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‘Not at this moment, no,’ he said.
‘How come?’
‘Because I am busy with my work. My friends. I have no time for a relationship.’
I laughed. ‘Living up to the Parisian stereotype, then, I see.’
‘That is not it, Hannah.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘It is more complicated than you think.’
I slurped the last of my coffee, bashing the cup on the saucer as I put it down. ‘Well I don’t know what to think, do I?’
‘It’s just how things are, Hannah,’ he said. ‘To me, there are more important things in life than being in the “perfect” relationship.’
He used imaginary speech marks to make his point.
‘You really don’t like talking about yourself, do you?’ I said, searching his eyes, trying to figure out what was going on. ‘You said we were strangers. That it doesn’t matter what we say to each other because we’ll only know each other for this one morning. So why don’t you try me?’
‘I do not get close to people like that,’ he said, pushing his chair back from the table and getting up. ‘It is easier that way.’
I watched him walk through the restaurant in the direction of the bathrooms, weaving between tables, his T-shirt riding up to show a strip of brown skin on his back. For all his gruffness and bad attitude, I was beginning to think that there was more to him than met the eye.
