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"Olivier," she says. "This is so…"
"What?" I whisper.
"Complicated," she finishes, and her phone pings before I have a chance to respond.
She backs away from me, the moment between us broken.
"Oh no," she says, looking at her phone. "Mom and Dad are lost."
"Lost? In Paris? But they can get on any metro and find their way back."
Natalie gives me a look and crosses her arms.
"You don't know my parents."
"Ah. Never left Texas before?"
“Never left America before.”
Many scenarios rush through my mind of them lost in the city, none of them menacing, but all are problematic. "Yes, you'd better get going."
She doesn't rush away. There’s something between us, there must be. Yet the look on her face isn’t hope. She’s wistful.
"Goodnight, Natalie," I force myself to say. She bites her lip and nods before running down the steps, her skirt flying around her legs like she’s an angel and this was all just a dream.
CHAPTER 34
Natalie
A sound similar to a balloon losing all its air escapes my lips as I finally flop down on my lower bunk bed. Thank the good Lord, I was able to find Mom and Dad easily enough. They had confusedMirabeau and Mirabelle and therefore were at the wrong hotel. Using the maps app on their phone didn't help much since they argued over whether modern technology could be believed. What a day.
"Hey!" a voice screeches at me.
"Oh my ever loving fritter!" I shout as I find five faces staring at me. "I thought you were all asleep."
"Nope.”
“Nuh-uh."
"How could we?" Laura sits up in her bunk, her head nearly grazing the ceiling. "How could you forget that your parents were coming today?"
"In my defense, I didn't forget. I just forgot how we write dates in America."
"Mm-hmm," Laura utters in her mother hen tone and climbs down from her bunk. "And it has nothing to do with the fact that Olivier has been tossing your heart around left and right?
"Tossing is a bit violent."
"Girl," Annelise says, "he's been flip-flopping like a pancake. Just as soon as one side is hot, he swaps over to the darn chilly."
"I don't think that's how the analogy goes."
"The point is," Laura puts her hand on my arm, "we're all worried about you."
"Exactly," Gina declares. "You've been tossing and turning ever since you got back from the countryside château. I can feel it, you know. You make the whole bed rock."
I cringe, though it’s ironic since Gina is usually the lousy sleeper."Sorry."
"There's nothing to be sorry about," Gina says. "But are you okay?"
