Page 69 of French Kiss

26

Get a Grip

July13

Paris - Sometime in the Morning

I didn’t tryto talk Shelby and Amrita out of coming to Paris. For one thing, it would have been pointless. Shelby stood second only to me in stubbornness once she set her mind on something, and we’d had plenty of showdowns to prove exactly who was less able to veer off a path. Usually, it ended in a draw. And the reality was that I welcomed the company.

“Don’t fight me on this,” Shelby said. “We’re coming. We’re only one country over. It’s a quick train to you. And you need us.”

“I do need you. I’m not gonna lie. I’m kind of a mess.”

“I know, it sucks. Plus, you probably barely slept, am I right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s making it worse. Try to take a nap. And if that won’t work, don’t fight it. Just go have some coffee and walk around. You’ll feel better. And we’ll see you in a few hours.”

I was still too wound up for a nap, but after showering and putting on fresh clothes, I did feel slightly better, so I went downstairs to the breakfast room and sat at one of the empty tables. I immediately heard a voice behind me, “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” The woman looked about my age, and mercifully, she was holding a cup and saucer out to me. In her black knee-length dress and white apron, she looked like a female version of the waiters I’d seen in many of the cafés. Her blond hair was braided down her back.

“Bonjour. Um… un café, s’il vous plaît,” I said, remembering how Josh had asked for coffee the night before. I felt a sharp pang, thinking about how happy I’d been then and how angry I still felt toward him now.

The woman returned a few minutes later with a pot of coffee and a small white pitcher of hot milk. I poured the coffee into the cup and watched the milk turn the liquid from dark brown to a medium chocolate color. For a while, I just stared at it, lost in thought. Or just lost.

But the first sip reminded me why I’d come to Europe in the first place. It wasn’t for a guy. It wasn’t for a fuck buddy or a friend or anyone else. It was for me.

I vowed from that point onward to make my trip the best it could be. For me. I had a little over two weeks before I had to come back to the real world of work and responsibilities. I couldn’t spare a single moment on regret. With each sip of the delicious hot coffee, my brain felt a little more alert and I felt a little better about what my next two weeks could bring.

A tray of pastries sat on a sideboard, croissants and pains aux raisins lined up in neat rows. I chose a croissant and sliced a chunk off a wide baguette next to the platter, adding a pat of butter and grabbing a small jar of strawberry jam to go on it. It was hard to believe I could have any appetite at all after the butter and sauces I’d already eaten, but since any semblance of a diet had been damned to hell days ago, I doubled down on the butter. It was not a struggle to down that plate of carbs.

Outside the window, I could see the waiters at the outside tables at Bar de la Marché, where just hours earlier, I’d huddled with Josh under the awning in the rain.

Damn him.

Thinking about him made me wistful for what might have been, but seeing the café in the light of day made it clear how much I’d been swept away by something that wasn’t real. How could I have misread that whole situation?

It would take a few more hours for the train from Amsterdam to arrive at the Gare du Nord, where I planned to meet Shelby and Amrita, so I took the time to walk around the city by myself. I needed to clear my head, and my best remedy for that was to take a long walk.

My biggest mistake had been turning a vacation into a quest for a romantic fling. Med school and residency had kicked my ass, which was part of why I’d wanted this trip to fulfill all my needs and wants. But those needs and wants never included a guy.

Somehow, I’d allowed Maddox to flip my script.

It had been ages since I’d been on a first date and experienced that nervous anticipation before a first kiss. The perfect moments I’d had with Josh the night before had satisfied that yearning, but it had all been based on my Paris dreams of romance and the rebound from rejection.

I saw that now.

If all I wanted was a Paris fling, I should have found some nice young French guy who’d be only too willing to satisfy my longing for a first kiss on a boat or under a bridge. There had to be thousands in this city who were available for just that purpose. That was all I needed, but I’d complicated things by trying to involve my closest friends.

Walking along the Seine, I let my expectations go.

I browsed at each stall of the bouquinistes—vendors who had green boxes set up to sell used books, posters, and memorabilia along the banks of the river. I’d read that French law gave each vendor ten meters of railing apiece along the river, and more than nine hundred of them were open daily, each selling slightly different antiquarian wares.

I must have browsed through a dozen of them, selecting an old cognac poster from one and a set of souvenir coasters with pictures of French monuments from another. I kept moving, trying to focus on sights and sounds, anything to prevent my mind from wandering back to Josh. Thinking about him was just too painful.

The water was calm, not yet disturbed much by the boats crushing through, and it reflected the sky and the historic buildings on both sides of the river. One building was under repair, so it was blanketed under a giant tarp, on which was painted a replica of how it would look once finished. At first glance, it was easy to mistake the picture for a real building facade.

It was late morning, so most Parisians were already at work, and the majority of the people walking alongside me were tourists, some taking selfies every few feet, others looking out at the views. I didn’t have a destination yet, but I had a vague sense of wanting to follow the river and see where I ended up, crossing over bridges when I felt like it and leaving the waterfront when I saw something interesting.

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