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“That, and…what else?”

I’ve got a good answer for this. A department, a faculty, three hundred students who haven’t met me yet. It’s a great answer. I’ve used it on my mother.

“Exactly what are you probing for, Levi Knight? Tell me that and I’ll give you an answer.”

He spreads his hands out like a man making a reasonable request for information. “Just because there’s no Mr. Bastien at the moment doesn’t mean there isn’t another candidate waiting in the wings.”

I laugh at the very thought. “Oh. Wow. There are so many.”

“Stiff competition.”

“It’s a harem in the making if I could only make up my mind. Should I take the tech billionaire for my next conquest?”

“Nah. Works too many hours.”

“The football star?”

“Bad in bed. Unlike some of us.”

“Careful. That might be a check you can’t cash.”

“Try me.” His lips curl into a smile. “So what do you think it would take to get to the top of that list? And what’s the first thing you’ll do when you get to your home in Virginia?”

Nobody’s asked me that either.

I think about it. “I’ll call my mother.”

He cocks his head to the side and his smile turns actually affectionate. “Tell me about her.”

“Maman? She’s a French teacher in Québec City. She teaches grade 5, which is really little kids.”

“She sounds amazing.”

“She is. She would love this place. She would drag me to every museum in town. I remember when I was younger, my mother took us all en famille on a vacation to London and Paris. Now keep in mind that my brother Michel is only about…” I think it over. “…maybe one month out of the Canadian Navy.”

“Wait,” Levi says. He wrinkles his brow as he ponders my story. “Canada has a navy?” he asks. “Do they know? Has somebody told them?”

“Ha. Anyway. I’m barely eighteen, my brother is now a man of the world, Maman wants to squire us out to every museum, church, and cultural event in town. Needless to say, my brother was not on board with this. He was there to have fun. So I have to choose between going to the V&A or, well, not. Guess which one I chose?”

“I’m imagining so many things,” Levi says. I smile at him. He’s easy to smile at. He’s easily the handsomest man I’ve ever seen, and he’s been eating me up like I’m the best buffet in town.

“Well, you guessed right. He proceeds to get absolutely hammered until we are in Knightsbridge, and he is leaning on me singing “Gens du Pays” while I am dragging him toward the tube entrance, and we bump into a guy on the street. And my brother looks him up and down and he tells me in French, ‘Bastien, I’m straight and I would do this one. Hop on that, little brother.’”

“No,” Levi says. “Oh, my God, that’s mortifying.”

“Exactement. I think, oh at least it wasn’t in Paris, where everybody would know exactly what he said. Then the dude looks at me and he says in French, ‘Monsieur, did he just say what I think he said?’”

“I’m cringing for you. What did you say?”

“I was so embarrassed. I straightened up, put on my very best Anglo accent, and I said…” I straighten up and drop into my neutral professional voice. “‘Sir, I don’t know what he said. I’ve never seen this man before in my life.’”

Levi laughs easily. “Just so you know, that American accent is really good. Please never use it again.” “Wow. You’ll never believe this. We’ve been talking for five hours.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe it,” I answer.

In response, Levi slides his phone out of his pocket and flicks his wrist to show me the screen, which reads 17:47.

I gape at it and then pull out my own phone just to double-check. “Oh, my God,” I say. I look around. When we got to this restaurant, it was the middle of the lunch rush. Now people are sitting down to dinner. They’ve dimmed the bright overhead lights to create dinnertime ambiance, and the air has changed from the sharp, quick smell of lunch service to something richer: butter, garlic, cardamom.