“I’m sorry, did you learn to drive when you were three? If so, I’m happy to step aside.”
“My point is that Iinheriteda driving style both immaculate and aggressive that is faster than a Midwestern farm tractor and will get us to Rouen before the sun is already coming up.”
Edie put her hand over her mouth. “Immaculate and aggressive, princess?”
“That’s what I said.”
“How about this? We agreed to arbitrate our impossible disagreements, so we’ll let the attendant decide. Whatever this guy in the orange blazer says when we get up there goes.”
“Fine.” Cosima could’ve stomped her foot, but the kid sitting on the luggage was shooting her daggers.
The minute the man in front of them was done, they both raced to the counter, Cosima immediately spilling out her request in what she hoped was adequate French. “J’ai besoin de louer une voiture, quelle qu’elle soit, pour une durée indéterminée.”
The man raised his eyebrow and started typing. “Oui.”
Edie leaned forward, the high counter hitting her at sternum height. “Excuse my friend. She ate bad cheese on the train.Ineed to rent a car.”
He stopped typing. “Who’s the driver?” He spoke English with a strong Caribbean accent.
“I am,” Edie said, at the same time Cosima replied, “Moi.”
He stared at them both, his hands hovering over the keyboard. “Who is renting this car?” He looked on the counter at the stack of passports, driver’s licenses, and credit cards they had both provided.
“We want you to decide,” Edie said, breathlessly. “She and I have a deal, and you have to settle it.”
He raised his eyebrows again, looking first at Edie, then at Cosima, who held her breath. He began typing again. “I pick this short American. All I have left is the Fiat 500. The tall American will hit her chin with her knees if she tries to drive it.”
“Yesssss!” Edie actually pumped her fist. “How do you like that, Legs?”
Cosima tried to give Edie an imperious look, but she couldn’t help it—she started laughing.
They laughed the whole time Edie ground the gears of the cramped car on the way out of Paris while Cosima tried and failed to get her phone to pair with the onboard navigation, and when they finally found the road to Rouen and the lightsof the city had faded behind them, Cosima did, in fact, fall asleep, the heater blasting, listening to Edie’s husky voice singing along with the radio.
Her most fun in Paris yet.
Chapter Fourteen
Edie squinted, opening one eye. The sun lasered through a gap in the curtains.
She was mad about it, because the sheets against her bare legs were divine. She rubbed her feet along the smooth fabric experimentally and gave herself goose bumps.
The mattress was a cloud. The pillow, unlike Morag’s, did not smell like bleach, but lavender. When she stretched her arms over her head, arching her back, it was as if the previous day of treasure hunting and travel and late-night driving had been whisked away by the magic of Normandy and the amenities of this hotel, with its steep off-season discount.
The twin beds were side by side in the small balcony room, not quite touching. With their thick, white, square-cornered duvets, they had looked to Edie like perfectly proofed, matched Pullman loaves. She and Cosima hadn’t even turned the lights on, only waited on each other to use the miniscule but expertly appointed en suite, grateful for the providedtoothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap. They’d stripped down in the dark, backs to each other—though Edie had never been more aware of someone undressing in her proximity—and slid under the covers.
Edie hadn’t meant to draw a line that meant they’d leave behind the intimacy of the train entirely. But in the room last night, she’d found herself too shy to avoid the uncomfortable series of moments when they were both awake and aware of each other but politely silent, and then she’d heard Cosima’s breathing slow and deepen.
She remembered nothing after that.
She rolled over to look at the other bed. The only sign of Cosima was a bouquet of curly, frizzy hair sticking out of the top of her duvet.
Edie slid carefully out of the bed, gasping when the cold air hit her bare legs. She’d give a lot for one of her oversized sweatshirts right now. Her button-up barely reached her ass, and because she’d taken off her bra from underneath, she’d had to undo the top several buttons. She pulled a throw off the end of the bed and wrapped it around herself, creeping to French doors—French doors in France!—that led to what she assumed was the balcony.
The curtains pulled back silently, the pale silver February sun only partially filling the suite.God. The view.
She turned the handle of the door slowly, as quietly as she could, and opened it just enough to step out onto the balcony, wrapped in her blanket, with the storybook of medieval Normandy laid open at her feet.
Her perch gave her a vantage in both directions along a lane of half-timbered buildings. Their mullioned windows glinted against plaster and dark beams. At the end of the lane, there was a perfect, faceted, breathtaking slice of Rouen Cathedral—unbelievably tall, taking in all of the sunlight that couldn’t penetrate the crowded lane.
