“And?” Harlow prompts. “Mia, this is huge. You couldn’t have told us this first?”
“I know, I know,” I say, sinking back into my chair. “And I guess I told him, like, my entire life story.” They both know the significance of this and so they don’t comment, just wait for me to finish. “And I talked for what must have been hours. I didn’t stutter, I didn’t filter.”
“You did talk for a really long time.” Lola looks impressed.
Harlow’s eyes narrow. “You’re not seriously considering staying married,” she says, “to a stranger you met last night in Vegas and who lives over five thousand miles away.”
“Well, how can it not sound shady when you say it like that?”
“How would you like me to say it, Mia?” she shouts. “Have you completely lost your mind?”
Have I? Yes, absolutely. “I think I just need more time,” I tell her instead.
Harlow stands abruptly, looking around as if there is someone else in the lobby who can help convince her best friend that she’s lost the plot. Across from me, Lola simply studies my face, eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about this?” she asks.
I cough out a laugh. “I’m not sure about any of it.”
“But you know you don’t want to annul it right now?”
“He says he won’t annul it today anyway, that he promised me he wouldn’t.”
Her eyebrows disappear beneath her bangs and she leans back into her chair, surprised. “He promised you?”
“That’s what he said. He said I made him swear.”
“This is the most ridicul—” Harlow starts, but Lola interrupts her.
“Well, the guy just won some points with me, then.” She blinks away, and reaches to put a calming hand on Harlow’s forearm. “Let’s go, sweets. Mia, we’ll be back in a little bit to pack up and head home, okay?”
“Are you kidding me? We—” Harlow starts, but Lola levels her with a look. “Fine.”
In the distance and through a set of glass doors, I see Oliver and Finn, waiting for them near the taxi stand. Ansel is nowhere in sight.
“Okay, good luck getting unmarried,” I say with a little smile.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Harlow calls over her shoulder, chestnut hair flying around her as Lola drags her away. “Otherwise I would murder you.”
THE LOBBY SEEMS too quiet in their wake, and I look around, wondering if Ansel is watching from some dark corner, seeing that I haven’t gone along. But he isn’t in the lobby. I have no idea where he is. He’s the only reason I stayed back. Even if I had his number, I don’t have my phone. Even if I had my phone, I have no idea where I left my charger. Drunk me definitely needs to keep better track of things.
So I do the only thing I can think of: I head upstairs to the hotel room, to shower again and pack, to try to make some sense out of this mess.
One step inside and flashes of the night before seem to invade the room. I close my eyes to dig deeper, hungry for more details.
His hands on my ass, my br**sts, my hips. The thick drag of him along my inner thigh. His mouth fastened to my neck, sucking a bruise into the skin.
My thoughts are interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.
Of course it’s him, looking freshly showered and just as conflicted as I feel. He moves past me, into the room, and sits at the edge of the bed.
He rests his elbows on his knees and looks up at me through hair that has fallen into his eyes. Even partly filtered, they’re so expressive I feel gooseflesh break out along my arms.
Without preamble or warm-up, he says, “I think you should come to France for the summer.”
There are a thousand things I can say to address the absurdity of what he’s offering. For one, I don’t know him. Also, I don’t speak French. Tickets are ungodly expensive, and where would I live? What would I do all summer living with a stranger in France?
“I’m moving to Boston in a few weeks.”
But he’s already shaking his head. “You don’t need to move until the beginning of August.”
I feel my brows inch up. Apparently I told him every single detail of my life. I’m not sure whether I should feel impressed that he remembers it all, or guilty that I made him sit through so much. I tilt my head, waiting. Most girls would say something here. A gorgeous man is offering something pretty amazing, and I’m just waiting to see what else he wants to say.
Licking his lips, he seems comfortable with the knowledge that he hasn’t given me something I need to respond to yet. “Just hear me out. You could stay at my flat. I have a good job, I can afford to feed and shelter you for a summer. I work really long hours, it’s true. But you could just . . .” He looks away, down at the floor. “You could enjoy the city. Paris is the most beautiful city, Cerise. There are endless things to do. You’ve had a really hard few years and maybe would be happy just having a mellow summer in France.” Looking back up at me, he adds quietly, “With me.”
I move over to the bed and sit down, leaving plenty of distance between us. Housekeeping has already changed the linens, straightened the chaos we created; it makes it easier to pretend last night was someone else’s life.
“We don’t really know each other, it’s true,” he concedes. “But I see your indecision about Boston. You’ll move there to get away from your dad. You’ll move there to keep marching forward. Maybe you need to just hit pause, and breathe. Have you done that even once in the four years since your accident?”