When the Heart Falls

"See you tonight." She giggles and starts grinding on Duke again.

I leave without a glance back, disgusted, tired, angry and… and I don't even know what. I hail a cab to get back to my dorm and take such a long, hot shower that the water goes cold.

Once back in my room, I open my laptop and find the scene I was working on before this disastrous night happened. I don't want to think about Jenifer and her stupid choices, about the pee hole, about my newly discovered feelings for Cade… none of it. I just want to feel my characters and help them fall in love.

But the words won't come. I have no inspiration, no emotion to draw from. I'm like a wrung out husk of a human, completely drained.

Night settles around me, the bewitching hour comes and goes and still I have no words. My roommate does not return. At 3 a.m. I give up and curl into bed, the tears finally falling as I cry myself to sleep.





WINTER DEVEAUX

CHAPTER 12





VINCENT, THE OWNER of the restaurant who'd comped our dinners the night Jenifer and I got food poisoning, smiles and places a basket of fresh bread on our table. "Comment allez-vous?"

Cade responds with precise words, practicing his diction. "Très bien, et vous?"

"Très bien, aussi!" He and Cade go back and forth making polite pleasantries in French, before Cade stumbles on a sentence and reverts back to English.

Vincent claps his hands together. "Your French, it is much better. We like to think it is our food, but I'm thinking it is your girl's help more, no?"

When Cade laughs, the world goes quiet for me, and all I can hear is the low timber of his voice. He pats my hand. "It's definitely my girl's help, but the food doesn't hurt. Can't study on an empty stomach."

Speaking of stomachs, mine flip-flops when he calls me his girl. His girl. The possessiveness of that term, said with such affection, makes it hard to keep the lines of friendship drawn in the sand. For two weeks we've danced around that line, meeting daily for French lessons and dinner, spending our free time together seeing the sights of Paris and talking about our work. He's become my best friend, the last person I want to talk to at night and the first person I look forward to seeing when I wake up.

Vincent excuses himself to see to other tables, leaving us alone again.

"Okay, spill it," I say.

Cade makes big doe eyes at me. "Spill what?"

I slap his arm. "You know what. Show me the test!"

It can't be too bad, since his mood has been high since we left the Sorbonne, but I'm dying to see how he did after a few weeks working with me.

He reaches for his book bag and hands me the paper. There's red on it, more than I'd hoped would be, but the final mark shows a 78%. "Cade, this is great! You must be thrilled!" I lean over and hug him. It's a friendly gesture, but when his hand strokes my hair, trailing down my back, and my mouth presses into the hot flesh of his neck, the friendliness evaporates into heat.

The mood shifts, and our bodies part with reluctance as we focus on our bread and drinks.

On our table, Cade's phone vibrates. He checks it, pauses, and then ignores the call, sending it straight to voicemail.

"Who was it?" I ask.

He shoves the phone into his pocket. "My mom."

"You should call her back. It's the 4th of July. I already talked to my family earlier today." It's easy to forget American holidays over here, surrounded by a different life and different culture. I was surprised to find that it doesn't take long to acclimate to a new life. Within a few weeks of being here, it had already started to feel like home. The daily routine of going to school, stopping for a baguette on the way there at the local bakery, and now meeting after class every day to study—even passing Notre Dame every day has become routine, though we still marvel at its awesomeness, both of us excited about the scheduled visit mid-August, just before the class ends. I have it circled in red on my calendar.

"I'll call her later." His response is curt, and he avoids eye contact with me.

I lean away from our books spread out over the table. "I don't mind. I can wait."

Cade pulls the phone out of his pocket and stares at the screen, finger hovering over the call button, but he puts it away without dialing. "I'll just call her later."

Right. Like that's not the most obvious copout ever. "So what's the family drama?" I sip my coffee and wait.

"No drama," my sexy cowboy says. "I just want to study right now, is all."

"Please, I grew up with five sisters, a cousin, and parents who thought I'd be successful in the escort business. I know drama when I see it."

"The escort business?"

Oops. Didn't mean to say that part out loud. I wave his question away with my hand. "Long story. The point is, I can smell family drama like some animals can smell fear. I'm like a rodent, or something else that smells really well."