His laugh is raspy. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’ve never known an attorney before who wasn’t old and lecherous,” I admit, ignoring the looks Harlow and Lola have trained on the side of my face. At this point, I know they’re counting how many words I’ve said in the last ten minutes. I’m breaking a personal record now.
“Would it help if I said I work for a nonprofit?”
“Not really.”
“Good. In that case I’ll tell you the truth: I work for the biggest, most ruthless corporate firm in Paris. I have a horrible schedule, really. This is why you should come to Paris. I’d like a reason to come home early from work.”
I attempt to look unaffected by this, but he’s watching me. I can practically feel his smile. It starts as a tiny tug in the corner of his mouth and grows the longer I pretend. “So I told you about me, what about you? Where are you from, Cerise?”
“I told you my name; you don’t have to keep calling me that.”
“What if I want to?”
It’s really hard to concentrate when he’s smiling like that. “I’m not sure I should tell you where I’m from. Stranger danger and all.”
“I can give you my passport. Will that help?”
“Maybe.”
“We can call my mom,” he says, and reaches into his back pocket for his phone. “She’s American, you’d get on fantastically. She tells me all the time what a sweet boy I am. I hear that a lot, actually.”
“I’m sure you do,” I say, and honestly, I think he really would let me call his mother. “I’m from California.”
“Just California? I’m not an American but I hear that’s a pretty big state.”
I watch him through narrowed eyes before finally adding, “San Diego.”
He grins as if he’s won something, like I’ve just wrapped this tiny piece of information up all shiny and bright and dropped it into his lap. “Ahh. And what do you do there in San Diego? Your friend said you’re here celebrating graduation. What’s next?”
“Uh . . . business school. Boston University,” I say, and wonder if that answer will ever stop sounding stiff and rusty to my own ears, like I’m reading from a script.
Apparently it sounds that way to him, too, because for the first time, his smile slips. “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
I glance to the bar and, without thinking, down the rest of my drink. The alcohol burns but I feel the heat seep into my limbs. The words I want to say bubble up in the back of my throat. “I used to dance. Ballet.” It’s the first time I’ve ever said those words to anyone.
His brows lift, his eyes moving first over my face, then trailing down my body. “Now that I can see.”
Harlow squints at me, and then looks at Ansel. “You two are so f**king nice.”
“It’s disgusting,” Finn agrees under his breath.
Their eyes meet from either side of me and hold. There’s some sort of silent acknowledgment there, like they’re on the same team—them against us—each trying to see which one can mortify their friend the most. And this is when I know we’re only about an hour and a half from Harlow riding Finn reverse-cowgirl on the floor somewhere. Lola catches my eye and I know we’re thinking the exact same thing.
As predicted, Harlow lifts her shot glass in Finn’s direction. In the process, much of it slops over the side and onto her skin. Like the classy woman she is, she bends, dragging her tongue across the back of her hand before saying to no one in particular, “I’m probably gonna f**k him tonight.”
Finn smiles, leaning closer to her and whispering something in her ear. I have no idea what he’s just said but I’m sure I’ve never seen Harlow blush like this. She reaches up, toying with her earring. Beside me, Lorelei groans.
If Harlow looks you in the eye while she takes her earrings off, you’re either going to be f**ked or killed. When Finn smiles, I realize he’s already figured out this rule and knows he’s coming out on top.
“Harlow,” I warn.
Clearly, Lola can’t take any more, because she grabs Harlow’s hand to haul her up and out of her chair. “Meeting of the minds in the ladies’ room.”
“WHY IS HE calling me ‘Cherry’?” I blink up to my reflection in the mirror. “Does he think I’m a virgin?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s talking about your blowjob mouth,” Harlow says, winking. “And if I may, I’d like to suggest that you hit that French boy like a hammer tonight. Is his accent not the hottest thing you’ve ever heard?”
Lorelei is already shaking her head. “I’m not sure Mia is the best one to be talked into a one-night stand.”
I finish dragging the wand of my lip gloss across my mouth, press both lips together. “What does that mean?” I hadn’t planned on having a one-night stand with Ansel. I’d planned on staring at him all night and then going to bed alone, where I’d fantasized that I was someone else and he would in fact teach me the ins and outs of hallway sex. But as soon as Lola says this I feel a rebellious pull in my ribs.
Harlow studies me for a beat. “I think she’s right. You’re a little hard to please,” she explains.
“Seriously, Harlow?” I ask. “You can say that with a straight face?”
Lola’s eyes are similarly wide in disbelief as she turns to me. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh, I’m definitely impossible to please,” Harlow admits. “I just love watching men try. But Mia takes about two weeks before she converses without a thick sheet of awkward.”
“Not tonight, she doesn’t,” Lola mumbles.
I shove my lip gloss back in my clutch and give Harlow a look. “Maybe I like going slow and getting past that weird need people have for nonstop conversation. You’re the one who likes to bang off the bat, and that’s fine. I don’t judge.”
“Well,” Harlow continues as if I haven’t spoken. “Ansel is adorable and I’m pretty sure from the way he stares at you, he won’t need you to do much talking.”
Lorelei sighs. “He seems really sweet and they’re obviously both into each other, and what’s going to happen?” She shoves everything back in her clutch and turns to lean against the bay of sinks and face us. “He lives in France, she’s moving to Boston, which is only marginally closer to France than San Diego. If you have sex with Ansel,” she says to me, “it will be solid missionary with tons of talking and soft-focus eye contact. That’s not one-night-stand sex.”
