The Mirabelle streets were littered with debris. Lali’s flower boxes were on the cobblestones, earth and plants everywhere. Marlow picked up what she could. She found Yakiv’s bicycle twisted down the street and returned it to where it belonged. Madame Belleville was already awake, sweeping up glass from a window that had been smashed. Marlow told her in broken French that she and Luc would have it repaired.
People in Nenier were cleaning up, too. Trees were down, branches strewn in the streets. Marlow got an update at the boulangerie about who had suffered damage—you could always count on Corinne for a full report. Marlow was thankful they had power, because starting the day with no bread or espresso would be tragic. How quickly she’d become accustomed to that ritual.
While she still had service, Marlow texted Sabine to ask when she’d be home, and whether there was damage from the storm in Neufchâteau. No answer. She headed back for Mirabelle, getting to the important panic at hand. What should she do about Luc, not to mention Guillaume? It was late July. In under a month, she’d managed to get involved with not one but two men after a serious drought in the romance department. A love triangle? Seriously? Although could she really call it a triangle if all she’d done was kiss Guillaume?
You kissed one guy. Then, shortly thereafter, you kissed another guy. Who saw you kiss the first guy. And then you slept with the second guy. Also, you work at the first guy’s house in the afternoons, and you’re the neighbor of the second guy, as well as, technically, his employer, even though you haven’t actually paid him anything yet.
Marlow resolved to head upstairs, stay in the bedroom doorway and resist being tempted by Luc, ready and no doubt willing, given the stamina he’d shown the night before. She’d tell him that he needed to go home so that if Sabine returned, which she might any moment, she wouldn’t see what her mother had gotten up to in her absence. And they had gotten up to some things, that’s for sure. Marlow felt a not-so-tiny stir in her nether regions. One more romp before Sabine came home would be delicious, wouldn’t it?
STOP.
But when she got back to Maison Perdue, Luc was gone. She looked out the window to his bedroom—not there either. She went outside and found him in yesterday’s clothes cleaning up the mess in her courtyard. He smiled at her.
“Bonjour,”he said, noticing the baguette. “If you were able to buy that, the power is on at the boulangerie. But it is out up here.”
“Yes. And yes, I am a baguette. I mean I have one. Bought one.” All she could think of was sex on the bed, on the floor, up against the wall, in the old purple velvet chair … Careful. Her knees might buckle.
“Bon,” he said. “We need some energy after last night.”
“About that,” she said, picking up detritus alongside him. “It was great. You are—great. But I need to not do that. I mean—I kissed Guillaume. And you saw it! It’s too complicated.”
“Ah. I see.” He returned to sweeping.
“It’s just—I’m your employer, even though I haven’t paid you. Please let me pay you! And I’m also your—”
“—neighbor, yes.”
“Please don’t take this badly, I mean, you are, um, I’ll just say it, mind-blowing in bed—” She could not go into details or they’d immediately end up back between the sheets with him. “But I have to finish the house for Ruth. And I promised to take Sabine around France after the papers are signed. I don’t want to make a bigger mess than the one I’m crawling out of right now. That would be classic me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. No. I mean—it depends.” She took a leap. “Do you want to hear something ridiculous?”
“I live for the ridiculous.”
“Sabine told me there’s something now called ‘situationships.’ It’s when you are OK to sleep with more than one person because you’re all consenting adults. It’s more than a one-night stand, but less that a relationship. And—”
“—you are wondering if this interests me.”
“I don’t know if it interests me! But I seem to have slipped into—into—”
“Two situationships?”
“Exactly. I’m confused.”
“We are adults. And I liked sleeping with you.Beaucoup.But I cannot see it working out. Too bad, because last night was my intense pleasure.”
Wasn’t that the truth,thought Marlow, snapping right back to the velvet chair and what delightfully rude things had transpired there.
“I will remember it for a long time,” he said wistfully. Did lack of future sex with her warrant wistful? How dreamy.
Return to the matter at hand, Marlow.“Madame Belleville’s window was broken in the storm. I told her we’d fix it.”
“I slept through that storm,” he said, looking up at the clear blue sky.
“Yes.” She laughed. “You were out like a light.”
“I gave away all my energy earlier.”
