Great, now I had to obsess over whether I was biting into my food correctly. This never happened when I dated people from my hometown. “Go—away,” I said in a mean voice to a pigeon, venting. It eyed me sideways and waddled its fat gray butt closer to the cabbage. “Shoo!” I made an abrupt movement with my arm, losing a bit more cabbage in the process, and it fluttered up to land again a couple of yards away, watching and biding its time. Another pigeon came to join it. “Go over to Notre-Dame. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of tourists willing to feed you for the privilege of having you perch on their arms for a picture.” I shuddered. I don’t let sewer rats crawl on me, and I don’t let city pigeons do it, either.

“Yes, shoo it away,” Sébastien agreed. “It’s scaring the sparrows.” He ripped off a crumb from his pita pocket and tossed it a foot or so from him. A little brown sparrow with dirty feathers pounced on it at once and hopped back an inch, eyeing Sébastien as a promising mark.

Sébastien tore off another bite and held it forward on the tips of his fingers.

I gave him an appalled look. “Are you going to let it touch you?”

“If it’s not too shy,” he said. “Look, I think it might come to me.” He made a coaxing noise, crumb perfectly still on his out-stretched fingers.

“It’s filthy!”

“It’s a sparrow, not a pigeon. Look at how cute he is.”

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about him, sitting there with his hand outstretched trying to will a sparrow to him. “Look at how dirty its feathers are. I don’t see how it could be any cleaner than pigeons, when it lives in the same city off the same things.”

“You’re scaring him with your negative attitude. Here you go, petit.” He clicked his tongue.

I coughed loudly, and the sparrow flittered back and eyed me cautiously.

Sébastien gave me a severe look.

“I’m just trying to protect your health.”

“If I can survive taking the Métro every day, I can survive a sparrow.” He tossed more crumbs to lure it back and then proffered another on his fingers. The sparrow crept back up, eyeing the crumb brightly.

“So let’s do something tomorrow,” he said while the sparrow ate from his fingers. I blinked. Tomorrow was Monday, and he should be in classes most of the day. “And the next day.”

I studied him. He had his head bent, his concentration seemingly all on the tiny, half-tamed, filthy sparrow.

“You’re leaving soon, and we’ve got to take advantage of every minute, don’t you think?” he said. “I’ll skip some of my classes.”