“It is not as simple as you might suspect to find a French book in this land of yours. It took me all day.”

I looked up at him, too amazed for words. So was that why he wasn’t in school? Because he was hunting down this book for me? For me… Truly, I did not deserve such thoughtfulness.

“But why?” I asked, cowed. “You didn’t have to do this. It was my fault my old book got ruined…”

“No!” he snapped, the anger in his voice impossible to mistake.

My hands clutched the book and I peeped up at him. His jaw was clenched for a moment and he shook his head sternly. I saw his hands tighten on the wheel, his knuckles paling.

But when he spoke again, his voice was softer, though his tone was grave. “No. It was my fault, little one. I never should have allowed you to place yourself in that situation. I was a fool to think I could stand to see you come to harm. I was near enough to prevent it, but I did not. It was I who failed to protect you from yourself.”

He turned his face to me and swept the sunglasses up over his hair. His eyes were soft, beseeching. A look I’d never seen him give anyone but me. He reached across and laid his fingertips tenderly over mine on the book. “This is the least I could do.”

I exhaled deeply, feeling my heart flutter. “I love it,” I whispered. I looked back down, turning through the pages, admiring an illustration plate of the Phantom and Christine singing Don Juan Triumphant on the Paris Opera stage. I tried to translate the caption at the bottom of the image using my learnings from two years of Monsieur Cousteau’s French classes, but it was hard going. I let out a wistful sigh. “I just wish my French was better, so that I could really read it properly… as it’s meant to be read.”

Riley’s attention was back on the road, but I saw the corners of his lips twitch in smirk. “I could offer you my services as a tutor.”

I felt my face grow hot again. If I blushed anymore today, I was going to start getting light headed from all the blood rushing up and down inside of me! My thoughts immediately drifted off into a fantasyland of after-school hours spent with Riley, alone, learning French from his lips… reading Phantom together. I couldn’t picture anything closer to heaven!

I knew I should answer him somehow, but what does one say in the face of such a dream come true?

“It’s perfect,” I managed. And it was. The perfect gift from the perfect boy.