Page 55 of The Paris Roommates: Dean
Madison looked over from something bubbling on the stove as the rest of his roommates shifted on their feet. “I did. I figured you might appreciate it tonight. Dean, you’re going to do great.”
Positivity from Madison too? God, theywerereally worried, like the-nukes-were-about-ready-to-be-launched worried. “I know we joked about sending me off with a Jane Austen chaperone before, but does anyone want to tag along to make sure I don’t f— Sorry, Nanine, mess this up?”
“I will, Dean,” Pierre called with a happy squawk.
“I considered it, buddy,” he told the parrot, “but then I’d have to switch the venue, and I think my original idea is the right one.” God, he hoped so. “We’ll find out.”
Nanine wandered over and cupped his fresh-shaven cheeks—another move that made his throat tighten. Were the women in his life trying to destroy him?
“Dean, you are our dreamer, our Second Course,” she told him softly. “You are incapable of such a thing. Make Jacqueline laugh and ask her questions about herself, as one does when two people are first getting to know each other. The details will emerge.”
“Meaning don’t ask her balls out if she’s in some feud with her sister,” Madison summarized. “Sorry for the balls reference, Nanine. It’s an Americanism that seemed apt.”
He looked over to Kyle, Thea, and Sawyer. “You guys haven’t said anything. Last chance. A quote, Doc? Perhaps from a Medici?”
Sawyer pushed up his glasses and tapped his chin. “That’s a tough one—”
“Let me make this easy for you.” Kyle crossed the space between them and extended a hand. “Do what you do best—make people feel comfortable enough to talk and share details about themselves. It’s why you’re our roommate and best friend and a business partner in The Paris Roommates Group.”
Dean shook his hand and sighed. “Thanks for the pep talk. Thea, do you want to give a cheer as I leave?”
She froze and then shoved her arms stiffly into the air. “Dean, Dean, he’s our man. You… Go!”
“I’m leaving.” They were scraping the bottom of the barrel here. “I’ll see you later since I know you’ll want to hear how it went.”
He walked out before anyone could hug or kiss him or give him any more good wishes. Outside, he moved several steps down the alley and then bent over at the waist, the nerves winning at last. He would give himself a moment to pull himself together before he called an Uber.
“That is a fascinating posture,” he heard a familiar voice say. “Or do you Americans always stretch before a date?”
When he drew himself back up, Jean Luc was smiling at him. “Hello to you too. Bro, I am fighting the urge to run away and join the circus since you asked.”
His brow knit. “I will have to ask Thea what this means. Dean, you will be fine, I am sure. You never lack for words, and Jacqueline has already gone out with you twice. That is something, let me assure you. You must have game if you can romance a French woman. That is how you say it, no?”
A giant inspirational boost from Jean Luc as well? “Wow! I’m racking up niceties, but this one I deeply appreciate. I hadn’t thought about what a French woman is used to from you French guys.”
He gave a Gallic shrug. “We are a people of deep romance, love, and passion, what can I say? Good luck tonight, my friend.”
With a clap to his back, Jean Luc took off down the alley toward the back door of the restaurant. Dean hired an Uber and then gave himself a firm talking-to while he waited for it to arrive. Jacqueline had insisted they meet at the restaurant, and given the state of his nerves, he hadn’t argued that it would be just as easy for him to pick her up. The drive to Montmartre was its usual slog through traffic, and thirty-five minutes later, he arrived, his muscles locked with tension.
Again, she was waiting for him in front of the restaurant, wearing one of those fabulous flowing red dresses that French women had cornered the market on in fashion and movies. She drew the white cashmere shawl around her shoulders as he stepped out onto the curb and thanked the driver. Did his eyes deceive him, or had she lit up at the sight of him?
“You look absolutely ravishing,” he greeted her in French as she walked to him, a soft smile on her slightly red lips. “Next time, I’ll try and beat you here. Do we actually kiss or do the cheek thing? Because I really like the way we ended our evening the other night. I’ve thought of little else.” Except for the cave thing and his need to ferret details out of her.
That sexy mouth shifted into amusement. “A kiss would be fine, I think.”
He cupped her elbows and leaned down until their mouths touched softly. A frisson of calm went through him, and he drew her close afterward, holding her against his body. “It is very nice to see you, Jacqueline.”
“You as well,” she answered, putting her hand to his chest and fingering his T-shirt. “What do you have on tonight, I wonder?”
He flicked open his jacket. “It’s from one of my roommates.”
“A nice guy,” she read in her sexy French. “That’s another bold statement. There aren’t too many of those in the world.”
He almost gulped. Hopefully after tonight, she’d still believe he was one of them. “I figure it’s not as fun or nice to be a ‘dick,’ as we’d say in English.”
She moved closer to him as a gigantic couple passed them on the sidewalk, looking as if they’d come from the annual hurling contest in Scotland. “Actually, I don’t know that word in French,” she said in English. “Maybeenculéorcon. Both are not to be said lightly.”
He thought of Nanine and her no-swearing rule. “Noted. But seriously, who would be friends with a guy like that anyway? I prefer to have people like me. It makes life easier.”
