I tried to laugh and shook my head. No, I knew that. This was not the kind of guy girls left with nothing to do in the evening. It was pure fluke that I’d caught him unattached.

“Parce que, Sébastien, il en a du kilométrage.” Sébastien, he has a lot of mileage on him.

I stopped trying to laugh.

Sébastien frowned at his cigarette.

“He’s tried out his machine,” Éric said, in the throes of his own hilarity.

“Ça va, Éric,” Sébastien said.

“They just fall at his feet,” Éric said and shot Sébastien a glance. Come to think of it, how did the other two guys in this threesome react to Sébastien getting so much female attention? The suppressed jealousy had to come out some time. Lucky me, now was the time.

“Or something else to eat?” Fabien inserted firmly, speaking to me.

“Weren’t we going to play a game?” Sébastien asked.

“I’ll start,” Virginie said. “Alors.”

“Alors, il,” Fabien said promptly.

“Alors, il éternua,” Sébastien said, and around it went in a circle.

Alors, il éternua dans. Alors, il éternua dans son. Alors, il éternua dans son lit . . . It was just a nonsense sentence: So, he sneezed in his bed . . . .

I lay back and concentrated on words. Words at least I had always been good at. Relationships, no; it was highly unlikely that I could live up to any experiences in Sébastien’s past. But words I could handle. Sébastien patted his thigh. I hesitated, but then shifted to use it as a pillow, and he rested a forearm across my collarbone, rubbing one shoulder absently. Éric was good, I have to admit. He held out a long time, and all the others had long since dropped out, before I beat him.

“Let’s play again,” he said. So I beat him again. The fifth time, he finally gave up, and I gave him a small, mean smile. Kilométrage? Claire was always good at this game?

“She’s evil,” Éric said. “Why did you bring her here? I liked Claire better.” He grinned at me.

“Suffer,” I said. Sébastien squeezed my shoulder proudly. So the babydoll had performed well, I thought drily. Maybe I could graduate to my own piano grinder next. That was unfair, but what was fair? Kilométrage. I was so in over my head. I relented and explained: “They’ve done studies on children who learn a second language and those who don’t. The ones who do can repeat a far longer string of nonsense syllables than those who don’t. So, languages—that’s what I do, you know?”

“That doesn’t excuse Risk,” Sébastien inserted.

I gazed up at his chin from my position on his thigh. “No, that’s just because I’m lucky, remember?”

“I’ve learned a second language,” Éric protested and switched to his. “I zpeak Inglizh verry well.”