The waiter greeted us with that French courtesy, not smiling, but not not smiling either: calm, reserved, and competent. I couldn’t help noticing he was drop-dead gorgeous as he pulled a table out far enough that my hiney barely even grazed the edges of our neighbors’ plates when I squeezed into a corner. (They smiled, flicked a piece of lettuce off my tush, and said that was quite all right.) Very nicely formed biceps eased the table back to lock me in and let my friend’s sister, Tory, sit down. I saw black hair, a five o’clock shadow, and a long, lean, well-muscled body all in a flash. Wow, I just had time to think, and then the menus were on our table, and he was gone to bring somebody a bottle of wine.

Tory, a cute and slender brunette, fit right in with this crowd, except for the daypack she had insisted on bringing with her and the worried look on her face. The worried look was either due to the cramped seating and aged decor or to the fact that her seat left her back to the waiter. Then again, it might have been the SEX SHOP sign we could still see flashing through the window. “I hope this is okay,” I said. “Valérie has great taste in restaurants usually. Anyway, even if the food is bad, that waiter is really cute.”

“One to ten?” Tory asked promptly.

“Over,” I said, looking at him again. “This guy is seriously gorgeous. Look at him. Look at the way he moves.” He was negotiating the tight quarters and multiple demands with a sexy economy of motion, and never once did he even brush against a table, let alone knock something over.

“He’s French, though,” Tory pointed out.

“Well, I’m only looking. I’m not stupid. Of course I wouldn’t actually try to date him.”

“Because the French cheat,” Tory said. “Everybody knows it.”

“And they’re male chauvinists,” I agreed firmly. “Everybody knows that, too. Plus, he’s probably gay. Plus, who would want to get involved with someone who lives in this stupid city? Look at the way he opened that bottle of wine. Isn’t that beautiful?” He moved with such no-nonsense smoothness, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be that sophisticated, that graceful. A Polynesian-style armband of a tattoo peeked out from under the short sleeve of his pressed black shirt as he pulled the cork from the wine, hard muscle flexing just a bit to hold the bottle steady as he did so.

“He probably is gay,” Tory agreed with pseudo-regret. She was only spending three days here, so what did she care? “If he’s that cute and he’s got a sense of style.”

“Well, he’s Parisian. He could be well dressed and straight. The thing is—”