Isla and the Happily Ever After (10 page)

Josh squats down and delicately touches the horse’s mane. “People leave things like this on the street?”

“In front of their houses. They set them out for the garbage-men to take away.”

“What about this?” He points to a chipped porcelain bowl that’s filled to the top with fresh water.

“That’s for Jacque. He’s the stray cat who sometimes hangs out with us.”

Josh shakes his head. “This…yeah. This is incredible. You must bring all of your
paramours
here.”

It’s a tease, but as he stands back up, I sense a real question underneath. “There’s only been one. And, no, he didn’t receive an invitation.” I bend over to remove a thick, plaid blanket from the steamer trunk. “Okay. I lied.”

“You did bring him here?”

I hold up the blanket and laugh. “No. I bought this. I didn’t find it on the street.”

Josh emits a barely discernible but clearly relieved breath of held air. It makes me smile. I lay the blanket down. We sit, facing each other with crossed legs. “So tell me about him,” he says. “Tell me who I should be jealous of.”

“Well. His name is Jacque, he’s about yea-high, and he has the most
delightful
little paws.”

“Come on.”

“The guy isn’t important. It’s not like I dated him for two years,” I add pointedly.

“Ugh, don’t remind me.” But after a few seconds, he nudges my knee. “Go on.”

I sigh. “His name was Sébastien. He’s French. He attends a school ten minutes away from ours. And my
aunt
set us up.”

“Oy.” Josh winces. “The same aunt who lives below?”

“The very one. Tante Juliette is friends with his
maman,
and they invited us both to brunch last winter, not telling us that the other one would also be there. It was humiliating. But, oddly enough…we clicked. We dated quietly for a few months.”

“Dated quietly?”

“We didn’t want to tell our nosy families that their plan worked.” I pause for a well-timed grin. “So we didn’t.”

“Did anyone know?”

“Of course. Kurt knew. And Sébastien’s friends.”

“So…what happened?”

My gaze lowers. “Turns out, he wasn’t a nice guy. He didn’t really like Kurt.”

“I’m sorry.” Josh winces again. “How serious were you guys? Before that?”

“You mean did we have sex.”

He’s taken aback by my bluntness. He ducks his head, abashed.

“Yes,” I say.

He tries to cover his surprise. Again. I suppose everyone at school assumes that I’m a virgin – that is, if they don’t already think I’m banging my best friend.

“But we were never serious-serious,” I explain. “I mean, when you grow up half French, it’s not like sex is this big taboo. And, yeah, you have to be careful and you need protection and blah blah blah, but it’s not that American Puritanical be-all, end-all. You know? Sébastien was the only one, though. I don’t want you to get the wrong—”

“No.” He shakes his head rapidly. “I know.”

A long pause. “How about you?”

“The same. Just the one.”

The wind picks up, and I rub my bare arms. “But you loved her.”

“I thought I did.” Josh stares out over the city. “And then I knew I didn’t, and
she
knew she didn’t, but we stayed together, because…I don’t know why. Maybe because we thought we
should
be in love. At least I did. I wanted to be in love.” He looks back at me. “Have you ever been in love?”

“No.”
Yes. With you.

A motorcycle passes on the road below. We listen until its guttural roar fades away. Josh glances at me, and then he double-takes. “You’re shivering.”

“Oh, I’m fine. I like the chill.”

But he’s already on his knees, removing his coat. He swings it up and around my shoulders, and the weight of it stuns me in more ways than one. My body weakens with lust. The coat smells like citrus and ink and
him.

“I saw you that next night,” he says.

“Huh?” My eyes open. “What night?”

“Last summer. I went back to the café at midnight the next night, and I saw you there. I knew it was a long shot, but…I had this feeling you might be there. And you were.”

I know that feeling. I
had
that feeling. “Why didn’t I see you?”

“I never went inside. I saw you through the window, and you…”

“I was with Kurt,” I finish.

