Page 59 of Your Rhythm
14What I Like About You || The Romantics
KAY
“Poutine.”
I roll onto my side to face a shirtless Matt Pearson as he comes striding out of the bathroom in my creaky studio apartment. I wait for him to elaborate.
“We need to get poutine.”
“Weneedto?” I repeat.
He grins. “Come on. Don’t tell me you’ve never hit up La Banquise at four in the morning after a drunken hookup. Post-sex poutine is like a Montreal ritual.”
He’s not wrong. I’ve ended more than one night on the town at the famous twenty-four hour poutine joint.
“True,” I agree, “but neither of us is drunk and La Banquise is halfway across the city. Also, it’s eleven at night. Where are we going to find poutine in Verdun at eleven?”
Verdun is one of the city’s boroughs, and so far away from downtown it’s not even on the actual island of Montreal. This apartment was the best deal I could find on rent, though. I didn’t want roommates, and every other studio in this price range was sketchy enough I felt like I’d be signing my life away along with the lease.
“I’ll Google it.”
Matt grabs his phone and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. I hug the blankets to my naked chest and inchworm my way over to get a look at the screen.
“There!” he says, pulling up the details for a place just a few blocks away. “Open until 1AM.”
“That does not look like a great place to eat,” I tell him, but I start pulling my clothes on anyway.
We head off down the sidewalk, dodging the spray of water that threatens to douse us every time a car passes by. Spring is finally here to stay, and everything is melting, pooling in the dark roads and making the asphalt glimmer under the streetlamps. I take a deep breath in, and somehow even the congested city air smells fresh.
Matt’s heavy footsteps fall beside mine. This is the second time I’ve seen him this week. At first I was paranoid about someone finding out, but his assurance that PR teams and tabloid crews don’t care what he gets up to if it doesn’t involve Ace turned out to be correct.
We met for coffee the first time and were heading to my place less than an hour later. His was much closer, but I felt way too weird getting it on knowing JP might be at home.
I made it clear a sleepover wasn’t in the cards, but we still had much more time than at the hotel, and he certainly knew how to fill it. I don’t think my body has ever ached for someone the way it does for him. He teases me so well I almost lose my mind, writhing and begging for more underneath him at just the hint of his fingers on my skin.
Maybe I have lost my mind already. Maybe I never had it to begin with. Either way, I couldn’t even wait forty-eight hours before texting him to come over and greeting him naked at the door. That led to making creative use of nearly every surface in my apartment and culminated on our current impromptu poutine trip.
“I hope we don’t get food poisoning,” I tell him, as we step under the neon sign of a greasy lookingcasse-croûte.
“Where is your sense of adventure, Kay?” he asks as he opens the door for me. “You’re a journalist.”
“I write the arts section.”
“Making the perfect poutineisan art.”
The basket of gravy and cheese covered fries they set down in front of us fifteen minutes later is far from perfect. I spear a potato with my fork and bring it closer for inspection.
“I’m pretty sure this gravy is at least seventy percent water.”
Matt shrugs. “Looks fine to me.”
He picks up his own fork and starts to shovel fries into his mouth five at a time, only pausing for half a second between mouthfuls.
“Oh. My god.”
He swallows with an audible gulp and looks at me innocently. “What?”
“You! You’re an animal. You just ate half the basket in like two seconds.”
