“Eastern side of France,” Alexis chirped, too quickly, but only because she needed to do something other than think about Birdie and about that damn knee that was so close. She only knew the answer because it had been a question on some game show that she’d half watched one evening when she couldn’t sleep.
“So you’ve been?” Bianca asked, turning those bright blue eyes on her. She didn’t give Alexis a chance to answerno, Ihaven’t yetbefore adding, “Isn’t it beautiful? The canals, the cathedral, the Christmas markets.”
Alexis nodded.
Bianca let out a melancholic sigh and stretched out her legs. She dipped her head back until the sun washed over her face, and then she closed her eyes. In her mind, she was probably somewhere else entirely. Which was why Alexis found herself catching Birdie’s eye. Not because she wanted to look at Birdie—or maybe she did—but because she wanted to share her amusement with someone, and Louise, who seemed a little too flustered, was focusing extra hard on smearing olive tapenade onto the last of the breadsticks.
Birdie smiled.
Alexis smiled back.
And then she realized what she was doing and quickly snapped her head back to her wineglass and stared at the condensation sliding down the stem. Her chest was uncomfortably tight, and her cheeks were beginning to turn pink.
“Where are you from, by the way? I don’t think I’ve asked before,” Louise asked suddenly, her voice muffled around the bread. She swallowed the last bite of tapenade-smeared grissini and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. Her eyes stayed fixed on Alexis.
“Portland,” Alexis replied. She wasn’t from anywhere fancy like New York or L.A., but it had been home since she had graduated from the University of Oregon and moved closer to her childhood home. Her parents still lived in Cannon Beach.
Bianca jerked her head up, eyes bright. “Oh, I love Portland.”
“You mean you love the endless gray skies and the rain that constantly mists you into depression,” Birdie said with her brows squeezed tight as she flicked a crumb from her lap.
Alexis huffed out a laugh before she could help herself. “It’s not that bad. People make it sound like we’re living under a permanent rain cloud.”
“It’s not so much the rain,” Birdie countered. “It’s the fact that the sky is overcast like two hundred and fifty days of the year. Have you never heard of seasonal depression?”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
“It’s not.”
Alexis shook her head and tore a piece from the baguette that one of the assistants had just deposited onto the board, now that the grissini was gone. “Well, at least it keeps things green. Trees. Mountains. Gardens. Would you rather be living in a desert?” She huffed a breath. “Why do you even live there if you’re just going to complain about the weather?”
Birdie snagged a glassy olive from the bowl, but she didn’t pop it into her mouth. Not yet anyway. “I never would’ve pegged you for someone who likes miserable weather. You seem more like…” She let the words trail off and sit there in the air between them.
Alexis’s fingertips whitened on her glass. “Like what?” she said, her voice sharper than she intended. But maybe not sharp enough, because Birdie was looking at her like she knew her, and she most certainly did not.
Birdie shrugged. “Like someone who needs sun to function, I guess. Like someone who should be living in California or somewhere…” She flourished a hand vaguely. “Right here. Provence suits you.”
Alexis didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected that. And she was just about to ask what that meant, because really, why would Birdie say something like that?
But then Bianca leaned forward, circling her arms around her knees, and frowned. “Wait,” she said, looking at Birdie. “You live in Portland too?”
Birdie’s mouth opened and closed.
Alexis felt her chest twist in panic.
And then Louise scrunched her nose, and Alexis could feel the inevitable question coming of how Alexis even knew Birdie lived in Portland. But before she could open her mouth, Vivian stepped out from between two rows of vines.
“Alright, ladies! I’m afraid our little Provençal picnic has come to an end,”she called.
Bianca groaned, “Already?”
“Yes, already,” Vivian said with a cheerful finality that brokered no argument. “You’ll be heading back to the villa to meet the rest of the group.” She smiled that host-smile of hers and added, “There’s a surprise waiting for everyone by the pool.”
Both Bianca and Louise perked up. Out of the corner of Alexis’s eye, she could see Birdie had not. Or more so, she still looked exactly the same as before, like she was walking on eggshells, too scared to step wrong again. Because yes, bringing up Portland weather was most certainly the wrong thing in case Alexis was going to send her home right then and there.
Which Alexis wanted to.
Which she was probably going to do at the next lavender ceremony.
