“Come on, chérie. I know you better by now.”

It’s true. She does know me. Because I’ve let her. I’ve shown myself to her inside and out, because everything is more intense, more sped-up in our relationship. “I can’t stop thinking about when I’ll have to leave. About what will happen then and what our prospects are.”

She purses her lips together. “That’s still so far away. Try not to focus on that.”

I shake my head. “I can’t. The harder I try, the more I think about it. It hangs over everything I do like this gray cloud of doom.”

“Do you want to set a date for our next visit? Would that make you feel better?”

“Yes, of course it would, but it’s not that simple. Nothing between us is simple.”

“It can be.”

“Once my show starts, I won’t be able to come to Paris until it finishes, unless I negotiate a longer break in the middle of the season.”

“I’ll come to you. It’ll be my turn again.”

“You have a job, too. And you have Flo and Emma.”

“Flo and Emma will be just fine without me for a few weeks.”

“But will you be without them?”

“Of course, because I’ll be with you.” There’s enough conviction in her tone for a smile to appear on my lips.

“What time frame are we talking about?” I ask.

She thinks for a few minutes, as do I.

“Christmas,” she says. “Surely you get some time off for Christmas and New Year? It’ll be even better if you don’t have to work.”

“I can’t have you spend Christmas without your family.”

“The kids can go to their father’s.”

I start to get excited about the prospect of having Camille with me for Christmas. “You could meet my family.”

“I would love to.” She grins softly. “See, it’s not that hard.” Her grin shifts into the mischievous register again. “We may have to record a few more videos to get me through.”

“We’ll see about that.” I lean down and kiss the grin right off her face.

While we get lost in a lip-lock that grows fiercer by the second, I wonder if Camille has the same doubts and fears as I have, and if she does, why they are so hard to address. Perhaps because actually tackling them in conversation, working through them with words, would drive us toward making decisions we’re nowhere near ready to make. Making plans for Christmas is easy, because it feels long-term, even though, in our particular scheme of things, we’re only planning the next time we’ll see each other.