One Good Man

That Friday night, the club was playing all of Jefferson Airplane’s album, Surrealistic Pillow. When “White Rabbit” came on, Brigitte and Lucie decided we had to dance. They tugged me to the dance floor where, under beams of white and blue light, the dozen or so dancers looked as if they were underwater.

I was self-conscious at first, but it was just what I needed. To stop thinking so damned much. I swayed to the music, losing sense of time and place. My eyes fell shut and my friends, La Cloche, all of it just fell away. Grace Slick’s haunting voice took me back to America—but for the first time, I felt no pang of nostalgia. I drifted along the currents of the music.

Someone nudged my arm. “What is it about?” Lucie asked. “These words?”

“Drugs,” I said, with a lazy smile, then closed my eyes again. “Escape.”

The music ebbed and flowed through me, and I was sorry when it ended. I started to move off the dance floor and then Adrien was there.

“Dance?” he asked, staring down at me, his blue velvet eyes even darker in the dimness of the club. His smile was his usual cocky grin, and I hated that my heart stuttered at his sudden nearness.

I tried to push past him. “No, thank you.”

Adrien caught my arm, held it gently but firmly. His grin slipped away. “Please. I want to talk to you.”

“You can talk to me at the table,” I said, tugging my arm free.

“Can I? Or will you barricade yourself between Lucie and Brigitte, and hardly look at me? What I have to say isn’t for everyone.”

I turned to where our friends sat. They were watching us as we stood in the middle of the dance floor; Brigitte raising her brows at me.

“Come on,” Adrien said. “One dance.”

I nodded vaguely and let him take my left hand in his, while his arm slipped around my waist. My breath caught, and I turned my face away from his, the beauty of it.

“Is this so terrible?” Adrien asked lightly. “Do you still not like me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Is that so?” Adrien laughed. “You work awfully hard to not like me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t like Olivier. That’s obvious. So you ignore him, and it’s easy.” Adrien’s voice softened. “But with me, you have to put effort into avoiding me.”

“I don’t—”

“You do,” Adrien cut me off. “I catch you, you know, looking at me. You look away but I see you try not to see me.”

“Your imagination.” My cheek was resting on his chest and I wasn’t doing anything to stop it.

He lowered his voice again so that I alone could hear him. “And when I try to get close to you, you move away.”

“I told you, I don’t like you,” I said.

He pulled back and looked down at me, and I couldn’t look away. He caught and held me with his gaze, and his hand holding mine…Our fingers had somehow become entwined and he held our hands to his heart that was beating too hard.

“You keep saying that,” Adrien said softly, “but right now you look as if you want me to kiss you.”

“I don’t…”

He leaned closer. “I want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment we met.”

The words traveled through me like a current. Now my heart was pounding too and I couldn’t catch my breath. Adrien was stealing it.

“No,” I whispered.

He bent his head. “Say no again,” he breathed, “and I won’t.”