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“Don’t tellmy mother you’re on the air mattress.” I tossed dirty laundry from my suitcase into a hamper.
Alfie held his finger up to his lips and stretched out. One corner of the sheet popped off the inflated mattress. We both laughed. “Truthfully, this is more comfortable than the bed in the dorms.”
“How did we not know one another before the trip?”
“UT’s a big school. We don’t have the same major. Besides, I’m a year behind you.”
I threw a pillow at his face. “Rub it in that you’ll get to go to Paris again next year.”
“I thought all you wanted to do was come home.”
“That’s not true.” I planted a hand on my hip. “And it’s Paris. If I could go again, I would.”
“There’s always the summer.” He fixed the sheet and flopped back down.
“I’ll be graduated by then.”
“What are you going to do with an Art History major here?” He waved his hand around.
“Open a museum?”
The sheet popped off again, and I snickered.
“You’re serious?”
“No. I—I thought I was going to live on a ranch. Now, I don’t know.” I hadn’t been home a few hours, and I already felt like I didn’t belong. It had been Mitch and Juliana since high school. And before that, he’d been my best friend. I didn’t know who I was here without him.
Alfie scratched the side of his head. “I can’t picture you on a farm.”
“Oh no?”
He shook his head. “Paris was good for you.”
“How are you so sure? We didn’t even know each other before.”
He leaned back, planting his palms on the floor. “You took everything in, didn’t waste a minute of the trip. How many cafés and museums did you drag me to?”
“If you didn’t want to see anything, why’d you come along?”
His focus remained glued to the ceiling. “In case I never had another chance.”
Given what Alfie had confided in me about his past, I understood his concern. One of the things I’d grown to admire about him was that he lived life as if every day was an opportunity.
Suitcase empty, I sank down on the floor beside him and touched his arm. “You’ll make it. You’re too good not to.”
Alfie had sketched all over the city as we discovered it, his drawings life-like and mesmerizing. His paintings were even more amazing, and watching him create was an experience.
“What if we hadn’t been sitting next to each other on the plane?” A twinge of melancholy shadowed his dark eyes.
“You’d have had to find someone else to drag you all over Paris.”
The phone on the nightstand rang, and I dove for it. Christopher had already answered from somewhere else in the house.
“I’ve got it,” I said when I heard the sound of my best friend’s voice.
“Jules. You’re back!” Emily squealed.
“Just got into town.”
