“If I’d thought about it, I might have done,” Laurent admitted. He sat back in his chair to contemplate his next words.
“Too many to choose from,” I teased.
“Just picking the best one.”
“No, you’re not. You’re picking the one that gives the least away. You’re probably going to fob me off with something meaningless, like being untidy.”
“I erect a wall,” Laurent said, his honesty immediately silencing me. “Between me and other people, so they can’t get too close. It’s the easiest way to make sure they can’t hurt me. That’s why I have a tendency to befriend needy people. They have too much going on to even notice that I’m keeping them at arm’s length.”
“Where do I come into that?” I asked with genuine interest. “Because I’ve never had myself down as being needy.”
“You’re not,” Laurent stated without hesitation. “But you’ll be gone soon.” He gave a tight smile. “You just said it yourself. You had no plans to come here, and you get bored easily. I give you two weeks at most. Then you’ll be back on that plane.”
“I might take the Eurostar,” I stated, to bring a bit of levity to the situation. “Just for the sake of mixing it up a bit.”
We ate in silence for the next few minutes. Me, because I was chewing on Laurent’s words, and him… Well, I didn’t know because I couldn’t read his mind. I wished I could. I cracked first, never having been great at dealing with silences. “You have two choices of activity today.”
Laurent frowned. “That’s not what I agreed to.”
“I said I’d let you choose. I didn’t say how many things I’d let you choose from.”
“Semantics,” he muttered. “And pushy.”
“At least let me tell you what the activities are, and then if you don’t want to do either of them,thenwe can argue.” A flick of his hand as he ate grapes told me to get on with it.
“There’s a class happening today where we can learn to make macarons.”
“Right.” Laurent’s expression said he hadn’t been expecting that as an option.
I shrugged. “I thought it might be fun. And you never know when it might come in handy. You might want to impress someone one day with your culinary skills. They’d have to make it through the wall first, but…” Laurent threw a grape at me. Rather than ducking and letting it sail over my head, I caught it expertly in my mouth and chewed down on it. “Thanks.”
“And the second choice?”
“Probably a more predictable one,” I admitted. “Climbing. There’s a wall just a few blocks from here. There’s a package where you get a thirty-minute training block with an instructor and then thirty minutes on the wall. Assuming that is, that you’ve never done it before? You might be up there every other weekend, for all I know.” I pointed to the other bag I’d brought with me, this one a backpack. “I brought suitable gear for both activities.”
“That’s a relief,” Laurent said. “I thought Cillian had kicked you out, and you were moving in.” He thought for a moment, presumably weighing up macarons versus climbing. “Climbing.” He dropped his gaze to his jeans. “I’ll need to get changed.”
Chapter Thirteen
It struck me as I watched Laurent shimmy up a wall in just shorts and a tank top, surprisingly muscly arms bulging as he supported his own weight, that I hadn’t thought this through, and that playing with flour in a kitchen with other people present would have been a far less stimulating affair.
Because there was no denying it any longer. I found Laurent attractive. And not just in a passinghey, how about thatway? But in a way where my mind kept straying down paths I’d never expected.
Laurent. A man.
It was that damn kiss that had done it. Which meant, given I’d been the one to instigate it, that I had no one to blame but myself. Now all I could think about was kissing him again. Without an audience. And for no other reason than because I wanted to.
What would he do if I did?
I was still contemplating that question when Laurent completed his descent, bounded over, and threw an arm aroundmy shoulders. He meant it in a buddy-buddy way, but my traitorous body, having suddenly decided after twenty-three years to embrace newfound bi-curiosity, bombarded me with information it wanted me to notice.
The heat of Laurent as his side pressed against mine.
The slight scent of sweat coming from him, and how I didn’t find it at all unpleasant.
The brush of his hair against my cheek as he leaned in close.
The way seeing him enjoy himself pleased me for coming up with the activity.
