Chapters (45)
- Cover
- Blame Iton Paris
- Copyright Notice
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Book One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Book Two
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
I nodded, trying to pretend this kind of courage was something I could even remotely understand. We were walking up the medieval rue Mouffetard, having just visited my favorite ice cream place, the one that sold ice creams shaped like flowers. Sébastien licked a dollop of banana sorbet, his eyes half-closing in bliss as his tongue swirled erotically to catch a petal of yogurtflavored ice cream and blend the two flavors together. I kept watching this motion out of the corners of my eyes. We passed a hippie ethnic store on our left, selling vaguely Andean scarves and various things with beads in them. Le Petit Prince held pride of place in the bookstore display on our right, angling for the American student market.
Sébastien grinned around his ice cream and slanted a glance down at my attempt at a thoughtful, courageous expression. “So, do you want to get married?”
I tripped, and he caught my arm before I could end up facedown on cobblestones.
“What?” I whispered. I wanted to shriek, but I was hyperventilating.
He grinned, watching my face. “And we could have little babies, and they’d be so cute.”
I wrenched at my wrist. I did not do that marriage thing, nope, nope, nope. Even as a kid, I had not put Barbie in a wedding dress but rather had her kidnapped by pirates, dragged halfway around the world, and forced to submit to sexual desires. My parents must have got wind of this because they gave me a book written by nuns that explained what sexual desires were. And people wonder why I have hang-ups. My mom made me a wedding dress for Barbie to encourage me in the right direction, but I loaned it to my sister’s Barbie and practiced having mine ride off on her Palomino into the sunset instead.
He burst out laughing. “I’m joking. You should see your face, though. Have you ever noticed that you’re really terrified of relationships?”
Well, yes. I had noticed that, although I hadn’t expected him to read me like a book. Damn it, I was four years older than he was; why was he the mature and insightful one in the couple?
He laughed. “Never mind, crevette. Your ice cream is melting while you worry about it. And I love the way you eat ice cream, so that seems a waste.” He grinned, a flashing provocation, as he brought his ice cream cone back to his mouth. “We’ll have to talk about it again some other day.”