“Pear juice!” Sébastien exclaimed at the menu. “I love pear juice.” So I ordered it, too, and we drank sweet, thick pear juice while the roof developed a huge hole, and water poured through it, and pooled on the floor, rising closer and closer to our table. The café owner seemed to take this interior deluge in stride, although the waiter grew exasperated and kept trying to stem the flood with a perfectly inadequate bucket. Our train arrived before the café drowned, and we caught it back to Paris.

Sébastien didn’t want me to take the Métro back to my place by myself at night, so he came with me, then of course came into my apartment and missed the last Métro back. He slept on my twin bed, somehow fitting me in with him. Really—he slept. Or I slept, and he kind of did. I’m not saying there wasn’t a little bit of playing going on, because he refused to sleep with his shirt on, and as I’ve mentioned before, he had a gorgeous body. But I was getting in so over my head.

“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m not ready for this.”

So he finally wedged himself against the wall, since I was claustrophobic, and tucked me against him so I didn’t fall onto the floor. I loved it, to spend the night tucked against those frequently tense and beautifully defined muscles. I don’t think he slept much at all.

Nine

You’ve got the most uncomfortable bed in the whole world,” he said the next morning. “And I want a shower and a toothbrush. Come back to my apartment?”

I folded my arms under my breasts. His eyes flickered down and promptly back to my face. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Coward,” he said without heat. “I’d kiss you, but without a toothbrush, that could be ugly. See you this afternoon?”