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I think about running after her, but I don’t think that would be the best idea at the moment.

She has another class in about thirty minutes, and I’m expected at the pack house.

I could have canceled, but now that I won’t be there on Saturday morning, that is not an option anymore.

11

Constance

Louis is surprisingly well-behaved for the rest of the week, and my classes go smoothly.

When Saturday comes, I’m—again—surprised to see him on his best behavior, and I’m starting to think that he’s hiding something.

I haven’t known him for long, but I’m not usually a bad judge of character.

He still sends me a shit ton of emails all week long.

I don’t know what to think about him.

He still looks at me like he’s thinking about doing unnamable things to my body, but at least he’s not actively teasing me anymore.

That is, until the second Saturday of detention, when he arrives with a blanket, pastries, and a to-go cup of what I discover is my favorite kind of coffee—drowned in milk and caramel.

“Bonjour, Miss Constance,” he says as he drops said coffee on my desk after closing the door.

I should know when he brings me my perfect coffee order—what’s inside is listed on the side of the cup—that he has an idea in mind, but I’m still trying to process what’s going on when he proceeds to push the tables at the front of the class to the side.

“What are you doing?” I ask, slightly lost, and a bit concerned about the noise he’s making while moving the tables away.

“I was bored my entire detention last week,” he says with a charming smile.

I frown, remembering him typing on his holo most of the three hours we had to spend together. I worked on my next classes, so I didn’t really double-check what he was working on.

“Not your fault,” he says with a shrug. “I had no homework.”

“Do you mean that I should give you more homework to keep you occupied?” I ask him in a teasing tone.

That is not really my way of teaching classes, though. I like making sure my students interact in class. I want to build their confidence in being able to have conversations in French, not learn everything by heart.

I’m okay if their sentences aren’t perfect, as long as they try.

I usually start with half an hour of grammar or vocabulary, and then I make them read something—easy for now for my first years—and make them talk about it.

“No,” Louis answers right away. “It means I had to find ways of keeping myself occupied.”

He unfolds the blanket he brought and spreads it on the ground before opening two bags of pastries—no, to be exact, those are viennoiseries croissants, pains au chocolat, chaussons aux pommes, and more.

“Are you expecting more people?” I ask him when I see that the two bags are overflowing with every kind of pastry known on earth.

“No. Why?” Louis says, with surprise in his voice.

I wave in the direction of the spread of viennoiseries. He’s torn the bags open, and if there are any leftovers, there will be no way to carry them around.

“Ah,” he says with a guilty look in his eyes. “I didn’t know what your favorite was, so I took a bit of everything. I’ll eat the rest.”

It’s my turn to be surprised.

“You’re going to eat all of that?”