“Sounds wild.” I laughed.
“Right.” He joined me, laughing merrily and openly. “I’m taking you on a wild ice-cream-eating adventure.”
His enthusiasm was just as contagious as his smile.
“I’d love that,” I agreed, once again.
Chapter 4
“HOW MANY TIMES HAVE you been to Paris?” Zeph asked as we walked along Boulevard de Clichy.
He kept the pace slow, and I liked the leisurely stroll. Fleur had told me not to hurry back to her place when she left Le Loup Solitaire on the arm of the dark-haired man, Louie, who didn’t leave her side all evening. I assured her I would take my time, and I was thoroughly enjoying every minute of it.
“I’ve been to the city about five or six times,” I replied. “But I’ve been to France more often than that, under the language exchange program. Fleur’s family lives in Bourges, south of here. They used to host me under the program. They took me to Paris on a few occasions. Now that Fleur is in university, she lives here, and I stay with her when I visit.”
I didn’t want to discuss my possible move with Zeph, since nothing was definite yet. Also, I was certain my life details wouldn’t be of interest to someone who had a voice of an angel and sang on stage at a cabaret.
“You must have seen all the touristy things by now, then?” he asked.
I nodded. “Pretty much. I’ve been exploring this city left, right, and center.”
“How about up and down then?” He tilted his head, gazing at me with those mesmerizing eyes.
“Um...” It wasn’t easy to focus with his attention directed at me this closely. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Come.” He tugged me by my hand to a small door leading to a basement, around the corner off Boulevard de Clichy.
“What’s here?”
“A wine bar, though not what you may expect. They don’t serve Champagne here. Instead, they have sparkling wine infused with strawberries. Lero would call it ‘in poor taste’. He doesn’t allow such cheesy stuff in his classy establishment. But I find it tastes delicious.”
THE STRAWBERRY INFUSED sparkling wine tasted delicious.
“I told you.” Zeph beamed at me when I confessed how much I liked it.
“Lero is missing out.” I giggled, the effervescence of the fragrant bubbles seemed to have risen from my glass to my brain.
“Lero is an old snob.” Zeph huffed a laugh. “And extremely old-fashioned. To him, things only have value if they have been properly aged. Wine, cheese, liquor, music... Even clothes.”
“Well, his clothes seem fashionable.” Lero’s smart three-piece suit came to mind. Visually, he didn’t appear to be much older than Zeph. But there were people born with old souls, weren’t there?
“He prefers a classic cut to his clothes.” Zeph shrugged. “Which doesn’t change dramatically over time.”
He had left his own suit jacket back at Le Loup Solitaire. The night was too warm for it, anyway.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Lero.” Zeph raked his hand through his silky blond hair, suddenly making me wonder what it would feel like between my fingers if I did the same. “He just makes himself such an easy target for jokes by being an insufferable snob about everything. Just try to call any sparkling wine ‘champagne’ in his presence, you’ll see the face he makes.”
“How long have you been working for him?” The relationship between these two seemed to be closer than that of an employee and a boss.
“Since I was old enough to sing in a cabaret.”
“Are you friends?”
“More than friends. We’re family. Lero raised me since I was six.”
“Six?” Surely, I didn’t hear him right. Lero didn’t seem to be older than thirty. Thirty-five maybe? With Zeph being probably in his mid-to-late twenties, I had no idea how Lero could have raised him if he most likely was still a child himself when Zeph was six. “Isn’t he about your age?”
“He’s older,” Zeph replied vaguely, and left it at that.
Well, I only ever saw Lero at night, in a pretty dark courtyard. There was a chance I judged his age incorrectly.
“Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” he replied, with a somber shadow quickly passing through his expression. “I don’t remember them at all.”
“What happened?” I ventured to ask. “Do you know how they died?”
“There was an accident,” was all he said, and it did not feel right to ask more after that. “How about your parents?” He changed the subject.
“Mine? Oh, they’re both alive and well. Both are happily married, although no longer to each other.” I smiled, making light out of what was a rather heavy situation for me when I was younger. I spent most of my childhood feeling guilty for spending time with either one of them while they battled each other for a larger share of custody of me. Then, when I was old enough to spend my time any way I pleased, they already had their new families, and I often felt like I was, if not exactly unwanted then at least not missed, if I didn’t show up at family functions and such. “They divorced when I was eight, remarried within a couple of years of each other, and started their new families. They’re happy.”
I took another sip of my “distasteful” drink.
“How about you?” he asked. “Are you happy, Ivy?
“Me? Sure I am. I work as a graphic designer, my dream job.”
My mother didn’t consider design a serious occupation, more like a hobby. I’d had a long fight with her over my decision to study it in college. She wanted me to become a lawyer, like my stepfather, or an accountant, like herself. But I stood my ground on that one. I knew I would be terrible in law or accounting. But that didn’t bother her, she simply wanted her daughter to be employed in one of those fields.
“Anyway,” I continued with an awkward one-shouldered shrug. “I’ve graduated, started my own business, and I’m doing well enough to afford a rented basement apartment in Toronto and a trip to Paris every second year.” I cheerfully raised my glass, ready to toast to my achievements. “I’ve got it all.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Zeph clinked his glass with mine.
IT MIGHT BE THE EFFECTS of the strawberry-infused “champagne.” Or maybe the heat of the summer night. Or, most likely, Zeph being right next to me, his arm wrapped around my waist, the warmth of his body seeping in to me through the thin material of his shirt. But everything inside me floated with effervescence of complete happiness as we strolled down a lit street after leaving the wine bar. There was no other place I would rather be at that moment than right here with him.
Zeph steered me into a side street, under an arch between two buildings.
“Shortcut,” he replied with a wink to my questioning gaze.
It occurred to me that I had no idea where we were supposed to be going at all.
“A shortcut to where?” I asked.
“You’ll see.” He gave me a teasing smile. “I promised to take you up and down, didn’t I? The wine bar was down, now I’ll have to take you—”