He was cut off by the spaniel’s owner rushing over, apologizing profusely, and Bo stood to speak with them. When the spaniel and his owner moved on, she looked back to Max, who was still staring at her, though this time there was a slight worry to his eyes.Oh,she thought,maybe he doesn’t like dogs.
“Sorry,” she offered. “I like dogs. Don’t worry, I’ll wash my hands before we eat.”
Max nodded, but he still looked worried, and Bo decided to leave him to it. It wasn’t like this was a date or anything. She’d been on plenty of dates before and knew instinctively that this wasn’t one of them. There was no holding of hands,no shy smiles, no attempts at awkward conversation. She was wearing her old cardigan with the pull mark from a bramble bush on the wrist, and Max had on his awful, knitted jumper. She hadn’t even bothered with a sliver of make-up. No, this was emphatically not a date. It was more an agreement between two people to eat and talk a little together so they could rampantly shag with less guilt afterwards.
Not that Bo was having a bad time. There was a simple and settled quiet between them as they walked, the sunshine on their backs and the sound of their feet crunching on the summer-dry grass as they made their way to the restaurant. No, she wasn’t having a bad time at all.
Max opened the door for her when they reachedLe Bar a Vin,and in perfectly fluent French asked for a table for two.
“You speak French?” Bo asked, amazed.
“Yes. You don’t?"
Bo shrugged. “Never really had the chance to learn. I’m doing French on Duolingo now, but I’m no good at it. I’m not like Lisa. She speaks beautiful French.”
“Lisa?”
“My sister,” she explained. “She lived in Paris for a while.”
Max stared at her. “How does a woman with a name like ‘Jacobien’ have a sister named Lisa?”
Bo smiled. “Same father, different mothers.”
“Ah. Is Lisa older or younger than you?”
“Older, by quite a bit. She’s in her—” Abruptly, Bo stopped, as a thought struck her. “Max, how old you are?”
“Thirty-four. Why? How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“So, you’re just a baby then,” Max teased.
“Twenty-six isn’t a baby.”
“Tell me that again when you hit the other side of thirty.” Max handed her a menu. “It’s in French. Do you want me to translate for you?”
“You can order for me if you like,” Bo replied easily. “I don’t know what’s good.”
“You’ve never eaten French food before?”
“Not really,” Bo confessed. “When I was growing up, my mother was always on a diet, and she considered anything more than a head of lettuce too rich to eat. French food would have sent her over the edge.”
Max laughed. “So, your mother didn’t like to eat?”
“Not unless it was attention being served,” Bo replied, before she gave a self-aware shrug. “She thought food was something other people did. People with no willpower and weak metabolisms.”
“What about your father?”
“He was too scared of my mother to argue.” A fond smile crossed her face. “But I loved him. God, I loved him.”
Max looked up, his teasing expression fading at the tone of her voice.
“He died,” Bo explained. “When I was little.”
“I’m sorry,” Max said, his voice low and sincere.
Bo nodded, blinking down at the menu she wasn’t even really looking at. “He was clever. Really clever. He ran our family business with my older sister. Publishing. He tried to show me how things worked. I didn’t really get most of it . . . numbers, contracts, distribution . . . I was young, and it all just swam around in my head. He never made me feel stupid about it though. He never made me feel stupid about anything. He just wanted to show me the work he loved.”
