“You’re not usually this punctual,” I say as I follow him to his car.
He hasn’t smiled at me yet. He’s barely even glanced in my direction.
“No Étienne factor today,” I add teasingly, trying to warm him up.
“What?” He looks confused.
“Lise said you’re usually ten minutes late.”
He snorts. “I’m starting to regret introducing you.”
I relax a little as we get in the car. He’s clearly forgotten about Thursday night, and even if he hasn’t, it’s obvious now that he was just messing with me.
I tense up as his little rocket ship launches onto the main road, but as it zips left to go over the bridge and turns left again to head out of town, I settle into the ride.
My eyes travel along the length of his lean, tanned arm, noticing the flexing of his muscles as his hand goes through the gear changes. The journey is over before I know it.
“So what’s the plan for today?” I ask as he comes to a slow stop outside Les Saules.
“I brought a picnic. You could go for a swim or read or whatever, but I’m going to clean some windows.”
“Perfect—I brought window cleaner.”
He shoots me a look. “You did?”
“Yeah, isn’t that what we’re here for? To clean?”
“I didn’t want to presume.”
“Presume away. Glad we’re on the same page. Let there be light!” I declare, opening the door and getting out.
I’ve brought a portable speaker and I ask him to hook up his music. Every time I walk into La Terrasse when he’s behind the bar, I like what’s playing.
I keep making a note of the songs as the first hour melts away: “All My Love” by Noah Kahan, “Southern Star” by Gregory Alan Isakov, “True Blue” by boygenius, “God Needs the Devil” by Jonah Kagen, “August” by Flipturn, “Funeral” by Phoebe Bridgers…When Étienne realizes what I’m doing, he offers to share the whole playlist with me later.
We’ve done the ground floor and now I’m in his mum’s bedroom and he’s gone next door.
I finish first and go to have a look at his room. He already knows that I’m nosy.
It’s a nice space with a view of the mountains, but it’s still fitted out like a teenage boy’s bedroom with car posters on the walls, a whole series ofAstérixcomic books on the bookshelves, and a narrow single bed covered with a stripy blue-and-white bedspread. It’s a stark reminder that he was only a teenage boy when he left it.
“Didn’t you and Eve ever stay here overnight?” I ask, perplexed.
There’s no way he would have slept in his mum’s bed.
He glances at me, his eyebrows pulling together. “She never came here.”
“What,ever?”
“It’s not exactly wheelchair accessible,” he points out, returning to scrubbing at a stubborn mark.
I feel bad for not knowing she’d used a wheelchair.
“Most of our time was spent in kayaks and at Lise’s,” he continues.
“Lise told me that you trained her.”
“What else has she been saying about me?” he asks dryly.