“You guys are freaking me out right now,” I tell them.
“Then she can just insist on doggy, what’s the problem?” Harlow asks, bewildered.
Since I’m clearly not needed for this conversation, I push my way out of the bathroom and back to the bar, leaving them to decide the rest of my night, without me.
AT FIRST, IT’S as if our friends metaphorically evaporate into the background as they, too, grow more comfortable (or drunk) together and their laughter tells me they’re no longer listening to everything we’re saying. Eventually they head to the blackjack tables just outside the bar, leaving us alone together only after delivering their meaningful be careful stares to me and don’t be pushy stares to Ansel.
He finishes his drink and puts the empty glass down on the bar. “What did you love most about dancing?”
I’m feeling brave, whether from the gin or Ansel, I don’t care. I take his hand and pull him to his feet. He steps away from the bar and walks beside me.
“Getting lost in it,” I say, leaning into him. “Being someone else.” That way I could pretend to be anyone, I think, in their body, doing things maybe I wouldn’t do with mine if I thought about it too much. Like leading Ansel down a dark hallway—which, though I might have needed to take a deep breath and count to ten first, I do.
When we round the corner and stop, he hums, and I press my lips together, loving how the sound makes my lungs constrict. It shouldn’t be possible for my legs and lungs and brain to all quit working at the same time.
“You could pretend this is a stage,” he says quietly, leaning his hand against the wall beside my head. “You could pretend to be someone else. You could pretend to be the girl who pulled me down here because she wanted to kiss me.”
I swallow, forming the words carefully in my head. “Then who will you be tonight?”
“The guy who gets the girl he wants and doesn’t have any fires to put out back home.”
He doesn’t look away, so I feel like I can’t, either, even though my knees want to buckle. He could kiss me right this second and it wouldn’t be soon enough.
“Why did you get me over here? Away from everyone?” he asks, smile slowly fading.
I look past him, over his shoulder into the club, where it’s only slightly lighter than where we’re standing.
When I don’t answer, he bends to catch my eyes. “Am I asking too many questions?”
“It always takes me a while to put words together,” I tell him. “It’s not you.”
“No, no. Lie to me,” he says, moving closer, his heart-stopping smile returning. “Let me pretend when we’re alone like this I render you speechless.”
And still, he waits for me to find the words I want to say in reply. But the truth is, even with a bowl full of words to choose from, I’m not sure it would make sense if I told him why I wanted him down here, away from the safety of my friends, who are always able to translate my expressions into sentences, or at the very least change the subject for me.
I’m not nervous or intimidated. I simply don’t know how to slip into the role I want to play: flirty, open, brave. What is it about another person’s chemistry that makes you feel more or less drawn to them? With Ansel, I feel like my heartbeat is chasing his. I want to leave my fingerprints all over his neck and his lips. I want to suck on his skin, to see if it’s as warm as it looks, and decide if I like what he was drinking by tasting it on his tongue. I want to have an entire conversation with him where I don’t second-guess or struggle with a single word, and then I want to take him back to the room with me and not use any words at all.
“Ask me again,” I say.
His brows pull together for a beat before he understands. “Why did you bring me down here?”
This time I don’t even think before I speak: “I want to have a different life tonight.”
His lips push out a little as he thinks and I can’t help but blink down to them. “With me, Cerise?”
I nod. “I know what that means, you know. It means ‘cherry.’ Pervert.”
His eyes shine with amusement. “It does.”
“And I’m sure you’ve guessed I’m not a virgin.”
He shakes his head. “Have you seen your mouth? I’ve never seen lips so full and red.”
Unconsciously, I pull my bottom lip into my mouth, sucking it.
His eyes grow heavy and he leans closer. “I like when you do that. I want a turn.”
My voice is nervous and shaking when I whisper, “They’re just lips.”
“They’re not just lips. And please,” he teases, and he’s so close I can smell his aftershave. It smells like fresh air, like green and sharp and soothing all at once, something I’ve never smelled on a man before. “You wear red lipstick so that men won’t notice your mouth? Surely you know what we dream about a mouth like that doing.”
I don’t close my eyes when he leans in and takes my bottom lip between both of his, but he does. His eyes fall closed, and every one of my senses picks up the gravelly sound he makes: I taste it, feel it, hear it, see the way he shivers against me.
He runs his tongue over my lip, sucks gently, and then pulls back. I realize it wasn’t really a kiss. It was more a taste. And obviously he agrees: “You don’t taste like cherry.”
“What do I taste like?”
He shrugs a little, thoughtfully purses his lips. “I’m unable to think of a good word. Sweet. Like a woman and a girl still, too.”
His hand is still planted near my head, but the other toys with the hem of my cardigan. I realize that if I want to live a different life I have to do it. I can’t tiptoe along the edge of the cliff. I have to jump. I have to figure out what kind of girl would do what I want to do with him, and pretend I’m her. She’s the one onstage. Mia watches from the audience.
I pull his fingers down to the bottom of my dress, and then under.
He’s no longer looking at my mouth; we’re looking directly into each other’s eyes when I drag his fingers up the inside of my thigh. It feels so secluded here—darker and still—but around the corner the bar echoes with drunken voices, a bass-heavy pop song. We’re hidden but anyone could find us if they wanted to. Without any more urging from me, he slips a knuckle beneath the fabric of my underwear. My eyes roll closed and my head falls back against the wall behind me as he gently slides it back and forth over my most sensitive flesh.