French Kiss

by Aimee Friedman

  “What makes you say that?” Alexa demanded in stubborn French, tossing her blonde ponytail over one shoulder.

  Xavier leveled her with his cool gray gaze, a smile still tugging at his lips. “Something about you,” he said, in a soft, lilting English. He lifted his hand and, as if it contained an invisible paintbrush, waved it around Alexa. “Something about you told me: ‘This is an American girl pretending to be a Frenchwoman.’”

  Alexa felt her blush deepen and she glanced down, hating that this mysterious stranger had somehow pierced her surface. But, even if Xavier was a super-famous artist, she wasn’t about to let him condescend to her like that.

  “Go to hell,” she snapped, sticking to French, and turned on her heel, but Xavier’s warm hand on her arm stopped her.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, switching back to French. “Your film.” When Alexa faced Xavier, he was gesturing to the crumpled roll in his hand, looking apologetic. “Let me fix it?” he offered softly, his tilted cat’s eyes sparkling.

  “You know that’s impossible,” Alexa protested. She snatched the film from his grip—noticing the feel of his fingers against hers—and dropped the ruined roll into her Chloé bag, along with her camera.

  “You won’t even let me try?” Xavier teased, giving Alexa a slow, suggestive smile. “I’m an artist, you know. I’m good with my hands.”

  I bet you are, Alexa thought, suppressing her own smile. She reminded herself that she was on a strict boy diet, but a tingling started low in her belly. Suddenly faint, she swayed on her cork-soled espadrilles, realizing she hadn’t eaten anything that day except for a pain au chocolat after leaving the apartment. Backing up, Alexa sank down onto the curved bench behind her and took a deep breath.

  “Are you all right?” Xavier asked carelessly. Without waiting for a response, he eased his lithe frame onto the same bench. Lazily, he stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles, and reached into the front pocket of his jeans, pulling out a ragged pack of Gauloises. “I’ve been rude,” he added, as he tapped two cigarettes into his palm. “You know my name, but yours remains a mystery.” He placed one cigarette in his mouth, his eyes never leaving Alexa’s face.

  “It’s Alexandria—Alexa,” she replied, fiddling with the buttons on Raphi’s sweater. Last night, telling Sven her name hadn’t been a big deal, but with Xavier, it felt almost sensual, as if she’d revealed a sliver of skin to him.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Xavier murmured and, instead of extending his hand, held out the other cigarette toward her. Alexa hesitated, but then found herself bending her head down and allowing Xavier to place the cigarette between her lips. That, too, felt incredibly sensual. Xavier lit his cigarette first, then hers, cupping the flame against the wind. Alexa took a quick drag of the Gauloise, tasting the burn. Unlike Portia, she’d never been an accomplished smoker.

  As Alexa fought down a cough, she thought she saw Xavier’s lips twitch with laughter; he seemed to notice everything. A true artist, Alexa thought. And it was in that moment, as Xavier regarded her with his laughing cat’s eyes, that Alexa suddenly realized why he seemed familiar to her. She had seen Xavier once before—that Saturday afternoon when she and Diego had gone to Montmartre, and she’d made serious eye contact with a scruffy sketcher. Yes, he looked different in a dark raggedy sweater, as opposed to the black T-shirt and disguising hat he’d worn then, but he was without a doubt the same intriguing stranger.

  Was it kismet that they’d reconnected today? Alexa’s stomach jumped at the thought.

  “I’m curious, Alexa,” Xavier was musing aloud in French, resting one elbow on the back of the bench and pinching a flake of tobacco off his tongue. “If you didn’t know who I was, why were you taking my picture?”

  Alexa took another drag, realizing that Xavier, of all people, would understand what she’d been doing that afternoon. So, as they sat smoking on the intimate bench on the lamp-lined bridge—with only the occasional car driving past or couple strolling by—Alexa explained her love of photography, and Xavier in turn talked about painting. Feeling reckless, Alexa told Xavier about seeing him in Montmartre, and he, half-smiling, said he did remember a beautiful blonde girl crossing his path. But since he spent a lot of time sketching there—soaking up the gritty vibe and getting back in touch with his struggling-artist roots—it was hard to keep track of the passersby.

