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He nods. “Yes. Your mom. The not-birthday party.”
Oh. Ohhh.
Thatparty.
I take a moment for my heart to settle back to its normal steady beat. Around us the Jardin Anglais brims with summer-morning life. The sun is a soft yellow ball rising above the leafy trees. The air is soft summer-warm, and the old plane trees spread wide branches over the curving paths. The shade cools the grass and draws brindled light before us. The grass bends from the morning dew and smells sweet. It’s a morning smell—the kind that rises with the sun.
Already there are tourists taking photographs in front of the clock. There are families roller-skating, following the long, straight promenade along the lake. Joggers run past, their brightly colored clothes flashing as they speed by. A family with three kids hurries past, the children’s shrieks and laughter blending with the birdsong.
It’s busy here in the Jardin Anglais. Behind us is the bustling road, the whoosh of cars quiet. Ahead is the lake, deep golden and blue in the morning. The Jet d’Eau sprays its fountain of water hundreds of feet into the air and little white boats bob along the wooden dock.
Mila has already begun her circuit of the clock, running in a joyous loop around the thousands of blooming orange and yellow marigolds and the cherry-red geraniums.
“Do you know,” I say, turning to Max, “I think it went rather well.”
He raises his eyebrows.
I bump his shoulder. “I know. Surprising. But it was good. My mum’s left.”
“Ahh,” he says, searching my face, trying to decipher whether I’m happy about this or not. Max knows about my mum leaving me when I was young. He knows about Joel. He knows me better than anyone except Daniel.
He’s my closest friend, and I’m his.
It’s been six months since Christmas Eve, when he pressed his hand against my bleeding abdomen and fought to keep my life inside me. That was the night he asked if I could see us being more. I wasn’t ready then. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.
But I wonder.
“There’s something different about you today,” he finally says, carefully studying my expression.
I let out a surprised huff of air. “Do you know, you’re not the first person to tell me that lately.”
At that he stops walking, pulling me to the side of the path, under the shade of a leafy tree. Mila sprints past, checking the second hand and then waving as she takes off again for another dash around the path.
I wave back and Max lifts his hand. We watch until she rounds the flowering bend.
“I’ve been thinking?—”
“Not too hard, I hope.” I smile but take a nervous swallow. My throat is suddenly tight and dry.
Max lifts one shoulder in a small shrug. “I try to leave thinking to minds better equipped for such pursuits. You know me. I prefer a life of stupor and stupefaction.”
I snort. Max has one of the sharpest minds of anyone I’ve ever met. The only reason he’d roll into a stupor is because he’s seconds from death.
Or, I suppose, after making love. He might relax then.
I glance over at him and he gives me a half-smile. It’s the one he uses to disarm people when he’s about to pounce. He’ll lull them into a sense of ease and then, boom, he’ll take over their business or eviscerate them politically. He once used this exact same smile when an underhanded diamond dealer tried to sell him illegally obtained stones. The aftermath was something to behold. And it was all preceded by this smile.
It’s his lulling, “don’t mind me, I’m just a sweet, lazy lion lying in the shade” smile.
I laugh, the tightness in my throat loosening and my nervousness evaporating.
This is Max. My best friend. There’s no reason for me to be nervous around him.
But then, at my laugh, his eyes catch on my mouth and I know exactly what he’s thinking.
It reminds me of the moment when McCormick kissed me in the sea. How his eyes darkened and he caught my mouth as if it was the only chance he’d ever have to kiss me.
“Max,” I say, my voice raw from the remembered kiss.
