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“He has a name, Coop.”
“I know, but he’s still French. Make sure I get all the deets on the ride home.” Then he waved as I headed for the hall toward my car. At least with the head start, I’d be there to meet him.
The heat slapped me in the face on my way out the door, so I got the car open and the engine on to get it cooling then took the time to admire Bubba’s bike. It really was a pretty bike.
Mathieu took a little longer than I expected, but then he was there—a little flushed like he’d been running. “Sorry, Francesca,” he said, catching my hand and pressing a kiss to each of my cheeks. “I had to stay a moment after class to discuss an assignment—it uses spreadsheets and interest rates, all boring, trust me.”
“No problem, hop in.”
We headed over to one of the fast food chains. Fun fact, despite coming from the land of to die for cuisine, Mathieu was a fast food addict. More, he was a saltyfrenchfries with lots of ketchup kind of guy. Not that I minded them, but I wasn’t a fan of ketchup on anything that wasn’t my burger, which seemed to shock him.
“I thought all Americans loved to drown their food in ketchup.”
“You gotta be careful about painting all Americans the same. We’re wildly different.”
“Perhaps. I like this getting to know you better part… So, what is your favorite food?”
“I don’t know, it kind of changes? I like trying new things. There’s always pizza? But I eat that all the time. Used to like roasts and roasted potatoes and stuff.” I’d had a chicken sandwich rather than a burger. “I think that’s why I had so much fun making the cake.”
“And here I thought it was because I helped.” The teasing note in his voice made me smile.
“You were definitely a perk.”
“Have you put your video together yet?”
“Nope, gonna try and do that tonight. Otherwise, I’ll have to do it after the weekend. I get to make another opera cake to bring in to sample”
“I’m excited. My host family was very impressed with the one you made. They also made me a birthday cake with all the frosting and trimmings. It was a good evening.”
Lunch was quiet and nice. Maybe too quiet. The weirdest part was I kind of missed the guys being there and teasing. Considering how irked I’d been with them, that was kind of weird.
“Did you get to talk to your parents at all?”
“We email and use WhatsApp to chat often.” He pulled out his phone and then showed me the text with the photo of the cake. “I sent her a picture of your cake and told her it was almost as good as hers.”
“Almost…” I laughed.
“She is mymaman. I am not telling her anyone’s cake is better than hers.”
Made sense.
Still, it was kind of sweet.
“You should do the foreign exchange,” Mathieu told her. “Come to France next semester. We could be your host family.”
My laugh was a lot louder. “First of all, it’s expensive to do those programs, and it might be risky if I did it right at the end of my senior year.”
“Then over the summer. You can just come visit, and I will show you around. We won’t have to go to school.”
Not committing to anything, I said, “That could be fun, too.” Going to Francewouldbe fun. I’d always wanted to travel, but travel was expensive, and college had to come first. College. Graduation. Get a good job. Then… then I could do the fun stuff.
I had a plan.
“Francesca,” Mathieu said as we walked back to the car. “I am going to persuade you.”
“To go to France?”
“Yes.”