  “But I won’t forget you now,” Xavier murmured, slowly tracing the pad of his thumb along Alexa’s cheek. Her breath catching, Alexa turned toward him, wondering if—hoping that—he would kiss her. She knew she was supposed to be resisting all boys, and that she’d only just met Xavier, but Alexa was suddenly dying to feel his mouth on hers. Normally, she might have even made the first move, but somehow, she felt that Xavier had the upper hand here.

  There was no kissing yet, but their talking on the bridge flowed into their walking across it, to the Ile de la Cité, where the ancient spires of the Notre Dame cathedral rose overhead. Xavier insisted on treating Alexa to lunch to make up for the film (which Alexa no longer gave a damn about). Over steaming bowls of bouillabaisse and icy bottles of beer at a tucked-away brasserie—where their waitress kept shooting shy, admiring glances at Xavier—they finished Xavier’s pack of Gauloises and covered the basics. Alexa confessed to being American—but Paris-born—and college-bound. Xavier, smirking behind a haze of smoke, told Alexa he was twenty-one, had been a wild child growing up on the French Riviera, and dropped out of high school to paint full time. Fresh off her Mr. Princeton experience, Alexa found the idea of a high school dropout exceedingly hot.

  After lunch, she and Xavier strolled languidly through a nearby leafy-green park, the backs of their hands touching. Alexa was wondering how they could extend their dreamlike afternoon when Xavier’s cell phone rang. As he removed it from the back pocket of his jeans, Alexa—with a jolt—remembered Holly.

  I was supposed to call her! she realized, glancing guiltily down at her watch. It was after five o’clock; by now, Pierre must have met up with some friends, and poor Holly was probably alone in the apartment, weepily waiting for Alexa to show up. Alexa noticed a Metro sign up ahead and figured she should hop on a train to go home. But one glance into Xavier’s striking face as he frowned down at the caller ID expelled all thoughts of Holly. Alexa didn’t care how bad a friend she was being—she couldn’t even consider leaving this boy just yet.

  Xavier answered with a gruff “Allô?” and then muttered a series of brusque ouis and nons before clicking off.

  “Who was that?” Alexa asked, intrigued. Another artist? A gallery owner? She had to admit she was a little starstruck by Xavier; many people they’d passed today had gawked at him, or pointed and whispered.

  “Just bullshit,” Xavier replied in English—they’d been switching back and forth all afternoon. Then he stopped walking, let out a sigh, and regarded Alexa seriously. “But I’m afraid I do need to run. Stupid obligations…”

  Alexa bit her lip, trying not to show her disappointment. So this was it. She’d get on that Métro and go back to Le Marais, the painter on the bridge remaining only a surreal memory. But then, before she knew it, Xavier was moving closer to her, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of her jeans, and drawing Alexa in. Finally, Alexa thought, melting at his nearness. She ran her hands down his sinewy arms, breathing in his scent—a musky mix of cigarettes and paint. The fact that the guy who was pressing her to his chest was the same one who’d viciously yanked the camera from her grip earlier that day gave Alexa a twisted little thrill; she liked knowing Xavier had a bad-boy streak in him even as his lips were caressing her neck.

  “I have to see you again,” he murmured in French, his breath hot against her ear. “Tomorrow night.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Tomorrow night,” Alexa echoed, wondering how she’d be able to live until then.

  “Give me a pen,” Xavier instructed softly. He didn’t even bother to ask if Alexa had one, but fortunately she did—thoug
h she had to reluctantly pull back from Xavier’s embrace to fish the ballpoint out of her Chloé bag. Handing the pen to Xavier, she watched, mesmerized, as he turned her hand over in his—making her shiver at his touch—and wrote into her fair skin, like a tattoo, the bold letter X, followed by what Alexa guessed was his cell phone number. Alexa reflected that there couldn’t be a more tantalizing boy’s name than Xavier; though it was pronounced “zahv-YAY”—with a Z—having the secret X in there made it all the, well, sexier.

  When Xavier was finished writing, he gave the pen back to Alexa with a teasing grin. Then, ever so slowly, he slid his hands down from Alexa’s waist and into the back pockets of her jeans, a move that made Alexa’s whole body tingle. “I’m very glad you took my picture today,” Xavier told her softly in French. Then, at long last, he slanted his mouth down over hers in a hot, ravenous kiss.

  Alexa closed her eyes, wonderfully dizzy, as their tongues met. It was funny that she’d had her first kiss in Paris at seven; now it seemed she was truly being kissed for the first time, as if none of her other experiences with boys—not even Diego—counted. Alexa clung tighter to Xavier, relishing the feel of his lean, ropy body against hers.

