Rick approached Maddie.
“We’re doing the kiss.” Maddie answered his unasked question. “Let’s just make sure we get it done in one take if we can, I’m worried Rosa might burn the set down otherwise.” Maddie was only half-joking.
* * *
The French cast and crew disappeared off into the evening. They’d worked a second straight twelve-hour day and had earned their night off. And bar for a few reshoots they needed to do in the morning, they were done. Tomorrow evening, she’d head to London for her collaboration with Little Boy and Maddie would go home to Mateo. She couldn’t stop the tightness that formed in her chest when she imagined not seeing Maddie for months to come.
She was sitting with Rick and Maddie in the hotel bar, wanting to be part of their debrief and just enjoying the moment, letting the importance of what they’d done with the video properly sink in. Rick poured them each a glass of red wine.
“Well done both of you. Nice fucking work. I think we’ve produced something amazing.” He lifted his glass to them. “And we managed to do it all without Mama Flores killing anyone.” Rick laughed gently. “It was touch and go for a while. I’ve never heard such aggressive sighing.” He clinked his glass against Sofia’s. “Though I’m guessing she’ll forgive you when it’s got a billion streams and we’re all picking up the Best Video award at next year’s VMAs.” He smiled at her.
Sofia smiled back at him. There was a time when that would have been all that excited her, but now she just wanted to know if Maddie was imagining them still being in each other’s lives then. Maddie’s eyes were dark and full of something serious, and the way she gazed back at Sofia as she sipped her wine pulled at Sofia’s insides, making the muscles in her core feel tight and her skin tingle with warmth. Sofia took a gulp of her own wine, trying to keep her hands steady. Maddie had said they couldn’t be together, their lives were too different, and she was planning to go home to Miami and forget all about her. She didn’t want to let that happen.
“Well, I’m gonna go and make some calls. See you guys in the morning.” Rick stood, downed the rest of his wine, and headed across the hotel lobby toward the elevators.
“I guess I should go and call Mateo.” Maddie yawned but didn’t move. “Today was amazing, but jeez, we worked hard. I’m ready for a nice long bath.”
“I’m more hungry than sleepy. We haven’t really had any proper food today. And we haven’t seen anything of Paris.” She lifted her shoulders slightly. “How about we go out and have some dinner?”
Sofia wasn’t hungry—she eaten so much bread and cheese that she’d happily have skipped dinner—but she really needed to try to talk to Maddie about the way she was feeling, to find out if there was any way that Maddie would give them a chance.
Maddie tensed, looking at her watch for a long time. Sofia waited for the brush-off. But when Maddie finally lifted her head, the look in her eyes—fearful, intense, and wanting—made Sofia shiver. If Maddie had anything like the same kind of feelings she did then they had double the reason not to let each other go again.
“I need to call Mateo. He’s home by now.”
Sofia heard the tension in her voice. Maddie sometimes seemed like a frightened deer, and Sofia knew that the wrong sound, the wrong movement, would send her skittering off deep into the forest.
“Yeah, sure, of course. But how about we meet down here in an hour?” Sofia swallowed down her own anxiety. She had persuaded herself that not saying what she needed to would be worse for them in the long run, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying. “I was thinking that we could try that place in St. Germain we went to the last time we were here. I checked, and it’s still open.” Sofia took in a breath knowing that reminding Maddie of their past was a risk.
Maddie looked at her then, her eyes wide.
“La Grenouille?”
“Yeah. Or La Frog as we called it.” Sofia shrugged and almost melted when Maddie smiled back at her.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” Sofia took a second to process the reply. “Great. Fantastic. I’ll see you right here in an hour. I’ll book us a table.” Sofia stood. “Though, let’s be honest, we both know I’m gonna ask the front desk to do it. My French has not progressed at all in the past five years.”
Maddie stood.
“Maybe you can ask Claudine for lessons.” She raised an eyebrow to show Sofia she was joking.
“Don’t tempt me. I know that she’s desperate to stay in touch. I could tell by the way she completely ignored all my attempts to make small talk and spent the whole time flirting with the cameraman.”
“Some women have no taste.” Maddie made the comment and then looked like she wanted to snatch it back. “I’m sorry. I was just joking.”
