I told my professor that a family friend was in Paris and got permission to spend the day with him while my classmates continued with previously scheduled activities.

Easton and I used every second we had. We took a boat ride down the Seine, walked up the steep hill to Sacré-Coeur, and shared gelato from a street cart outside an art gallery in Montmartre. When we walked the streets of Le Marais by his hotel, he insisted on buying me this lavender-and-lemon-scented soap, and a pretty pink-and-purple scarf. I tell myself it’s a good thing he has to leave tonight. If he didn’t, I’d probably get myself in trouble trying to get out of more time with my classmates so I could be with him. But I don’t want him to go. In Paris, we’re in this bubble—a microcosm where Shayleigh Jackson and Easton Connor isn’t an absurd joke but an actual possibility.

His driver takes me back to the dorms to drop me off before he heads to the airport, and he kisses me so long in the back of the limo that I find myself straddling his waist again.

He groans and grips my waist with the possessive strength I love so much. “You’re going to make me late for my flight.”

“Sorry.” I blush, but there’s no real embarrassment. Not after all we shared last night. “I know you need to go. I just don’t want you to.”

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and studies my face. “I don’t want to either. But I see you next month, right? You’re not going to chicken out on me? You’ll fly to L.A.? Stay with me in Laguna?”

In truth, I’m terrified to visit Easton. That feels more like the “real world” than Paris ever will. Will he realize then, when we’re in the middle of all the flash and glitz of his life, that I don’t fit?

“I can already tell you’re overthinking it.” He runs a thumb across my bottom lip. “I can see it on your face.”

“I can’t believe we’re going to try to make this real.”

“Believe it, Shay.”

“I’m scared.”

“I want this, and you do too. It might be hard, but it’s just a couple of years, and then we’ll figure out what’s next.” He kisses me hard one more time before whispering, “Next month. You and me.”

I want it to be true, but it almost feels like I want it too much. My stomach flips. How can this work when I don’t fit in his world?

Part VI.

Easton