“Well, maybe someday I’ll find out about that.”
“Maybe. If you can find a woman who fancies a thirty-six-year-old man with a strange name and no understanding of European culture.”
He remembered my age. That does more for me than it perhaps should. “Well, luckily I’m not looking for a woman,” I tell him. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
He starts to smile, and I’m dying to hear his response, but just as he opens his mouth, the entrance bell rings, indicating that someone has come in, and I curse internally. This means I’ll have to wait.
Ironically, after our conversation, it’s a French-speaking woman who looks about my age, but it should go without saying that I have no interest in her.
She starts talking in French, too fast for me to understand, but I assume she’s placing an order. To my disappointment, Luc instantly tears his attention from me and focuses on her. That’s that, then. All I can do is hope that the lady will leave quickly, but she keeps chattering on, and before long, Luc starts writing on a piece of paper. It looks like a big order that’ll take a while—just my luck.
When a brief silence between him and the woman follows, all I can do is say, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then, okay?”
But Luc completely ignores me; he’s focused on helping the customer and doesn’t even grant me the satisfaction of looking at me anymore, not even a glance. And honestly, I’d expected nothing less. It only makes me want to come back tomorrow even more.
***
Well, so much for that idea; the following morning thwarts my plans. I’ve been looking forward to seeing Luc since I left the cake shop, but when I wake up, I’m too sick to get out of bed. How inconvenient. My head feels like it’s about to burst, and I need to call in sick for work, but the worst part is being unable to see Luc. I also can’t text him to let him know I’m not coming because I don’t have his number. Maybe if I’d asked him for it, he would have given it to me—although probably not.
I sleep almost all day, feeling terrible when awake, only traveling between my bed and the toilet. At least Luc won’t see me like this; it’s far from attractive. But as I think about him, another question arises: does he miss me at all? God, I hope he does. That would be the only good thing about this stupid flu.
Thinking increases my headache, and my headache increases my nausea, so I try to press all thoughts down the best I can and attempt to go back to sleep, hoping I’ll feel better tomorrow. But when another morning comes, it proves that nothing has changed; I feel equally awful.
The day after that is a little bit better, but I’m still in no shape to get out of bed. There’s nothing I can do but wait until it passes, hoping things will still be as I left them before I got sick...
Chapter 3: Luc
French is the most beautiful language in the world. I speak it with almost everyone I know, and if I had the choice, I’d never stray from it. Unfortunately, not everyone understands it, so for the sake of this new man I met, I’m willing to resort to English. It’s not my first choice, but then again, neither was meeting him. Some things you don’t choose, they just happen to you, knock the air out of you, and leave you wondering whether to thank fate or curse it.
It’s so strange that I would suddenly find myself in this position. Cody barged into my life out of nowhere, and he’s everything I’m not supposed to like. Okay, yes, I think he’s kind of hot, but he’s much older than the people I normally like, guys around my age. He doesn’t speak French—didn’t bother trying either. He’s not French, Belgian, or even European. I’ve never dated a guy from overseas, and I don’t see why I should start now. Also, instead of paying for his cake with money, like all customers should, he used a coupon to get a free piece. A coupon! Imagine if every customer did that; we’d soon go out of business. Then there’s the fact that I hardly know anything about him. So why,pour l’amour de Dieu—for the love of God—can’t I stop thinking about him? It makes no sense. No sense at all.
It’s been hours since I left the cake shop, and even longer since he gave me a wink and called me gorgeous. When he flirted with me, it made me feel things I’m not supposed to, and even now, in the evening, my stomach flutters when I remember it. Great, now I’m thinking about it again. I try to push away the thoughts, but it’s pointless. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve already tried to distract myself by watching videos on my phone and looking up new cake recipes, but nothing works. Ican’t stop thinking about him. It’s stupid. And crazy. It shouldn’t be this difficult.
I’m currently alone, lying on my bed in my apartment. Or, well, it’s not my apartment; it belongs to my friend Maxime. Because when you’re living with your grumpy dad at twenty-one years old and suddenly your hot model friend says they have a guest room that’s not being used and it’s yours in exchange for a very reasonable rent, you don’t say no. At least I didn’t. I already work with my dad, which I think is enough, so I was too eager to move out to even consider turning Maxime’s offer down. The fact that their place is in the city center and relatively close to the cake shop only made it better. Maxime is also often away because of modeling gigs, so I frequently have this place to myself.
It’s perfect, if you ask me—for now anyway. Because mark my words, one day I will return home to France. I’ve been planning to for years now. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t have left there in the first place, but as a teenager living with my father, I had no choice. Fourteen-year-old me tried to fight the decision with everything I had, but it was pointless.
“I don’t want to move to Belgium!” I’d shouted at my dad in French, half crying as he loaded my stuff into the car. “This is our home!”
My dad had just shook his head, looking unhappy. “Not anymore, thanks to your mother,” he’d said in French. “You and I are leaving.”
“But I want to stay here!”
He’d let out a deep sigh, seemingly tired. “You don’t know what you want, Luc. You’re fourteen, impulsive, and what you want differs daily. You’ll change your mind about Belgium soon enough.”
I’d denied it and protested during the entire car ride, but it was pointless. Several hours later, we’d arrived at our new housein Brussels. Funnily enough, that was only one of many times my father told me I was impulsive. The last time was just last year when I told him I wanted to work at the cake shop. Usually, it doesn’t offend me. In fact, he’s right; I am indeed impulsive. Often enough, I don’t think before I act, and what I want changes frequently, but my father’s very wrong about one thing: I have never changed my mind about France. Brussels may have its charm, and I’m not unhappy here, but I’ve wanted to return home since the day we left.
I’m not sure why he wanted to move away. All my life, my father taught me to be proud of being French, and the lesson stuck. I take pride in my heritage, and so does he. Nowadays, when he meets someone new, the first thing he tells them is that he’s French. He loves France, so why did he make us leave? I still don’t entirely understand, but it doesn’t change my plans. Moving back to France one day is the only thing I’m sure of, along with my love for making cakes. Everything else is replaceable.
Actually, come to think of it, my impulsiveness might be the reason for my reaction to Cody. That must be all there is to it, right? They’re just baseless feelings; they’ll be gone before I know it. If I just forget about them, deny them, pretend they’re not there, they’ll go away. I’m sure of it, and once they are gone, things will return to normal. I can focus on work and save up enough money to move back to the most beautiful city in the world: Besançon, France. And there’ll be nothing or nobody who can stop me.
That’s it, I’ve made up my mind; I’m going to try to fight this feeling with everything I have. Cody’s not for me, and I’m not for him. All I have to do is remind myself of that and convince him of it too.
***
Well, that was the plan, but as the following day comes, there’s no convincing to be done at all. Because there’s no sign of Cody. The sun rises, the shop opens, and eventually at the end of the day, I lock the doors to the store behind me. He didn’t show. Why is that? And why does it bother me so much?
I worry that I actually think I know what happened here: Cody got sick of me already. And why wouldn’t he? I gave him nothing to come back for. Nothing but cold remarks and two pieces of the store’s most unsavory cake. I’m such an idiot. My mind wants to push him away, my body wants to pull him in, and I think it resulted in me lashing out. Don’t get me wrong; as a person, I’m definitely not all warmth and fuzziness, but I’ve also never talked to a customer the way I talked to him. And I don’t think I could stop myself from doing it again either. I don’t think I want to.
