I shook my head to orient myself in the present. It didn’t work. Finally, I got up the courage to meet his eyes. “Hi,” I whispered. I wondered if my voice would ever come back—and if he could hear me over Damien Rice.
“Hi,” he replied. The crinkles were back.
We stared at each other, him looking confident and slightly amused, and me squirming. A wave of nostalgia swept through me. “I … I’ve missed you,” I said. It was a massive understatement. He squeezed my hand and gave me a sweet but sad smile, and I swear I nearly burst into tears. When he leant back in his chair, pulling his hand away with him, I was left wanting—what exactly, I wasn’t sure.
Jean-Luc Caron.
I tried to dredge an image of him, younger, from my dusty memories. I couldn’t manage a full picture—only glimpses. He was my age—thirty-five—so we hadn’t seen each other for twenty years. And I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been in touch.
Actually, yes, I could.
It was when I started seeing Scott, when I’d pinned a photo of Jean-Luc to my mirror. Scott hadn’t liked that, and nineteen-year-old Cat—Catey—was a coward. She’d acquiesced to her new boyfriend and cut ties with the French exchange student who’d returned to Lyon years before, but who had written her every week since.
She’d cut ties with her best friend.
He was watching me. Perhaps he saw what played behind my eyes—a zillion feelings at once, with regret, guilt and yearning duking it out for first place.
“You look great,” I blurted, my libido driving my tongue. At least it was better than, “You turned out so ridiculously hot that I want us to get a room maintenant.”
He laughed, clearly at ease with himself, and ran his hand through his hair again. The ensemble of moves brought me back to the present.
“So do you, Catherine.” I never wanted anyone to ever call me Cat again. I’d have to teach everyone I knew, including my parents, to say my name the right way, his way.
A moment later, his compliment registered, and I was beyond glad we’d gone back to the campsite before dinner and that I didn’t look like a hag in slouchy jeans and sneakers.
I returned his smile. “So, what do we do now?”
“I think we reacquaint ourselves, yes?” His smile was charming, the boy I once knew peeking out. How had I not seen it when we met him on the street?
But hang on. I looked around the pub. “Here?”
“No. Here it is too noisy. But I have a thought—if you will come with me.”
He wanted me to leave with him and my mind went in a dozen different directions at once—unfortunately, they all tumbled out of my mouth in a highly ineloquent soliloquy. “Come with you? I … my friends—we’re staying … Oh, God, where’s the campsite? Hang on … I think I have the name in my phone. Or you could take me back—or to the meeting place … And what about your friends?”
The look on his face was pure amusement.
“Sorry,” I added. He cocked his head indicating it was fine. “Let me go talk to my friends, all right? I’ll be right back. Don’t. Go. Anywhere.” I wasn’t chancing him disappearing again until I at least had his phone number.
I sped over to the other table where the four of them had been watching everything—well, three. Jaelee was turned around in her chair speaking Spanish to a cute guy at the next table. Of course she’d met a Spaniard in an Irish pub in Paris.
“Hi,” I said to my friends. Jaelee stopped talking and spun around mid-sentence. “So, I know tonight was our night out, but Jean-Luc wants to catch up and I’m going with him.” No one said anything, so I leapt ahead with, “All right?”
Jaelee’s eyes narrowed as she looked past me and threw Jean-Luc a look. Geez, woman. After a beat, the three women spoke at once.
“Are you sure? I mean …” said Lou.
“Go for it! I would,” said Dani.
“No way. You’re not ditching us,” said Jae.
Right, that settled it. I was going. “Thanks, Dan.” I grinned down at them. “So, I’ll see you guys later?”
Lou spoke up. “Cat, I’m not sure about this. You haven’t seen him in a long time. You don’t really know him anymore.”
“I’ve got his phone number,” Dani offered, helpfully.
“So, you are ditching us?” Jae talked right over Dani; she looked properly ticked off.
“Lou, like Dani said, she has his phone number …” Dani nodded, her chin perched casually on her hand. “And his name is Jean-Luc Caron, like Leslie Caron, the actress. And, I have my phone.” On the five-hour journey to Paris the day before, we’d all friended each other on Facebook and Lou had saved my number in her contacts. I had more than one lifeline to my friends in case I needed them—which I was sure I wouldn’t. “So, it’s all good, right?”
Lou shrugged, clearly still uncomfortable about me leaving with someone she considered a stranger. I flicked my eyes to Jaelee, who was glaring at me.
“What? You’d do the same thing.” The left side of her mouth tugged. “You would.”
“I would not ditch my new girlfriends—and Craig—on our one night out in Paris.” I seriously doubted that, but I didn’t have time to argue. I glanced at Craig, who’d been silent throughout the whole exchange.
“Craig?”
He smiled, good-naturedly. “Look, if I ran into my high school sweetheart in Paris, I’d totally go hang with her.”
“Craig, for you high school was a few months ago,” Dani pointed out.
He shrugged, “Still, though, what are the chances Cat was going to run into him? Or that Jaelee was going to accost Cat’s ex-boyfriend on the street?” Craig had a cheeky side—I loved it. Jaelee, not so much. She backhanded him in the chest with a “Hey!” And I almost corrected the “ex-boyfriend” part, but by then it was moot.
“So, I’m going …”
“But how will you get back? Are you meeting us at the coach at eleven?” Mama Bear Lou again.
“Hang on.”
I dashed back over to Jean-Luc. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“So, we’re staying at a campsite. It’s about thirty minutes out of the city and—”
“I’ll take you there.”
“You will?”
“Mais oui.”
“Excellent. Hold on.” I went back to my friends and took in the tableau of facial expressions. Lou still wasn’t entirely on board, Dani seemed wistful, and Jae looked like she’d sucked on a lemon. I told them I had a way back to the campsite and before I had to field any more protests, I returned to Jean-Luc and collected my bag from the back of my chair.
Jean-Luc unfolded from his chair and ran his hand through his hair. “Tout va bien?”
I nodded, grinning. It was impossible to play it cool with those eyes looking down at me, especially with the lovely crinkles.
***
Seeing Paris at night from a luxury coach with giant windows was fabulous. Seeing it from the back of a scooter, with my arms wrapped around a very taut torso, was even more so.
We stuck mostly to side streets, weaving through Paris’s inner arrondissements, a labyrinth of cobblestones and asphalt. We passed Musée d’Orsay, crossed the Seine at Pont Royal, and to our right was the Louvre. I pinched myself. I was in Paris.