  And his lips—as she’d predicted the first time she’d seen him—tasted of Gauloises and cheap beer.

  Later, when Alexa floated into the apartment—her lips swollen and her legs shaky—she was surprised, and disappointed, not to find Holly there; Alexa had been dying to dish about Xavier with her friend. She’s probably still out with Pierre, Alexa thought, mildly miffed.

  But really, too delirious to care.

  She was heading down the hall toward the guest room, thinking about the fact that she’d never wash her hand again, when she bumped into Raphaëlle, who’d just emerged from the bathroom. Raphi was wearing plastic hoop earrings, a flowy yellow blouse over low-rise dark pink bell-bottoms, and flat, strappy silver Grecian sandals. Naturally, since it was Raphi, the insane outfit looked smashing.

  “Alexa, you scared me!” Raphi gasped in English, shaking out her thick black curls. “But hey, you look great in my top,” she added, giving an approving nod toward Alexa’s ensemble.

  “Thanks,” Alexa mumbled, glancing down at herself. She’d forgotten she’d even borrowed the sweater. And now that it smelled like Xavier, she didn’t ever want to return it.

  “I thought you’d be with Pierre and Holly,” Raphi added, studying Alexa curiously.

  “I don’t know where they are,” Alexa replied, with a note of bitterness. She still felt wobbly, so she leaned against the wall for support.

  “Ooh, they’re alone?” Raphi giggled, her dark eyes dancing. “Mais c’est cool! I think my brother has a crush,” she added, echoing Alexa’s sentiment from that morning.

  Typically, Alexa would have been all over Holly-and-Pierre gossip, but now she had other things on her mind.

  “I have a crush,” she whispered, grinning. “On Xavier Pascal.”

  Raphi snorted, rolling her eyes. “Join the club. You and every other girl in France. Ever since Le Figaro did that piece on him last month, when he exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, everyone’s been drooling—”

  “So he is famous?” Alexa interrupted. Even though people on the street and in the café had stared at Xavier today, she still hadn’t fully believed his celeb status.

  Raphaëlle squinted at Alexa, clearly confused. “Of course. Didn’t you say—how else do you know him, then?”

  “I spent the day with him,” Alexa burst out, her cheeks coloring as she flashed the back of her hand to Raphi. “And he gave me his number.” She giggled in a very un-Alexa-ish manner.

  Raphi’s mouth dropped open. “Alexandria St. Laurent, are you lying to me?” She grabbed Alexa’s hand and studied it, her almond-shaped eyes widening in shock. “You’re—dating Xavier Pascal?”

  “I guess,” Alexa laughed, realizing that her timeout from boys had fallen by the wayside. It seemed she’d actually met the one guy she couldn’t turn down.

  Minutes later, Alexa had described the whole magical encounter, and she and her cousin were curled up in Raphaëlle’s bedroom like a couple of teeny-boppers, going through Raphi’s stack of magazines and squealing over each new discovery of Xavier. Raphi showed Alexa the article in Le Figaro that came complete with a spread of Xavier’s paintings—-abstract geometric shapes—and a blown-up photo of Xavier himself, in all his smoldering glory.

  “I can’t believe it’s really him,” Alexa sighed, falling back on Raphi’s bed and clutching the magazine to her chest.

  “And look at this,” Raphi said, flopping down beside Alexa with a copy of the latest Pariscope, which listed all the city’s film, music, and arts events for the coming week. She tapped a page on the arts section. “He’s having a big fancy gallery opening on the place des Vosges this Friday.”

  Alexa propped her chin in her hands and stared dazedly down at the information on the opening. Xavier hadn’t mentioned the splashy party to her, but maybe he planned to invite her to it when they met up tomorrow—Thursday—night.

  With a sigh of longing, Alexa wondered what she and Xavier would do tomorrow—and thought about that kiss in the park again. Anticipation warmed her skin; if Xavier Pascal could reduce Alexa St. Laurent to molten lava with just one kiss, she couldn’t imagine what several more kisses might lead to.

  But she also couldn’t wait to find out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Between Two Boys

  “Tell the truth, ’Olly,” Pierre instructed as he handed Holly a hunk of fresh bread topped with Camembert cheese. “You are having fun with me today?”

