Page 189 of Where the Snakes Sleep

Those were worse, but they happen less now, thankfully.

Camille leans against the doorframe, watching me with a soft expression. “You are smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Shit. I am.

Not about my nightmares, to be clear. The smile is for the paper in front of me.

The long-stay visa took paperwork, money, appointments, translations, proof of insurance, more paperwork, explanations of finances, and at least one morning when I became convinced France’s true national pastime is requesting documents I had already submitted.

But it is approved, and I get to stay.

I tap the envelope. “Still real.”

“Yes.”

“They could change their minds,” I tell him.

“They could also abolish cheese tomorrow.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“My point is that neither seems particularly likely.”

“You don’t know. Maybe somebody in Paris is looking at my file right now, going, ‘Actually, the American is annoying. Deport him.’”

“You would have been removed months ago if annoyance were sufficient grounds.”

“Wow.”

“Objectively.”

“I invite you into my home,” I say dramatically, before starting to make our coffees.

His coffee is black, stark in its white ceramic cup. Mine is a pale, grainy beige from the three heaping sugars I stirred in. He watches me take the first sip, his mouth a tight line of disapproval.

We carry them through the open door into the lingering evening. The heat has broken, leaving air that smells of dry grass and the distant hint of woodsmoke.

I sink into my chair, tucking one foot up under my thigh. Camille sprawls opposite me, all long limbs and relaxed grace, his legs stretching halfway across the stone tiles.

The quiet settles over us like a blanket. Not the tense, waiting silence Paul weaponized—that heavy stillness where I’d count my own breaths, waiting for the explosion. This is different. This is just… quiet. The rustle of leaves in the olive grove, the distant chime of a goat bell, the soft click of Camille’s cup meeting its saucer.

It took months to stop flinching at this kind of peace.

“How was the university?” I finally ask.

“Tedious.”

“Students?”

“Mostly.”

“You love them.”

“I tolerate them.”