Vincent’s lips curled into a smile. “I do know. But you had enough hope for both of us. Now stop thinking and eat your mush—or whatever that is.”
I laughed, and—like that—I had let it go. I was able to push the horrific past and unsure future aside and focus wholeheartedly on enjoying the present. With my living, breathing boyfriend.
“This is so good,” Vincent said, taking a bit of jalape?o cornbread. “I didn’t know if I’d ever eat again, and I can tell you, taste buds are something you really miss when you don’t have them.”
I laughed. “So you missed food. What else did you miss?”
He raised one eyebrow and giving me a sexy grin, put his fork down on his plate. “I missed this,” he said, running his fingertips up and down my arm, making me shudder.
“Yeah, I kind of missed that too,” I said, trying to look nonchalant as I took a sip of iced tea.
“Just kind of?” Vincent teased.
“Okay, a lot,” I admitted with a sly smile.
“Let’s get off the topic of me, and my former inability to satisfy your lust.” My mouth dropped open and he laughed. “No, really. What’s it like to be back in your hometown?”
“Well,” I said, considering the question. I put my glass down and crossed my arms, glancing around the room and absorbing my surroundings. “It’s actually incredibly surreal. I’ve been away for a year and a half, but it seems like a lifetime. I don’t feel like the same person anymore. Life in Paris is my reality now. It feels like life in New York was a dream. I feel . . . disconnected.”
Vincent placed his hand upward on the table. I unwrapped my arms from my torso and placed my hand in his. He rubbed my palm with his fingertips. “What can you do to reconnect?” he asked softly.
“I had been thinking about that,” I confessed. “There was something I had considered doing. But you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to.”
I told him it what it was, and his eyes widened. He leaned back in his chair and shook his head in wonder. “And it only took my resurrection to convince you to do this.”
“I’ve actually been thinking of it for a while,” I said. And getting out my phone, I made the call I had imagined making for months.
An hour later, we were standing on the front stoop of a Brooklyn brownstone. The door flew open, and my friend Kimberly stood there motionless with a wild look in her eyes before screaming and throwing herself on me. “Kate!” she squealed. “I never thought I’d see you again!” We stood there squeezing the life out of each other for a good minute before she let go and stepped back.
Wiping tears from her eyes, she glanced up at Vincent. “Well, well. Who do we have here?” she asked.
“I’m Vincent,” he said, reaching out to shake Kimberly’s hand.
“Uh-uh. I don’t think so,” she said, planting her hands on her hips and peering at him skeptically. “Are you the reason Kate has been ignoring her friends ever since she got to France?”
“No, he’s the reason I had the guts to reconnect with you after all this time,” I answered for him.
“Well then,” she said, breaking into a smile. “You get more than a handshake!” She flung her arms around him and, while clasping him in a death hug, peeked around his shoulder and mouthed, Oh my God, he’s gorgeous!
“I like your friends,” Vincent said, taking my hand as we walked down a side street lined with stately trees and brownstone homes—each nestled behind its own tiny yard.
But Vincent wasn’t looking at our surroundings. He was studying me with an unfamiliar glint in his eye.
“What?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m reveling in the fact that I just witnessed a side of you I hadn’t previously seen: Historical Kate. What you were like before I met you.”
I smiled, watching our feet tread the same pavement I had walked along for . . . ever since I began to walk. “My friends liked you too,” I responded. “But that was pretty obvious.”
“I’m not sure they’d feel the same if they knew what I am,” he replied.
“Trust me, it wouldn’t make a difference to them,” I said, looking up to gauge his expression.
Vincent raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I mean, once they got over their shock and horror, of course,” I said with faux-seriousness.
We had spent the afternoon going from one friend’s house to the next, until we had amassed a posse of six and then adjourned to a local café—our favorite old hangout. I didn’t even have to worry about Vincent feeling left out. He was so polite and interested in everyone that my friends fell all over themselves to include him, adopting him immediately.
It felt like I had never left. And at the same time, everything had changed. My life was in France now, with my grandparents. And Vincent.