12
Leonidas
Leonidas glaredup at the concrete facade of Hotel Des Quinconces and scowled. If Andy hated Paris, he would definitely hate Bordeaux. Leonidas didn’t even like it and he liked everywhere he’d ever been.
Andy was here, though, and Leonidas was here, and it was ridiculous because Bordeaux wasn’t St. Jean-Pied-du-Port. Bordeaux was almost three hundred kilometers from where he needed to be, and he didn’t know why he’d stopped here.
He didn’t know why.
He knew exactly why.
Leonidas pulled his beanie off, balling it in his fist. He scratched the back of his head and he tried to figure out what to do. The way he thought about it, he only had two real options, even though he’d spoken with his mama and both of his sisters and they assured him there was, in fact, onlyoneoption.
This was ridiculous.
He pulled open the heavy wooden front door and stepped into a lush, extravagant lobby. The interior of the hotel looked nothing like the exterior, with wooden and tiled floors and a swooping staircase that led out of the lobby. The front desk was tucked behind a tall white pillar, and Leonidas shoved his beanie into his pocket and forced his feet to take him there.
The woman behind the counter had shiny black hair in a sleek ponytail, and she gave him one of the most disapproving looks he’d ever been on the receiving end of. Her little button nose turned up at him and he bristled, approaching her anyway.
“Bonjour,” she greeted him with a fake smile.
Leonidas didn’t want to test his French, and he frowned. “English?”
“Of course.” She gave him a look befitting her feelings toward the fact he wasn’t French.
“I’m looking for a guest here. His name is Andy…Andrew Motel.”
The woman gave him another once-over, then looked down at her computer.
“Is he here?” Leonidas asked, confused by the hope he heard in his own voice.
It was Friday morning when Andy kissed him goodbye and walked out. Leonidas hadn’t even gotten to watch him go; the last thing he’d seen was Andy’s glassy eyes in front of his own. He’d felt like someone stabbed him in the chest, but he’d closed his eyes like Andy told him to, then he’d listened to his door open and close, and then he’d kept his eyes closed and he slid down to the floor.
Five deep breaths later, Leonidas had stood, wiped his eyes, and made a fresh cup of coffee. This was what he wanted, what he’d asked for. He opened his junk drawer and pulled out hispatera’sold postcard, holding it up to the light to see if Andy’s fingers had smudged the gloss. They hadn’t, or maybe they had, he couldn’t tell.
He’d shoved the card back into the drawer, tabling his dreams for another week. He’d gotten the bowl the two of them made from the kiln and set it on the windowsill near his plant. What would he do with that stupid thing anyway? The answer had been to use it for spare change, but whatever. He’d also kept his phone in it instead of the drawer, and he’d kept it on more, even though Andy didn’t have his number and he didn’t have Andy’s.
And then his last week in Paris was nearly through, and he’d packed the damn bowl up with the rest of his things, and mapped a route that took him through Bordeaux, even though he didn’t need to stop there, and that was how he found himself in the lobby of Hotel Des Quinconces asking for Andrew fucking Motel.
“He is. Would you like me to call him?”
“Can you just give me his room number?” Leonidas tore his hand through his tangled curls and glared at the red carpeted staircase.
“No, sir.”
“Fine, then,” he said before he could think better of it. “Yes. Tell him I’m here.”
“And who are you, sir?” The woman very nearly sneered.
“Leonidas Filo,” he answered her.
She smiled again, a fake one, and picked up the phone. “Yes, sorry to bother you, sir, but there’s a visitor here…Leonidas Filo…Yes. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and looked at him. “He said he’ll be down shortly.”
As it turned out, they had different definitions of the word, and Leonidas had been waiting nearly twenty minutes before Andy appeared at the top of the stairs. He looked freshly showered, his hair slicked back and damp.
“I never knew your last name,” Andy said.
Leonidas swallowed and looked at the stupid blue carpet under his feet.
