Page 9 of Christmas in Paris
His gaze settled on those lips, fully relaxed in sleep, beautifully full and gorgeously shaped. If he were a little braver, and a lot more inappropriate than he was, he would lean over and wake Simon up with a kiss. But that wasn’t the right way to think, nor was it good for him to think about how completely lovely the other man looked, relaxed and dreaming.
With a soft sigh, Ray shook his head and got out of bed, catching the towel and knotting it around his waist before it fell. The towel Simon had wrapped around him. Because Simon was awesome, and Ray was a creep.
The hotel room had a little French press and an electric kettle, and Ray got himself dressed and then put on some coffee. An apology, which is what he was going to have to give, always went better with coffee, he figured.
The sun was starting to show its face, shining tentative golden light through the window when the coffee was ready. At the same time, Simon started to stir, and Ray closed his eyes briefly and wondered if he should maybe try to pretend that he didn’t remember what had happened. But he did know right from wrong, at least most of the time, and he took a deep breath and then opened his eyes with a slight smile towards Simon’s bed.
“Hey. Good morning,” Ray said, trying to sound calm, although a swarm of hornets seemed to have taken up residence in the pit of his stomach. He poured a cup of coffee and held it up, an olive branch, of sorts. “I made coffee. How do you take it?”
“Black, please,” Simon replied, looking at Ray with just a hint of wariness. Clearly, he remembered the awkwardness of the night before, too, but Ray was going to make sure that he knew that he had nothing to worry about.
He brought the coffee right to Simon in bed, then settled down on his own with a mug cradled in his own hands. There was no sense in beating around the bush. Just get it over with, and if Simon wanted to send him home, then so be it.
“I’m sorry,” he said bluntly, looking directly at Simon, although his urge was to drop his gaze. “It won’t happen again.”
There was a long pause where they just looked at each other, neither of them speaking, but then, just when Ray was sure that he would be sent home, after all, Simon let out a long sigh, and his hazel-eyed gaze dropped down to his coffee.
“I accept your apology, even though I’m not sure you needed to apologize,” Simon replied. “It’s not like I didn’t want to kiss you. I wanted to do a whole lot more than just kiss you.”
Ray took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. He was so far out of his depth at the moment. The night before, dazed and exhausted, it had seemed so easy, but now it was a different situation. He just wasn’t the sort of guy that sat around and had conversations about kissing, and more, with other men.
“But you know it can’t happen again,” Simon continued, much to Ray’s relief. Simon had said it first, so he didn’t have to figure out how to say it himself. “It would be completely inappropriate. And I’m not interested in a relationship.”
It was blunt, to the point, and a complete and utter relief to Ray. He hadn’t even considered the whole relationship angle, but hearing Simon say that made him realize that he had dodged a bullet here. If Simon had been another sort of person, he might have thought that Ray was signing up for more than he was even remotely comfortable with.
“Same here,” Ray replied fervently. “There is exactly one relationship in my life that really matters to me, and it’s with Ashley. Besides, I’m not relationship material. And I’m straight.” He paused, then let out a soft laugh. “Okay. Well. I’m starting to think I’m not entirely straight but mostly.”
“The most beautiful ones do seem to be straight. What a tragedy,” Simon replied, but with such overblown melodrama that it was impossible to take him seriously. So Ray did the only thing he could do and laughed, and so did Simon. It seemed that he was forgiven.
“So we’re agreed, then. It was a weird thing that happened, and neither of us wants it to happen again,” Ray said, encouraged by Simon’s nod. Just like that, it seemed, Ray’s only same-sex experience was discounted and swept under the rug.
And that was exactly what he wanted. Right?
* * *
The list of places that Ray wanted to go in Paris was pretty long. Honestly, he had spent a lot of time cruising through travel blogs and Instagram pictures, because that was as close as he would ever get to getting to Paris, he’d always figured. But here he was, and he had definite ideas about where he wanted to go like the Louvre, the Champs-Elysees, L’Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s tomb, numerous art galleries and castles, and so on and so forth.
Of course, the kids weren’t as interested in any of that. For their very first full day in Paris, there was one place and one place only that would satisfy them. It was probably predictable, and if Ray had been seventeen years old, he was sure he would have been right there with them.
They went right at opening, and the lineups were still ridiculous. But then, when people thought of Paris, mostly what they thought of first off was the Eiffel Tower, so it probably wasn’t surprising that it was a little bit packed.
It wasn’t that bad, though. Ray chatted with the kids, and they kept each other entertained. The line moved quickly, which made sense since this was one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city. These people knew what they were doing, and before Ray knew it, they were right under the famous tower.
Okay, so he had to admit that, now that he was here, he understood what the big deal was all about. It was the perfect marriage of graceful and strong, and like it or not, something stirred inside of him. He was standing where probably millions of other people had stood. It was hard not to feel the weight of history.
Then they were at the front of the line, and Ray took a deep breath and glanced over at Simon. Ray spoke maybe two words of French, on a good day. Luckily for him, he was with Simon, who spoke it fluently enough that he could teach it.
“Hello,bonjour,” the clearly bored woman at the desk said.
“Bonjour, Madame,” Simon replied smoothly, and Ray found it was almost all he could do not to gape at him like an idiot. Had he ever heard anything so sexy in his entire life? Granted, Ray wasn’t an expert or anything, but to him, Simon’s French seemed to be every bit as good as any Parisian.
What Simon was saying, of course, Ray had no idea. But he handed over the money, and they were soon in an elevator going up the side of the tower to the first floor, which was already way high off the ground.
As they stepped off, he told himself that he had already forgotten about how much Simon speaking the incredibly beautiful language had shaken him. After all, it wasn’t like it was a surprise. The man was a French teacher. It would be odd if he didn’t speak the language. But logic couldn’t change the fact that he had had a sudden, and very strange but not unwelcome, thought that he would like to hear what French dirty talk sounded like.
“Dad!”
Just as Ray was going to turn to Simon, he was saved by the sound of his daughter’s voice. What he even would have said to Simon, he didn’t know.Hey, how do you say ‘I want to fuck your brains out’ in French?Yeah, that would go over well. That whole concept of himself as a straight man was going to have to go right out the window at this point.
