“You’re still converting the hours back to US time?”
She nods, and a sad look passes over her eyes. “Maybe I always will.”
“That’s not a bad thing. Your family is there. Your point zero is the United States, and all your references are across an ocean.”
“But I’m here,” she says, her pitch rising as she digs her heels in, “and I want to feel like I belong.”
My eyes roam her body, her silhouette framed by the river behind her. Her red hair blows in the breeze. She is an oddity, a bold, bright, brash American woman in this European place that’s both ancient and thoroughly modern. Paris is full of curiosities, and I’m pretty sure she’s one of them. “I think you belong here,” I tell her with a warm smile.
Her eyes light up, glittering. As I look into them, it occurs to me they’re a color I’ve never seen before. The green is vibrant, but not overwhelming. Those are not emerald eyes. That would feel unreal, like a template for fake contacts. Hers are a sage green, and I can’t look away.
I swallow as if I can drink down this flare of desire I feel for her that’s physical but also something more. There’s some fine thread connecting us, though I don’t know what it is. I’m not sure how to name it.
Or if I want to.
All I know is I like it—too much for my own good.
“I can show you all the sundials I know of,” I say, and the words come out like gravel. I clear my throat. Fuck, it sounds like I invited her to bed. Maybe that’s what I meant to do.
“I would love that,” she says, tapping my arm. She squeezes my bicep. “But I’m going to need to teach you something. It’s not fair that you’re doing all the work.”
“It’s not work. It’s all pleasure.” Especially with her hand on my arm.
“Be that as it may, I will have to take my turn showing you something you might not know about this city. Like exploring the flower markets?”
I’d pretty much say yes to any place she wanted to take me right now. “You smell like a flower. Like some tropical plant,” I blurt out.
Taking her hand from my arm, she runs it down her neck. I want that hand to be my tongue. “It’s a new perfume. Do you want to smell me?”
I nearly wobble in my shoes. I want to smell her, taste her, touch her. I want to lick her from her ankles to her thighs. I want to press my lips to the hollow of her throat.
“I do,” I rasp out.
She lifts her chin and gently taps the side of her neck.
I dip my head toward the crook of her neck, bending until my nose is inches away from her bare flesh. The scent of lush gardens floats into my nose as I close my eyes and draw a deep breath. My skin heats, and my bones hum. My nerve endings snap to attention.
Along with other parts.
My nose brushes against her skin, and a quiet noise seems to escape her throat. A hitch in her breath. As I draw one more delicious inhale, that sound shifts to a murmur, and I can picture her wrapping her hands around the back of my head, yanking me close, and urging me to lavish attention all over her neck, up to her ear, then to those lips I don’t want to resist.
But I do resist.
I step away. “It’s getting late. I believe you still have scissors and a laundry-drying rack to procure.”
“And I thought you were an expert errand avoider.”
“It is a top skill of mine, but I can’t wait to hear you ask for scissors in French.”
She blinks. “I have to perform in French for you?”
I laugh. “Yes. Hop to it.”
She’s not half bad at the store when I teach her how to ask for the items she needs. Once we leave, she fixes me with a serious stare. “I really owe you after all you’ve done for me today.”
I shake my head. “You showed me something I’ve never seen before. That’s pretty impressive.”
She scoffs. “Spotting one little angel statue hardly compares to you treating me to ice cream, a clock, and your astonishing switcheroo skills when it comes to words.”
“I don’t agree. I think we’re even.”
“Hardly,” she says, doubtful.
“Look at it this way—you kept me company on a Sunday afternoon when I might otherwise have been tempted to do something dreadfully boring, like dishes.”
“If you say so.”
“By the way, what is that tropical flower you smell like? My nose is terrible. I can’t distinguish scents at all.”
“Was it a flower?” A flirty little smile crosses her lips. “Or was it the scent of the Sunday afternoon when you devoured ice cream and wandered through the city until the clock ticked close to twilight, and your companion wondered how she could ever thank you?”
My throat goes dry. My skin heats.
This woman.
We stop at a street corner along the Seine. I step closer to her, savoring the view of her pretty face for one last moment. A streetlamp glows softly behind her, a halo of light framing her copper hair. “If you insist, I’m sure you’ll find a way to repay me somehow,” I say, then I do what the French do. I kiss her right cheek then her left, catching one final inhale of today, then I say good-bye.
The truth is she doesn’t owe me a thing. As I walk home, I let my mind replay the afternoon with her. Someday, when I’m searching for lost hours, these are the ones I’ll want to find.
13
Joy
“What time does the nearest cheese shop close?”
I pose the question to Google in French as I near my office building on Thursday of that same week.
Like a responsive robot, she answers me. “The nearest cheese shop is on Rue Cler,
