Page 41 of Kiss & Collide
“Sorry, but I’m not budging until I eat something. I’m starving.”
“Okay, text me when you’re back at your hotel or whatev—Hey!”
She yelped when he took her by the arm and propelled her down the cobbled path next to him. “You might as well come with me.”
“But—”
“Quit being weird, Violet. We both need to eat. We might as well do it together. So.” He looked around. “I’ve never been here before. Where should we go?”
She heaved a sigh, then shifted her bag farther up on her shoulder. “I know a place on the Left Bank.”
17
Ten minutes later they were seated at a table next to the sidewalk, overlooking the river, with people streaming past.
“This place is so … pretty. The people, the architecture, thefood.” He gestured at the table next to them, where someone was dining on the most delicious-looking steak he’d ever seen. His stomach grumbled.
“Yeah, I love Paris.”
“So you said. You spend a lot of time here?”
She fidgeted in her seat. “It doesn’t—”
“Violet, are you a spy or something? Why can’t you ever talk about yourself?”
She smiled slightly and looked away, that closed-off, edgy thing she did when she was uncomfortable. “You’re not the first person to say that. Mira and Will like to say that I might be an international assassin.”
He nodded. “That tracks.”
“Guess I give off big murder energy.”
“Only when you’re hangry.” He nudged the bread basket toward her and she laughed. He was in good form today. He’d made her laugh twice.
He started again. “So.”
She plucked a piece of bread from the basket and tore it in two. “So.”
The waiter had left a carafe of red wine on the table so he filled a glass and slid it across the table to her. “Paris.”
She swiped it off the table and took a sip. “Ian. The, um … guy you met.”
“At Silverstone. Yeah, I remember.” Like it hadn’t been running in a loop in his imagination ever since.
“He’s in a band. Revenant Saints.”
Of course he was. Nothing had ever been more obvious. “Never heard of them,” he said, taking some petty pleasure in the fact that at least Ian wasn’t asuccessfulrock star.
“They’re not really your scene.”
“I’ve seen your record collection. I figured. Guess they’re not that well-known?”
“Promising, but still mid-level. No movie soundtracks and stadium tours. Not yet.”
“So, this band … Ian …” he prompted again.
“He and I dated.”
“I figured that part out, too.”