“It’s okay. I know.” Sofia hated the awkwardness between them. But it was better than the absence she’d felt for all the time Maddie hadn’t been in her life. She should have been willing to make things easy, to accept the distant friendship that Maddie was offering. But she couldn’t, she wanted so much more. It might only be a pop song, but right now, it was the anthem she needed to give her courage to make the right choices.
“See you in an hour.” Maddie headed off to the elevators and Sofia watched her go. She’d said yes. It was a small shot of hope.
* * *
“Hey, sis.” Maddie felt her blood pressure drop a few points just hearing Ashley’s voice on the other end of the phone.
“Hey. How’s it going? How’s Paris? Did you finish your movie?” Ashley sounded happy to hear from her.
“It’s not a movie.” Maddie rolled her eyes.
“Try telling that to Abuelita. She just left—she said hi by the way—she already thinks we’re all going to the Oscars next year.”
Despite her mood, Maddie laughed. Her grandma had always been her biggest supporter.
“It’s been tough. We had so much to get through and so little time really. But Rick thinks it’s gone great.” Maddie couldn’t help but want Ashley to be proud of her.
“I bet it has. You’re a very talented woman, Maddie.” Ashley gave good compliments.
“The actress we have playing opposite Sofi is a bust though. She’s beautiful but has no presence. It made it harder than it needed to be. And Sofi, well, she’s a natural, so she’s just making Claudine look even more wooden in comparison.” Maddie couldn’t let go of her Claudine jealousy. Seeing them kiss had been ridiculously hard to watch.
“When do you finish? Are you going to get any time to see Paris?”
“We have some reshoots to do tomorrow morning, but then I’ll be coming home. I don’t want to stay away from Mateo any longer than I need to.”
She hesitated, not wanting Ashley’s disapproval but needing to speak to somebody. “We’re gonna go grab some dinner on the Left Bank now though so we’ll see a bit of the city.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Sofi’s idea.”
Ashley was silent for a beat.
“Just the two of you.”
“Yeah. I mean, I could have invited Sofi’s mom, but since she’s been a bitch to me for two days, I figured maybe not.” She tried for the joke, but the tiredness and the mental effort of holding onto her feelings got the better of her and her voice cracked a little.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, everything.” Maddie had always been able to talk to Ashley about stuff. She was so lucky in that respect.
“She hates that Sofi’s doing this video. She hates that I’m here. She’s spent the last two days making it clear that I’m ruining Sofi’s career.”
“She never was very okay about it was she?” Ashley stated the obvious. Her own mom had been great and none of her family could ever really understand why Rosa couldn’t just let them get on with their relationship.
“But it’s not just that.” Maddie made herself talk about what she needed to. “After I found out about Noah, about Sofi lying, I told myself I needed to keep
my distance and not let myself fall for her again.”
“You told me that was the plan too, Maddie. You said that you had no desire to get mixed up in all the toxic crap that comes with her career. I think I’m quoting you right. Though you might have cursed a little more.”
“Yeah, well, I still think that. It’s just that when I’m around her I lose myself and my best intentions go out of the window. And sometimes, the way she looks at me just makes me shiver. Sorry, probably too much detail for a sister, even one as cool as you.”
“Maddie, I’m sure I can cope. I’ve had sex. I’ve wanted sex.”
Maddie was again struck by how lucky she was to have a sister like hers.
“I just don’t know. I think we get swept up in the past sometimes. And I don’t even know if she wants anything other than sex. She knows she’s going away tomorrow, she knows I have Mateo, and I can’t handle the kind of life she lives. It seems so hopeless. But I still want her, and if I’m really honest, I never stopped loving her and I don’t know what to do about it.” Saying it out loud was such a relief. Maddie felt some of the tension drain away.
“Can you talk to her?”
“I don’t know if I should. There’s no future for us so why put ourselves through admitting we have feelings and talking about what they are. Even if she did feel something like what I feel for her, even if she did, how would that help?”
In less than an hour, she and Sofi would be having a dinner in a place that meant a lot to both of them, and tomorrow Sofi would be leaving her behind again. She needed to figure this out.
“It’s not just that we’d be apart all the time, and it’s not just that I don’t want to deal with the madness of her life. I don’t know how we could ever be together without it ruining her career. Her mom, her people, they hate us just doing this one video together. What would they be like if we said we wanted to be together again? Her career, her music is so important to her, I don’t expect her to risk it for me.”
