Page 1 of City of Love
Chapter 1
Lydia
“Repeat after me: I will not fall in love with a French boy.”
My brother Ian’s face is serious as he crouches in front of me, now at eye level instead of towering over me while I sit on the bed, shoving random odds and ends into my carry-on. The corners of his mouth are turned down, and his blue eyes—beloved among the female half of the population, including my best friend, Jade, although she denies it—are lacking their usual sparkle.
From over Ian’s shoulder, Jade throws him a reproachful look. Then she steps forward and nudges him out of the way. “No, repeat afterme,” she says. Her long, red hair is vibrant as she tucks it behind one ear. “Iwillfall in love, and he will be a man, not a boy. He will have a sexy accent and feed me baguettes and write me bad poetry.”
I smile at her. I can’t help it; it’s such a Jade thing to say. My eyes fall on Cohen and Mina, both of whom are sitting side by side on my desk, their legs swinging gently.
I nod in their direction. “Do you two have any input you want to offer, since everyone else seems to have an opinion on this? Should I or should I not fall in love with a French boy?”
“Man,” Jade corrects.
Mina smiles, and Cohen shrugs. “We do have an opinion on this, actually,” he says, and my heart gives a leap of joy at his use of the word “we.” I couldn’t be more thrilled that my twin found love, and my happiness is compounded by the fact that Mina is so perfect for him in every way.
Do I get a little—okay, alot—jealous sometimes? Of course. It’s hard to look at Mina and Cohen and not want that kind of relationship. But my envy never overshadows my happiness for them.
“All right,” I say, nodding at them and grinning. “Give me your thoughts.”
“We think it’s none of our business,” Mina says, and Cohen nods, pressing an absent kiss to her shoulder before taking her hand in his own.
“But you should be careful,” he adds. “Because you’re going to be there a month.”
“Which is both good and bad,” Mina continues. “It’s long enough to get attached to someone but not necessarily long enough to make plans for the future and all that.”
At this Ian starts grumbling under his breath, and I look back to him, raising one brow.
“There will be no getting attached to French boys,” he says. “Or men,” he adds, looking at Jade. “No foreign boys are going to break your heart and then leave you halfway across the world.”
“But Daddy, I love him!” I say, clasping my hands together and doing my best imitation of a swooning Ariel.
Jade gives a snort of laughter before looking at Ian. “Don’t pull the overprotective big brother card,” she says to him. “She just graduated from high school. She’s earned a bit of freedom. Besides,” she adds, giving him a little push on the shoulder. “How many hearts haveyouleft broken in your wake? Plenty, I’m sure.” She gives his bicep a little squeeze, and he swats her hand away, his cheeks turning pink.
“This is different,” he says, running one hand through his dark hair and starting to pace. “It’sFrance. Anyone she meets over there, she’ll most likely never see again after she comes home.”
Jade watches him pace, a little smile on her freckled face. I know that smile, though I don’t say anything about it. I just grin as I watch their exchange.
My single regret about going on my French class’s graduation trip to France? I won’t be around to set up Jade and Ian. If they don’t end up married with three kids, Iwilltake it personally. Ian is three years older than us, and he only just moved back home for the summer to stay with us while he waits for his apartment across town to be vacated; however, I’ve already noticed that his gaze lingers on Jade in a way it never used to. And Jade? Well, she’s had a crush on Ian for…forever.
As I watch them, their eyes meet. And for a second—just a second—it feels like I’m alone in a room of five people.
Suddenly, France can’t come soon enough.
I get up and thread past Jade and Ian to the desk where Mina and Cohen are still sitting. I give Cohen’s legs a little nudge, and he drapes them over Mina’s lap so that I’m able to get to the top drawer. I open it and pull out the little box I’ve been keeping there. Looking at the earrings nestled inside, I can’t help but smile.
I don’t have a diary; I have a pen pal. Noel is the reason I’m going to France in the first place. Three years ago, every French language student in my high school French class got a pen pal from an English sister school in Paris. Except there weren’t enough students in the French class, so I got partnered with Noel—the English teacher’s daughter. She’s several years older than I am, but it’s never been an issue. We’ve been emailing ever since. My teacher wanted us to email our pen pals once a week, but Noel and I write closer to every other day, and sometimes we chat online too in the rare event we’re both on despite the time difference.
It would be cooler if we could use owls and send magical letters rather than emails, but I guess this isn’t Harry Potter, and we can’t all have Hedwigs.
A little squirm of nerves shoots through me as I look at the earrings again, and I set aside thoughts of Harry and Hedwig. The earrings are a gift for Noel—tiny silver bows with a little pearl hanging from the center. I hope she likes them, but that’s the weird thing about our relationship. She might hate them. I really don’t know. I know about her family, about her passion for nonprofit work, about the way she thinks and works through problems. I’ve seen the change in her over the last three years—she’s become less idealistic and maybe a little jaded. Despite knowing all that, I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup, and I certainly couldn’t tell you what her taste in jewelry is like. All I know is that her hair is dark and wavy—and that her ears are pierced. I asked before I bought the earrings.
She probably doesn’t know much more about me, either; she’s not on social media, and I’m not active on my accounts anyway. But she knows the things I don’t tell anyone else—the things I’m ashamed of or embarrassed about. She knows how jealous I am of Mina and Cohen. More than that, she knows how guilty I feel for being jealous. She says it’s normal and natural, and I trust her on that; we’re honest with each other. Plus, what she says makes sense. It’s normal to want a loving relationship.
And I do want that. I want it all—a man I love, children with faces sticky from peanut butter and jelly, little giggles and the thumping of tiny bare feet.
Goodness knows she’s heard me talk about it enough. She’s never talked about having any boyfriends, but she gives good relationship advice all the same; she truly seems to understand how the male mind works. She was the one who helped me figure out what to do when Thomas Higgins cheated on me junior year. I wanted to give him another chance, but Noel advised me to break up with him. Because, as she explained in her straightforward way, “if he did it once, he’ll probably do it again, and he’s not the type of guy you want around for the long haul, anyway.” She was right. She’s right about a lot of things.