  Holly set her cup of sparkling water down on the park bench, returning Pierre’s grin as she accepted his treat. “You can say that,” she answered, biting into the crusty-warm bread and buttery-soft cheese. Then she closed her eyes and tilted her face up toward the mild afternoon sun, breathing in the scent of tulips that filled the Tuileries gardens.

  Of course, the real truth was that Holly Jacobson was in bliss.

  That morning, she and Pierre had kicked off their grand tour of Paris in the Latin Quarter. Pierre, looking adorably studious in wire-frame glasses, had had to drop off a paper at the Sorbonne, so afterward, he’d given Holly a tour of the funky, student-centric neighborhood. The place de la Sorbonne—the tree-lined square where cooler-than-thou college kids chilled over coffee and cigarettes—instantly captivated Holly. She pictured herself as a French university student—clad in a black turtleneck, miniskirt, and flats, à la Audrey Hepburn—scurrying down the rue des Ecoles with her books in her arms, shopping for flirty little dresses at Naf-Naf, or meeting Pierre for a study date at a cozy bar on the cute rue Mignon.

  Somehow, sporty Tyler Davis did not fit into the bohemian picture.

  In a café hung with red-fringed lamps on the rue St-André-des-Arts, Holly and Pierre met some of Pierre’s friends—brilliant, bespectacled Christophe; wisecracking, red-haired Sebastien; and friendly, willowy Nathalie—for crêpes. It was Holly’s first time trying the paper-thin pancakes, and at Nathalie’s urging, she ordered hers smeared with Nutella and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Holly decided it was the most ambrosial snack she’d ever had, and she could have stayed in that café all morning, munching crêpes and answering Pierre’s friends’ enthusiastic questions about teenage life in America (“What is this thing—‘omecoming?” Sebastian had demanded, cracking Holly up).

  But their next activity was even better: a Bateau-Mouche ride along the Seine. Their elbows lightly brushing, Holly and Pierre stood side by side on the open sundeck, the wind at their backs, the banks of Paris on either side of them. As they glided past the flying buttresses of Notre Dame, Pierre sweetly explained the layout of the city.

  “I know that you dislike snails,” he began, flashing her a quick grin ( Holly, blushing over her dinnertime blunder, swatted his arm in response). “But Paris, she is like a snail,” Pierre continued, making a circular shape with his hand. “Everything s
tarts from the first arrondissement—neighborhood—and, how you say, spirals out from there.” He then described how the Seine split the city into Left and Right banks, and how the bridges connected each side. Holly nodded, fascinated both by Pierre’s descriptions and the way his black curls kept falling into his eyes.

  When they sailed under the Pont-Neuf—“Paris’s oldest bridge,” Pierre-the-tour-guide pointed out, putting his hand on Holly’s shoulder—Holly, for one crazy instant, could have sworn that she saw Alexa up on that bridge, arguing with some guy. The girl’s long golden ponytail certainly looked like it belonged to Alexa, although, Holly reasoned, her friend would probably never wear that baby-blue sweater. As the boat slid onward, Holly felt a pinch of remorse over breaking her plans with Alexa that day.

  Holly managed to forget all about Alexa—and her lingering Wimbledon worries—when she and Pierre arrived at their next destination: the Arc de Triomphe. In full-on tourist mode, Holly threw her head back, admiring the soaring, moon-colored arch, and Pierre waited patiently while she snapped photos with her disposable camera.

  “’Olly, if you please, I will take one of you?” Pierre offered, motioning for her to hand him the camera.

  Whenever she posed for pictures, Holly became supremely self-conscious. Standing on the Champs-Elysées, with the arch behind her, she put her hands behind her back and tried to smile naturally as Pierre aimed the camera at her. Holly fleetingly imagined showing Tyler the photo when she was back in Oakridge, and her boyfriend asking her who had taken it.

  Oh, no one. Just some guy I spent a perfect day with.

  Slowly, Pierre lowered the camera, suddenly serious as he regarded Holly. “Comme tu es belle,” he said quietly.

  Holly wasn’t sure what it was Pierre had said, but she did know that belle meant, well, beautiful. Trying to ignore the fluttering in her belly, Holly took the camera back from Pierre and they started down the wide, sweeping Champs-Elysées. They strolled past the avenue’s shops and outdoor cafés until they reached the breathtaking place de la Concorde. This time, Holly asked Pierre to pose for a photo in front of the tall Egyptian obelisk, figuring she’d hide that picture from Tyler if she had to.