Page 31 of Cowgirls Love French Kisses
I take another drink, the beer bitter on my tongue. Clément's watching me, waiting.
Now the words come, even if I don’t want them to. “She doesn’t know me.”
“And you don’t know her. And you won’t know her as long as you stay hidden in plain sight.”
“What do I say? Do I just walk up to her and go, ‘Oh! Funny bumping into you here! How have you been?’”
Clément tips his head left and right. “Sure, that’s not bad.”
“‘And by the way, I’ve been watching you most days since I learned where you worked.’”
Clément grimaces. “That’s a little creepy.” He takes a loud sip of his beer.
“‘And I haven’t stopped thinking of you since I left you sleeping in my bed.’”
Clément spits a good part of his beer back into his glass. “Since you WHAT?”
I sigh. “It’s not what you think.”
“It sounds exactly like what I think.”
“Nothing happened. She slept.”
“That’snotwhat I’m talking about.” He leans forward on his elbows. “You left her behind? While sheslept?”
“In the hotel room on that first night, yeah.”
“But… But…” He shakes his head. “Why, man,why?”
Clément's words splash proverbial ice water over me. How can I explain to a man like Clément—the embodiment of confidence and ease—the doubts that have been gnawing at me since I was left behind a year ago? How can I confess that her leaving felt like a confirmation of everything I ever feared?
I see the expectation in Clément's eyes, the patient waiting for an answer, and I'm at a loss. I've always been better with numbers and plans, not this tangled mess of emotions.
Clément, sensing my struggle, leans in, his voice a low, conspiratorial rumble.
“Mon grand,” he says, “this is why you came back to Paris, remember? To be with your friends, so you wouldn't be stewing alone in the suburbs, nursing a broken heart over a marriage that was never meant to be.”
My shock must be written clear across my face because he chuckles and nudges my shoulder.
“Don't look so stunned, Mathieu. Most of us saw it coming. It was always a question of 'when,' not 'if.' The only thing we didn't know was whether it would end before you were thousands deep in wedding bills.”
I take a long pull from my beer. Clément's bluntness, a trait I've often envied, lays it all out in the open. He's right, of course. I moved back to Paris to heal, to find myself again in the city that has always felt like home. But instead of moving on, I've been hiding in the shadows. Literally.
I rest my elbows on the table, my face in my hands.
“I know. I know.” This is the most I can admit, even though I know it goes much further than that.
But fear is a hard habit to break.
The edges of the bar around me blur and I could kick myself for allowing the sensation to overtake me. Clément's arm comes to rest around my shoulders.
“Is it that you're not overher?” he asks, nodding to the invisible ghost of my past.
I shake my head. “No, it's not her. It's me.” I can’t lift my eyes from the table. “How could I have gotten it so wrong? And everyone else saw it coming.”
Clément gives a philosophical shrug. “Maybe we could have been wrong. Butshenever blended into your life. She kept herself apart.” He leans back, eyeing me with a seriousness I've rarely seen from him. “She was never anything like Annie. In just one dinner, she was all in, sharing stories, laughing along with every bad joke. I learned more about her in one night than in all the years I knew your ex.”
He pauses, letting the words hang between us before he delivers his final push. “That's why you've got to talk to her, Mathieu.”
