Part Three
Laurent
Chapter Sixteen
The well-meaning enquiries from my work colleagues about whether I was feeling better were bad enough, my guilt at having thrown a sick day hopefully not showing on my face as I lied through my teeth and assured them that the food poisoning had been a short-term thing, and no, I wouldn’t be visiting that restaurant again. Worse, though, was contending with Finn hunting me down like I was a hyena and he was a hungry cheetah, desperate to sink his teeth into my hindquarters. I stayed busy enough all morning that his attempts to speak to me came to naught, but by lunchtime, my luck ran out, Finn cornering me in the car park when I stepped out for a breath of fresh air.
“Nice day,” he said.
“It is,” I agreed, tipping my head back and closing my eyes to catch some of the sun’s rays on my face. I prayed that when I opened my eyes, he’d be gone. Of course that didn’t happen, Finn still there when the sun disappeared behind a cloud and the resultant chill in the air made me open them.
“Mac hasn’t been home for two nights.”
“U-huh…”
“I’m really confused about what’s going on with the two of you.”
You and me both.I didn’t say that. “Perhaps try not to think about it. Concentrate on other stuff.” I’d been hanging around Mac too much, his habit of using the word ‘stuff’ for everything apparently contagious. “It’s not healthy to get hung up on what other people are doing.”
Finn turned himself around to lean against the wall. “That’s funny coming from you because I distinctly remember you interrogating me several times about what was going on between me and Cillian during our reconciliation. I wonder how you would have reacted to me saying not to get hung up on what other people are doing.”
The sun came back out, the excuse to close my eyes again a welcome one. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“Here’s what I’m confused about.” Finn left a pause, as if ready for me to jump in with an early rebuttal. When I didn’t, he continued. “I was ninety-nine percent certain that the two of you had concocted a devious plan to wind Cillian up.” He left another pause.
“U-huh.” I wasn’t about to fall into a trap that easily. He’d need to try harder than that.
“I’ll admit that the kiss put doubt in my head. Because it looked pretty real.”
It felt it as well.“Did it?”
“And now I’m left pondering if Mac hasn’t been staying with you for the last couple of nights, then where has he been?”
“He’s not five. You don’t need to keep tabs on him. He’s an adult perfectly capable of looking after himself. More than capable.”
“He doesn’t speak French.”
“Neither do half of the people in Paris at any time. Neither did you when you moved here. And you still don’t,” I added somewhat uncharitably.
“Hey! I’ve gotten a lot better.”
“That’s your opinion. Others may differ.”
“You’re being mean in the hope I’ll forget what I was saying and back off.”
“Maybe,” I admitted. I joined Finn against the wall, our bodies close enough that our shoulders touched. “What do you want from me, Finn?”
“The truth.” He said it sadly, like he couldn’t believe he needed to demand that of me, of all people.
I let out a sigh. “You’re talking to the wrong man.”
“Yeah, well… You’re the one I work with and who is supposed to be my friend.”
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t need to get all melodramatic about it.”
“Just talk to me, Laurent,please.”
“And then you’ll feed it all back to Cillian.”
