“Sure, but—is that legal in Paris?” If he could wear a Hawaiian shirt, why couldn’t I wear feathers?

“It’s black,” he said. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to anyone? You look like you’re all by yourself.”

“I have friends,” I said. “I do. They just all abandoned me an hour ago.”

He raised an eyebrow. When I tried to do this, I managed a rather comical curve over one eye. His eyebrow shot up into a diabolically elegant triangle. Tall, muscled, black hair, chiseled, perfect masculine face, long lashes, laughing dark eyes, and eyebrows he could raise independently . . . what the heck was this guy doing off a movie set? And with me?

“They wanted to leave me alone with you,” I muttered, acutely uncomfortable. He was so sexy with that eyebrow, even if he was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and I was so lame sometimes. My friends were lame. They should have come along and protected me. Okay, except for Eva, who was really dying to.

“I think I like your friends,” he said and slipped an arm around my waist. “Two tickets,” he told the woman behind the plastic window.

“I’ll get it. It was my invitation.”

He laughed and slipped his bank card across the counter. It was so annoying for him to keep paying when he had to be as broke as I was, if he was waiting tables nights to pay for school. I would have to pay with a card, too, but at least I was going to win the lottery one of these days. The immaculately coiffed, anorexic clerk stopped scowling at the sight of him and tried to catch his eye. “And it was a great idea, crevette.”

At the second use of crevette, I finally paid attention. Crevette meant—shrimp. My friends had thought this was a hilarious joke when I was in grade school, too. I had never really hit my growth spurt. “I am not a crevette,” I said firmly.

His mouth twitched. “Well, it’s not like you’re very big.”

I gave him The Look. “Find another nickname.”

“Hmm.” He gave the clerk a friendly smile that made her swoon over onto the counter at an angle highlighting her cleavage. Oblivious, he typed his code into the machine she slid toward him—her breasts thrust up—and took the tickets. “What is crevette in English?”

“None of your business.”

“Shrump. Isn’t it ‘shrump’?”

“I am not a shrump!” I exclaimed.

“It’s not an insult.” He dropped his arm from my waist to my hand and led the way to the quay. “It’s what we call little children, like cute, tiny toddlers.”

“You are deeply annoying me.”

“I can tell. Do you know your nose gets all pink when you’re annoyed? Just like a shrump.” And he pinched it. I tried to bite his fingers off, but he was too quick for me.

“It does not!!”