Page 4 of Christmas in Paris
“I’ll make the arrangements then,” Simon offered. “And call you when we’re all set. Thank you. I really owe you one.”
Ray couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. He had come here expecting to have to humiliate himself, to beg and plead and do whatever it took to get what he needed for his daughter. But instead, this incredible opportunity just dropped into his lap, and he found himself wondering if the whole pinching yourself to see if you’re awake deal worked.
“Simon,” he murmured fervently, and only after he’d said it did he wonder if he should have avoided using the other man’s first name. Was it too familiar? But with what this man had given to him, he couldn’t regret it, either. “You have no idea how happy I am to do this.”
He reached for Simon’s hand to shake it again, and the strangest thing happened. It had happened the first time, too. It was just that he hadn’t noticed because he’d been so anxious about what he was going to have to do to pick up on it.
But now, without that anxiety, filled only with relief and pure, brilliant joy, he noticed. There was this sort of zinging feeling, like the shock of static electricity but more intense and far more pleasurable. The blood raced through his body and rushed to his cheeks as he looked, really looked, at Simon for the first time.
Into guys or not, Simon was quite objectively lovely. It wasn’t weird for him to notice that he figured. It was the same as he was able to appreciate a nice sunset or a painting and that didn’t mean he wanted to sleep with it.
Those eyes were something else, though. They might look brown, but when you looked closely, as Ray was now, little flecks of green and gold shimmered there. And Simon was the same height as Ray so that they could gaze right into each other’s eyes, linked through that gaze as much as by the handshake, with no effort at all.
It was ridiculous, just a strange little blip in his brain, but he couldn’t help but wonder if that hair, so dark a brown that it was almost midnight black, was as soft as it looked? It was a bizarre thought, so similar to ones that he had had about women before, but it was foreign to him because this was a man. So obviously a man.
Weird stuff happened in his brain sometimes, though, and there was no doubt that he wasn’t thinking straight right at the moment. He was just too happy. So he pushed it aside, nothing more than an anomaly. It wasn’t likely that it was going to happen again, after all.
Still, he found it harder than usual to look away from the other man’s eyes, and that was also strange. It was so easy just to let himself get lost in them, and he had to wonder, in a dim, unfocused kind of way, just how long he had been standing there staring at Simon?
And Simon was staring right back. Maybe Ray was insane, but it seemed to him that Simon hardly seemed to mind. If anything, it was like he was just as fascinated with Ray as Ray was with Simon. Not that that was likely.
“Good,” Simon murmured, and for just a second, Ray found himself wondering if Simon was flirting with him. But there was just no way in hell. They both knew how inappropriate that would be, and besides, Ray wasn’t interested in men or even in a relationship.
Not that anyone was talking about relationships here. But wow, why did he keep thinking like this? Why couldn’t he put these odd ideas out of his head? He was finding it harder to breathe normally, and it occurred to him suddenly that they were both still standing there, hand in hand, in a posture that might normally be all business but at the moment felt a little bit too achingly intimate.
But neither of them pulled away, and time stretched on and became something meaningless. If Simon had seemed disturbed by it, Ray might have felt self-conscious, but as it was, they were just two people looking into each other’s eyes, and it was easy just to let it happen.
How long they might have stood there, Ray didn’t know. Objectively, it probably hadn’t even been that long. But then the bell rang, signaling that school was going to start in a few minutes, and Ray almost jumped out of his skin as he was pulled rudely and rather abruptly back to himself.
“Thank you,” Ray said, his voice a bit rushed and breathless, and if he’d been entirely himself, he probably wouldn’t have pulled his hand back from Simon as quickly as he did. It was a little rude or could have come off that way. But there had been something which had passed between them which had shaken him to the core, in a way that he just wasn’t used to.
Not that it had meant anything, he told himself, as he made his way out of the school. He didn’t run into Ashley or any of her friends, which was good because he knew that it would have embarrassed his daughter. Of course, he was going to have a conversation with her later, but that would be in private, and that made a huge difference.
It was only later when he was alone that it all started to sink in. It became harder and harder for him to try to pretend to himself that he hadn’t been—he had to face it—checking Simon out. As in, if Simon had been a woman, there could have been no doubt that Ray was interested.
What did it mean? It took a lot to shake Ray up, but his intense reaction to the gorgeous French teacher was doing it. It was like he couldn’t get the guy out of his mind, and that was the sort of thing that Ray didn’t know how to deal with. No matter what he did, his brain invariably swung back to Simon, to that moment between them, which had somehow both gone on forever and been over way too soon at the same time.
It was weird, but it would just take some time and then fade out of his head, Ray knew that much. It wasn’t the first time in his life he’d gotten an infatuation, and the fact that it was, for the first time, with another man, didn’t change much, did it? The general principles were the same.
He had five days to get over it, though, and that should be more than enough time. He was going to need to be, if not friends, then at least on friendly terms with Simon, since they would be spending a lot of time together over the next month. That shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. Simon seemed like a nice guy.
Even if it was awkward, though, it was worth it. Ray had always wanted to travel and had never been able to do much of it. This was his first chance in decades, and he wasn’t letting anything stand in his way.
The first thing to do was to get over this fascination. It wasn’t like it was even a sexual thing. He tried to comfort himself. It was probably just that Simon was so charismatic. People probably fell in love with him all the time, but in Ray’s case, at least, it was entirely platonic.
It was, all in all, no big deal. And by the time he went to bed, he had almost gotten his logical brain convinced of that. But that didn’t explain why, as he drifted off, he found himself helpless to stop himself from going back to that classroom.
Chapter Four
Simon
Over the years, how many fathers had Simon met? Dozens. Hundreds, probably. And how many of them had been, objectively speaking, attractive to him? That brought down the numbers quite a bit, but there were still more than a few. He would be the first to admit, to himself, if nothing else, that a good looking guy could turn his head.
Ray Myers was no different than any of them, and Simon had never gotten himself into trouble by going after one of them before. He wasn’t about to start now.
By the time the five days had passed, Simon was sure that he had pushed Ray out of his mind completely. After all, it had been a very busy few days, tracking down parents and getting them to pay him back for the tickets as they had committed to doing. There were all sorts of last-minute obstacles to clear, but in the end, here he was, in the airport, way too early in the morning.
He’d done it. It had been a near thing, but he’d pulled it off. Every single one of the kids who had signed up for this trip was here, and he, by some miracle, had managed to collect all the money for it, too.