“So I kept walking. I felt like such an idiot. If only I’d known, I
wish
I’d known. You’d been so funny and flirty, and—”

“
Flirty?
”

“Yeah.” He grins. “I could kinda tell you liked me.”

“Ohmygod.” I’m mortified.

“No! It was cute. Trust me, it was really, really cute.”

“Yeah, nope. I want to die now, thanks.”

“No. I’m serious. I always liked you, but I thought you didn’t like me. You would never talk to me. So I didn’t think you were even an option, and then I got together with Rashmi, and that was that. But I realized last summer that you’re just shy.”

Back up, back up, back up. “You always liked me?”

“A supersmart hot girl who reads comics? Are you kidding? You were definitely on my radar.”

Hot. I’ve been upgraded to hot. No one has
ever
called me hot. Cute? Yes. Adorable? Yes, often, and it makes me want to punch them. I didn’t know short girls could even
be
hot. I thought I’d been permanently relegated to elfin-pixie-child status.

“Well, bloody noses.” I hug his coat tighter. “Those are definitely hot.”

Josh buries his head in his hands. He moans. “I can’t believe I did that.”

“I believe the laws of physics did that.”

“And my chin.”

I laugh. “But until that last part, it was pretty great, right? I mean, we had actual
fireworks.
Talk about a credits-rolling, happily-ever-after kind of a kiss.”

“If only I could take credit for those.”

“You know…you can always try again.”

He raises his head. “Setting off fireworks?”

“A second first kiss.”

“I think that’s just called a second kiss.”

I bump my knees against his. “Are you seriously going to make me ask again?”

“Um. No.” Josh quickly leans forward.

“Unless.” I put a hand on his chest. “Are you sure? Because. If you don’t want?”

He smiles. “You’re ruining our second first kiss.”

“I just…wanted to make sure,” I say.

“I’m sure.” But he stops before he reaches me. “Wait. Are
you
sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Okay. So we’re both sure.” Josh smiles again. He places one hand on each side of my face. His fingers are cold, but I warm beneath their touch. We stare at each other for several seconds. His smile fades, and then, slowly, he leans over and kisses me.

It’s a gentle kiss, lips slightly parted. Soft.

Josh pulls back a few inches. He studies my forehead. My cheeks. My chin, my ears, my nose, my lips.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I wanted to know what you look like up close.”

“Oh.” It comes out like a breath.

“You have freckles on your eyelids,” he says.

I close my eyes, and he kisses them – one delicate kiss on each lid. His nose trails down the side of mine, and his mouth comes to a rest above my own. My arms wrap around the back of his neck. Our lips meet with more urgency. More exploration. We kiss until it can no longer be called kissing, it’s definitely making out, as his hands slide underneath the coat and around my waist.

We sink into the blanket.

Our fingers are in each other’s hair, and his breath is in the hollow of my neck, and I wish the world would swallow us here, whole, in this moment. And that’s when it hits me that this –
this
– is falling in love.

Chapter eleven

We kiss on the stairs, on the streets of the Right Bank, on the bridge over the Seine, on the streets of the Left Bank. We kiss until our mouths are sore and our lips are numb. It’s so intense that I don’t realize my feet are blistered until we’re only a few blocks away from the dorm. I pop off my heels on the steps of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, a church across from the Panthéon, and release a pained hiss of relief.

“Blisters and a bloody nose.” Josh sits down beside me. “This went well.”

I smile and kiss him again.

“Those shoes are insane,” he says.

I wiggle my red feet. “Maybe they were a
bit
much.”

“Your footwear tends to run on the exceedingly tall side. You know we all know you’re short, right? It’s not, like, a secret.”

“Hush.”

“I like that you’re tiny. I like that I could carry you around in my pocket.”

I shove his arm with my shoulder. “I said hush.”

“And if we ever vacation together, you can sit on my lap to save airfare.”

I shove him harder, and he laughs. He tries to push me back, but I’m faster, and he tumbles against the steps. He laughs even harder. I do, too. “You deserve that,” I say.

