“Alright. Maybe you are drunker than I thought.” The lights alone seemed to inebriate her more. Every eye had turned on them now. He had better get them somewhere quieter before someone called thegarde municipaleon them. “Let’s get you home.”
“No!” Celine protested. She turned several shades paler at the thought. “My mother will murder us.”
“Well…” he trailed off, unsure what to do. “Let’s go find my car, at least.”
“Ohhhh,” Celine whispered. “A mission.” She straightened her spine as if acting upon orders, and started marching onward.
“The other way,” he called after her. Promptly, Celine changed directions.
As long as she is walking straight. Rolling his eyes, Bastien caught up to her and they wound their way out of Place Pigalle.
The lights were dimmer out here. But Celine was still hyper, and now she had turned into a chatterbox, yapping in his ear about how she was still upset with him, that he shouldn’t touchher even though she risked tripping over the curb if she walked on her own (she claimed she would prefer that over leaning on Bastien), then she switched the subject to her heels and blisters.
“You should count yourself lucky, Bastien, that I never send you up on that catwalk in a pair of heels.”
Bastien’s only reply was a mindless, “Mhm,” while his attention focused wholly on keeping Celine from colliding with trees.
“And to think,” she segued, spotting a closed confectionary store coming up ahead. “I didn’t even get to taste that gorgeous cake.”
Breaking free from him, she pressed herself against the storefront, pouting at the desserts “trapped” on the other side of the glass. Bastien had to peel her away by force.
“I will buy you all the cake you want if you just stop for five—” Bastien brought them to a gradual halt, along with his words. “Oh,merde.”
“What?” Celine slurred.
The staircase at Rue Foyatier spread before them: two hundred something stairs of certain neck-breaking. In her current state, Celine would barely descend two before tumbling down the rest. But the car was parked somewhere by the last landing and to go around would just be a waste of time.
“Hold on tight,” Bastien instructed.
“Hey—”
Hooking his arm beneath her legs, Bastien hauled her up in his arms. He tried not to think about the soft curve on her waist, where his hand fit perfectly or the warmth that emanated from her body. For the first time in his life, his cheeks heated up.
“Bastien Ménard!” she screeched. His name came out in drunken clusters of letters. “Put me down right now!”
The nerve. “You can barely walk. Be thankful I’m not letting yourolldown those stairs.”
“Thankful!” Celine huffed through a hiccup. “I don’t even want tolookat you right now. If youmusthold me, carry me on your back instead.”
“Do I look like a horse to you?”
She did not answer. But she did squirm again. Bastien took the first step with a grunt.
“I suggest you stop moving—I swear I will drop you down the stairs, Celine.”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“Don’t test me.”
“Oh,” she scoffed, “he even acts like a dark knight."
“Wasn’t that a good thing?” He flexed his grip underneath her, pressing Celine closer to his chest, hoping she was drunk enough not to comment on the war drum that was thundering within his ribs. “I thought you wanted to be angry with me.”
A pause. Celine’s brows furrowed as though she was trying to plow through her thoughts for an answer. “I don’t even know what I am anymore,” she mumbled.
Giving up her attempts to free herself, she dropped her head into the crook of his neck, breathing softly against his skin.
Bastien’s entire body succumbed to goosebumps.
