Page 73 of Love In Provence
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asks, and I shake my head.
‘You?’
He shakes his head too.
At least we’re being civil to each other, but I’m overwhelmed with sadness. How did we get here?
‘Café?’ he asks.
‘I have lavender tea,’ I tell him.
He goes into the kitchen, returns with his own coffee and sits down. And here we are, back where we started, on the terrace.
‘He would have hated seeing us come to this,’ says Fabien, looking out over the field.
‘He would,’ I agree.
And we fall into silence.
‘I didn’t mean to kiss him or let him kiss me,’ I say. ‘I was angry. He was in my face and it just sort of happened. It wasn’t a kiss, it was more like a challenge. He was challenging me, seeing if I was stupid enough to fall for him and go to bed with him. He was laughing at me.’
I can see Fabien’s fists curl, his jaw set.
‘And what about Monique?’ I’m not the only one in the wrong here.
‘It was just a kiss,’ he says quietly, his face set.
I feel the distance opening between us once more. Like the tide that comes in, then recedes. ‘So you said.’ I wait for more.
‘I stopped it before it went any further.’
‘The night of the party?’
He nods.
This time it’s my turn to feel angry and hurt.
‘I stopped it because hers were not the lips I wanted to be kissing. I knew it as soon as they landed on mine. It just told me everything I needed to know, to be sure. I just wanted to be with you.’
Tears spring to my eyes.
‘And me you,’ I say, my hand reaching across the table to meet his.
‘It’s always been you, just you,’ he says, and stands.
‘And it’s always been you,’ I say, as he pulls me towards him, like a magnet.
‘I shouldn’t have gone on the tour,’ he says.
My body is feeling more alive than it has in weeks. The aches and pains of the last few days are forgotten.
‘I should never have told you to go, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel being with me was some kind of a mistake, that you missed being with your friends.’
‘I have never regretted for one moment being with you. Well, maybe when you sent me off on that tour bus so that I had to sleep in a van and a tent for the past four weeks.’
‘If I’ve learned one thing, it is to appreciate what we have here.’
‘And that we need to make time for each other,’ he says.
