All for You (Paris Nights #1)(81)

Most of which was probably good. A few of the officers in the Legion had good marriages, but he mostly only saw those when they were being performed—when the men were invited over for tea, for example. For real relationships, his most positive model had always been his own with Célie.

And given that they had been teenagers and he’d been trying to play the role of her brother’s friend instead of her lover, it was possible that he still had a lot to learn about relationships before he could get his own right.

God, he missed Célie. Like his own heart ripped out of his chest. Just as he always had.

When he’d ripped her heart out of her chest, five years ago, she’d still written him postcards. A dozen postcards, until she gave up. Cards. Writing. His worst possible form of communication.

He’d stared down at the first card he’d bought in Abidjan as if blank paper was a sleeping cobra. And then, as he had that day in the salon de chocolat, grabbed on to the one thing he knew was true: Célie.

Funny how, once that one word was set down on the paper and the paper failed to bite him, the rest of it came more easily. After only, say, twenty minutes of searching for the next word.


Stick with the truth. Even if it’s not good enough.

He wondered if she’d ever spent as long as he had, trying to figure out what to write to him. Skipping over all those other options like, You bastard and Why did you leave me? to a cheerful, encouraging We miss you here, but I know you can do it!

Postcards that were half a lie—she’d missed him far more than the cheerful little cards that so quickly dried up had ever let him understand—and half the truth—she truly wished the best for him, even so.

Célie came out slowly and hesitated a long time before she crossed the street to him. She looked as tired as he felt, as if someone had finally managed to put out the sparkles on the Eiffel Tower.

And that someone would be him.

“Hi,” he said to his thumbs, without trying for anything—not a kiss on the lips, not kisses on each cheek, nothing.

Célie sighed and braced. And then abruptly shoved a little metal box into his hands and folded her arms across her chest protectively.

He held the little flat box in his palm, staring down at it. It hurt so damn much, that gift of chocolates despite everything. And yet it made him breathe again. As if maybe there was still a little bit of life left in the world.

“Did you … get—”

Célie nodded, tightening her arms around herself.

He looked down at the chocolates again. He didn’t want to eat them. They might have to last him for a very long time. He looked up at her. “You, ah—you want to go for a walk?”

She kneaded her fingers into her arms.

“Just, you know—together. I’m working on the communicating.”

She swallowed and turned. But she only took a step down the sidewalk before she stopped and waited. So that must be an okay.

He stood and fell into step beside her. They walked through République to the canal. He flexed his hand a couple of times, uncertainly, and then extended it just a little.

She shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket.

His hand fell back to his side, hope deflating.

They walked until they could climb one of the footbridges. He leaned his forearms against the railing, locking his fingers together again. His thumbs fought with each other. Relentlessly, neither one willing to give up.

“It’s a good job,” he said finally, low. “It pays … a lot. And it’s something I’m interested in, and I can use my skills.”

She nodded and didn’t look at him.

“I—like that. I like knowing I can be good at what I need to do. I guess you were too much younger than me to know how crappy I was at school, when I couldn’t ever figure out what the texts said fast enough or what the teachers wanted from me. I like being good.”

“You’re good, Joss.”

She didn’t look at him when she said it, but the words still mattered. He took a breath. “But I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. It seemed a straightforward decision. And I had, you know … that plan.”

Célie sighed, her own forearms on the railing, staring at the water. The fitted leather that was supposed to protect her on the moped and make her look tougher only served somehow to emphasize the smallness of her forearms, compared to the power carried so easily in his own, bare just beside hers. And yet she was very strong—those arms could knead bread all day, could whisk and mix and spread ganaches.

“It will take a while to get that apartment in shape. Maybe … you could take a look at it. See if you’d be interested in us working on it … together.”

She looked at him without turning her head. His right thumb slayed his left one, and then the left one popped back from the grave and wrestled his right one down.

“It’s important to you?” she said finally. “That I see it?”

He nodded, staring at his thumbs.

“All right,” Célie said slowly, straightening from the railing.

He didn’t ask about the motorcycle, when she led the way back to her moped. He didn’t knead her hips when he rode behind her. He just balanced with the grip of his thighs.

Sickness grew in his stomach as he entered the code for the building, and he entered it wrong twice, a last-ditch subconscious effort to stop this self-humiliation. He swallowed the sickness down, but the bones of it lodged in his throat and even poked through in odd places in his chest, spiny shame.