike into it and stops.
“You have to get off first, or else you’ll fall over,” he explains.
I hop down and run to the edge of the lookout, leaning up against the barrier to stare out at the shape of downtown Montreal and its reflection on rushing waves of the Fleuve Saint-Laurent. The sky is almost completely purple now, and it’s turning the water the same colour.