“That sounds romantic.”
“He pushes me up against any flat surface he can find,” she said with a chuckle. “Not exactly romantic.”
“That sounds pretty fucking romantic to me.”
Bastien continued to talk Luca’s ear off. “And they had these filet mignon bites coated with bleu cheese. That’s good shit too.”
But Luca continued to stare at me like he was stuck in our previous conversation.
“Are you even listening to me, man?” Bastien asked.
“Give me a second.” Luca stepped away from him and came over to me. He didn’t even say hello to Fleur. “I told you I’m not good at this shit. So tell me what I did wrong because I can tell I pissed you off.” He spoke so loudly that Bastien and Fleur could both hear.
And they stared like they could hear perfectly.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Forget it.”
“I don’t forget anything,” he snapped. “So, tell me.”
“We don’t need to do this right now?—”
“Yes, we do,” he barked.
“Fine,” I said with a breath. “If you don’t want to call me your girlfriend, then don’t.”
His eyes moved back and forth as he tried to understand.
“Don’t say what you don’t mean.”
“I did mean it.”
“But then you said you hated it.”
“I do hate it. Girlfriend is a stupid label.”
“Then don’t use it.”
Now Luca looked confused again.
“If I may…” Bastien inserted himself between us. “I think I know what’s going on here.” His eyes were on me like I was the one who needed to be addressed. “Girlfriends are for pussies. It’s not a term we like to use?—”
“Then don’t use it?—”
“What he means is you’remorethan a girlfriend. You’re his woman. But that’s not a term that others understand, so he has to call you his girlfriend, but he hates that because it doesn’t accurately describe what you have. That’s all he was trying to say.”
Luca didn’t interject or disagree, like that was how he felt.
“Make sense?” Bastien asked.
My eyes shifted to Luca.
He continued to stare me down.
Bastien stepped aside and moved back to the table, his arm sliding around Fleur’s waist.
Luca waited for me to do something.
I moved back into him. “I’m sorry I misunderstood you.”
