“How long is it?” Andy asked, clearing his throat and trying to not reveal how he was truly feeling at the revelation.
“Five hundred kilometer.”
Andy swallowed thickly. “How many days does it take?”
“Thirty or so.” Leonidas shrugged.
“That’s a long time.”
Leonidas offered him an unamused look. “It’s meant to be an undertaking. Nothing worth finding is easy.”
“I’m not sure that’s the saying,” he mumbled.
“You said before you didn’t know how long you were going to be in France for,” Andy reminded him.
“You were a stranger.”
“Am I not now?” He squinted down at his coffee, thinking about how little he knew about Leonidas after all. “Why does that even matter?”
Andy knew he was being unreasonable, but as much as he wanted to be a wild and spontaneous person, he needed some structure, some definition. Before he’d left America, he’d plotted his trip, even though he didn’t have hotels booked or dates finalized, he’d known where he was going to go, where he was going to end up. There were some parts of himself he’d never be able to shake free of, it seemed.
“I think you’re asking too much of me.” Leonidas stood up and walked toward the kitchen, setting his mug on the counter before disappearing down the hallway. The door to the WC closed and Andy waited, frowning into his own cup.
After a few minutes, Leonidas returned, though he lingered near the kitchen with his mug cradled in both hands.
“I’ve asked nothing of you,” Andy assured him.
“The implication is there.”
“Should it not be?” Andy stood up, his frustration mounting, tension spiraling through his limbs and tightening his muscles. “After the past three days?”
“Is that all it’s been?” Leonidas hummed.
“Barely.”
“I didn’t go into this thing with you with any expectations.” As Leonidas said it, something in his eyes flickered, nearly betraying the veiled meaning of his words.
“Neither did I,” he started, only to be interrupted.
“Then what is the problem?”
Andy pulled his lips between his teeth and took a deep breath, trying to be reasonable, trying to not act like a fool who’d never had a casual fuck in his life.
“You have a week, then,” he said. “I wanted to rent a car and go to Bordeaux. Try some wine. There’s a hotel there I’ve been looking at, Hotel Des Quinconces, and it’s big and lush and beautiful. Come with me.”
Leonidas licked his lips and grabbed the back of his neck with one of his strong hands. He turned his head and stared down the hallway, that gorgeously full pout of his turned down into a frown.
“No,” Leonidas answered simply.
“No?”
He shook his head and looked back at Andy, though it looked like it took work for him to raise his eyes.
“I don’t want to go to Bordeaux,” he said.
“Then we can stay here,” Andy offered.
Leonidas shook his head and sighed, “Andy.”