“And now I’ll pay my penance.” Josh jumps to the ground and faces his backside towards me. “Get on.”

“What?”

“You can’t walk in those shoes, and the streets are covered in broken glass.”

“I’m sorry. Are you offering me a
piggyback ride
?”

He sighs in fake exasperation. “Will you just get on already?”

“Just because I’m short doesn’t mean that I don’t weigh anything.”

“Just because I’m skinny doesn’t mean that I can’t carry someone short. You’re what, five one?”

“Yeah.” I’m surprised that he guessed it exactly. “What are you?”

“Six one. So there.”

“Freak.”

He grins at me over his shoulder. “Get on.”

I stand, my heels in hand. “Okay. You asked for it.”

Josh squats down, and I climb on. It’s like trying to mount a thoroughbred. He hops in a way that bounces me up higher, above his waist, and I settle into him. My arms wrap around his shoulders. His hands rest above my dress, holding on to my lower thighs.

“Ah, I see. This was all a clever ruse.”

He heads towards our dormitory. “A ruse?”

“To get under my dress on our first date.”

The back of his neck instantly warms. “I promise it wasn’t.”

“Mm-hm.”

His neck grows even hotter. I breathe in his scent deeply, delirious with happiness. In the distance, Paris is still celebrating, but our own neighbourhood is quiet – the only sound, his footfalls. “You know my friend St. Clair?” he says after a few minutes. “He’s only a few inches taller than you, and his girlfriend, Anna? She’s taller than he is.”

“Kurt only likes tall girls. Maybe it’s made me paranoid that all guys might prefer partners closer to their own mouth height.” It feels strange to confess this aloud.

“I’d like to point out that we’ve had zero problem reaching each other’s mouths.” There’s a smile in his voice. I smile back against his neck.

Josh walks the next few blocks in silence. Unfortunately, it’s not
actually
comfortable to sit like this, and – judging by his laboured breath – it’s not comfortable to carry me, either. But he gallantly piggybacks me all the way to our dorm, through the empty lobby, and straight to my door. The dismount is awkward, and we’re both in at least moderate pain, but it doesn’t matter. Our lips find each other again. He’s out of breath, but he pushes me against my door until it bursts open. We collapse into the room.

Kurt blinks at us from my bed. “You really do need to fix that door.”

Sunday is Josh’s only detention-free day, and he texts me right as I’m waking up. I’m glad we remembered to exchange numbers. I squeeze my phone and roll over in bed.

“Watch it,” Kurt mumbles.

“He says
good morning.
”

“It’s the afternoon. Tell him he’s wrong.”

I text Josh a good morning in return and suggest that he ask for next Saturday off, too. After all, that’s
his
Sabbath. Winking smiley face. He texts me back a long line of exclamation points followed by a WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??

I hug Kurt. “He likes me. He liiiiiiikes me.”

“Duh.” But he settles into my hug. “I’ve missed this.”

“Me, too.”

Last night we cheated on the rules. Nate was out for Nuit Blanche so Kurt decided to stay in. Which worked out perfectly, because it meant that I got to rehash every detail of every second of my date. Until I was told to shut up.

His eyes widen. “Half of your nose is purple.”

I scramble out of bed and lunge towards the mirror. Damn. I gently prod my nose, wince at the tenderness, and sigh. “At least it’s proof that yesterday really happened?”

But Kurt is already thinking about today. “I have a history essay due tomorrow, and you need to study for that calculus test. Do you want to work here or in my room?” And then he grins. His room is disgusting, and I refuse to hang out in it. Tidiness – in his bedroom, in his school bag, in his appearance – is
never
on Kurt’s agenda.

I lean in closer to my reflection. “I don’t know. Josh and I didn’t make plans, but it seemed kinda understood that we’d hang out.”

Kurt clambers off my bed and puts on his hoodie. “That sucks.”