“I’m sure I’m out of your way.”
“Where do you live?”
“Rue du Général-Camou,” I said, knowing that he wouldn’t have heard of the tiny side street between Avenue Rapp and Avenue de la Bourdonnais.
Wrong again.
“Oh, fantastic!” he exclaimed. “I live in the seventh, too! What a coincidence. You’re just a few blocks from me.”
I gaped at him. I was out of excuses.
“So? Are you coming?” Jingling his car keys, he started toward the door.
In the passenger’s seat of Gabe’s immaculately clean Peugeot, I braced myself for an onslaught of questions about Guillaume, but instead he made pleasant conversation, asking me where I was from, why I’d come to Paris, and where I’d gone to school.
“You went to the University of Florida?” he exclaimed as soon as the words were out of my mouth. “I can’t believe it!”
I looked at him, startled. “Why?” I asked defensively. How on earth had he even heard of the school? Sure, it was well known in the States thanks to its dominance in football and basketball. But how could some guy in France have such strong feelings about my alma mater?
“Because I went there, too.”
I was sure I’d heard him wrong. “What? But you’re French!”
“Emma, French people are allowed to go to school in the United States, you know,” he deadpanned.
I blushed, feeling stupid. “I know that.”
“Besides,” Gabe added, “I have dual citizenship. My father is French. My mother is American. They divorced when I was a baby. I spent summers here with my dad and the rest of the year in Tampa with my mom.”
“You lived in Tampa?” I stared in disbelief. “I grew up in Orlando.” The cities were only an hour apart. Gabe laughed.
“That’s unbelievable,” he said. “What a small world.”
“You really went to UF?”
Gabe nodded. “Yes. I got a journalism degree there ten years ago and then got my master’s at the Sorbonne, here in Paris. That’s when I decided to move here to work for the UPP. Being bilingual really helps.”
“You graduated from UF ten years ago?” I asked. “I graduated seven years ago. Also from the journalism school.”
“Wow, we overlapped a year,” Gabe said. “That’s unbelievable. How come I never saw you?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we crossed paths and didn’t even know it.”
“No,” Gabe said, staring straight ahead. He made the left turn onto Avenue Rapp. “I think I would have remembered you.”
My heart fluttered bizarrely for a moment, and I shot a quick glance at him. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as he’d initially seemed.
A moment later, Gabe turned right down my street, and I pointed out my building.
“You’re right next to the American Library,” he said. “That’s so weird. I come here all the time.”
“You do?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m a big reader. Well, maybe some weekend when I’m over here, we can grab a cup of coffee.”
“Um, maybe,” I said slowly, thinking that, although he seemed nicer than I had expected, I would probably have to wear my ice skates to such a meeting, because it would be a cold day in hell before I voluntarily subjected myself to coffee with Gabe Francouer. He would no doubt spend the entire time we were together pumping me for information about Guillaume. No thanks. “Well, thank you for the ride,” I said awkwardly.
“It was great to talk with you, Emma,” he said. “I’m afraid I have to get going, though. I have dinner plans.”
I felt myself blushing again. “Oh, of course,” I said. Wait. I was supposed to blow him off. Why had he just made me feel like he was eager to get rid of me?
I opened the car door and stepped out. “Well,” I said awkwardly. “Thanks again.” I slammed the door behind me.
“No problem!” Gabe said through the open window. “Cheers!” He gave me a little wave and then sped off without looking back.
Chapter Eleven
That night, Poppy came across the gum wrapper Edouard had scribbled his name and number on the first night I’d been to the Long Hop.
“Who’s this guy?” she asked, holding the wrapper in the air.
“That chain-smoker I met the first night we went out.”
“You should call him,” Poppy had said. “He seemed nice!”
“You didn’t even talk to him,” I said. “And he smoked like a chimney.”
“Nonsense,” she said firmly. “He liked you. And I guarantee, he’ll be great for your confidence.”
Against my protests, Poppy dialed for me and handed the phone to me. “Try to sound sexy,” she said. I rolled my eyes.
Edouard sounded surprised to hear from me, but he said that of course he remembered “ze pretty blond American girl” and would still love to take me on a romantic picnic in Paris. We agreed to meet on Wednesday night.
“Let’s go buy you something to wear!” Poppy said on Wednesday afternoon. We left the office early, and I let her talk me into a black strapless dress from Zara on the Rue de Rivoli and a new pair of way-too-expensive strappy black heels from Galeries Lafayette.