One Summer in Paris

Audrey had that same frozen feeling that came with exam pressure. Her brain stalled. She couldn’t think of a single author. Why hadn’t he asked her about movies? That was her idea of relaxation, not slogging through a book.

“Too many to name.” She stood up, hoping her tight jeans might distract him. Did that make her shallow? Probably, but Audrey was fine with shallow. She wanted a relationship to be fun. She didn’t want drama or intensity. Her life was already full of it.

She walked across the shop to shelve a book. Why, oh, why, did he have to be a book lover? The world obviously hated her. As she pushed it onto the shelf, Etienne frowned.

“It should be alphabetical, within the botany section.”

Audrey felt heat flood her cheeks. She didn’t know what botany was, and she couldn’t spell it. She always got her bs and ds mixed up.

“It will be fine here.” She thrust it into a gap on the shelves and caught his quizzical gaze. “What?”

“Nothing.” He brushed his hair away from his face and it immediately fell back in the same place. “So tell me about you. You live in London? With your parents?”

“Yes.” It occurred to her that here, in her new life, she was lying as much as she had in her old one. “You?”

“My parents have an apartment in Paris that I use in the summer. They go to their house in the Côte d’Azur.”

Audrey had no idea where that was, but she nodded knowledgably. He obviously had parents who didn’t reel around drunk most of the time. “Nice.”

An apartment in Paris could be good. Convenient. Better than her place, for sure. She couldn’t see herself having sex against that iron bed frame upstairs. And then there was the fact that the room was boiling hot.

“This is a summer job for you, or a gap year?”

“Just the summer at the moment, but I might stay on longer.” It depended what happened with her mum and Ron. She still hadn’t adjusted to not having to check up on her every moment. She checked her phone every hour for messages, but so far there had been nothing. Audrey wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“You are going to university?”

Her most hated question.

“I’m not going to university yet. I want to live life a little first.”

She was putting studying behind her forever.

Etienne picked up the small stack of books on the desk that Audrey hadn’t touched and started shelving them.

At least now she wouldn’t have to put them in all the wrong places. “Thanks.”

“No problem. So, are you going to be learning French while you’re here? That’s what most people do. They work here in the mornings, go to classes in the afternoon and evenings. That is why you are in France, no? For the language?”

“Yes. And also for the culture. I love art.” It wasn’t really a lie, was it? The truth was she didn’t know anything about art. Maybe she would love it.

“You have visited the Louvre?”

“Not yet.”

“If you like, I could show you round.” He colored slightly, saying, “But no pressure.”

She imagined the two of them strolling together along cobbled streets. Maybe they’d hold hands. Eventually, perhaps, they’d go back to his place. “Sure. If you have time.” She was careful not to look too enthusiastic.

“Anything in particular you want to see?”

“I haven’t been here before, so anything is great.”

“We ought to pick just a couple of things. The Louvre is big, and you can have too much of a good thing.” He flashed her a smile, and she smiled back.

He was gorgeous, and he gained plus points for not wanting to grow old in a museum.

“I’m not going to have a lot of free time. I’m looking for another job.”