“And yet,” Ashley spoke gently, “Sofia is making this video with you, despite what they all think, and despite knowing it could hurt her career, so maybe she is trying to tell you something.” Ashley paused. “I can’t believe I’m defending her.”
“I can’t believe it either.”
Maddie couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t thought the same thing, but she’d brushed it away as wishful thinking. Hearing Ashley say it made it sound more possible. But it didn’t really change a lot. However brave it was, the video would just make Sofi’s life crazier.
“Mateo wants to speak to you. He was napping, but he just woke up. But let me say one last thing. She hurt you and you hurt her, but Sofi loved you once. She loved you a lot. It was awful when it ended, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she still had feelings for you. In a way, though, whether she does or whether she doesn’t isn’t the issue, it’s about the life she’s offering and whether it’s what you want. I don’t want to sound like a hard ass, but love is rarely enough, and especially not when you’ve got kids.”
Maddie knew she was right. They might want each other, they might even love each other, but neither of them were the people they were five years ago and nothing about it seemed very possible. She couldn’t stop the hollow sadness that crept in.
“Mommy.” Maddie felt her heart lift at the sound of Mateo’s voice.
“Hey, baby. How was your day?”
She focused her attention on her son and just how great it was going to be getting back to Miami to see him.
* * *
Sofia took one last look at herself in the long mirror and then reached for her phone. It had only been forty minutes since they’d come up to their rooms, but she’d showered, dried her hair, tried on three different outfits, and was now typing out a message to Maddie. She wasn’t patient at the best of times, but the prospect of dinner with Maddie, of saying all the things she wanted to say, was making the wait seem unbearable. She typed out a text:
Wear something warm. I’ve had an idea
Sofia could see from the flashing dots that Maddie was typing a reply, but she didn’t wait.
And I’m ready. If you wanna go early
I need fifteen more minutes. Gonna tell me why I need warm clothes?
Sofia’s reply was instant. Nope.
Fifteen minutes. She could wait fifteen minutes. She reapplied her lip gloss, she brushed through her hair with her fingers, and looked at her phone. Fourteen minutes. To say she was nervous was every kind of understatement. She sent another message:
Remember the first time we were in Paris together?
Paris was where they’d first become lovers. Sofia wasn’t sure she’d have dared to say it if she’d been with Maddie in person, but texting made her braver. The reply came quicker than she had expected:
Are you serious? Of course I fucking do. The reply was very Maddie.
Remember the waiter who hit on you all night?
Ugh. Don’t remind me
The next text from Maddie came almost immediately:
I remember the horrified look on your face when you tried your first frog’s leg. And I remember you spilling your brandy all over your beautiful blue dress. And when I think about you in the dress, I remember being surprised I was the one the waiter was flirting with
Sofia shivered. She remembered all of it too and was so happy that Maddie hadn’t forgotten. She typed out a reply:
I remember you taking off that dress
Sofia’s thumb hovered over the send button and then she deleted it quickly and retyped.
See you in fourteen minutes.
She needed to be careful. This was not a time for flirting. Sofia needed to know what Maddie really wanted. All she’d offered had been the chance to hang out four months from now, but that was because of Noah, and Sofia’s crazy career. If Sofia offered more, would she want it?
She had fourteen minutes. She sat in the armchair in her suite, careful not to crease her dress, and laid her head back. They would have an amazing dinner and a boat ride down the Seine, and she had to hope that she could find the right things to say to persuade Maddie to take a chance on her this time.
Chapter Sixteen
The city really was beautiful lit up at night, and the view as they crossed the Pont Neuf Bridge was breathtaking. They’d walked to the bridge from the restaurant, and at some point, Sofi had taken her hand. She’d had to fight the urge to pull away, fearing the things that Sofi’s hand in hers made her feel, things she absolutely shouldn’t be feeling. And then she decided to let herself simply enjoy it, to enjoy Sofi being close while she could.
They stopped halfway across to look at the view, and Maddie couldn’t help but explain that although the name of the bridge they were walking across translated as “new bridge,” it was actually the oldest bridge in Paris. When she said it—feeling like a nerd for remembering—Sofi had simply gazed at her and smiled, and the slightly hazy look in her eyes made Maddie’s heart beat a little faster in her chest. It was hard to keep telling herself this was just two old friends having a farewell dinner because every time Sofi looked at her like that, the feeling low down in her stomach and the fluttering in her chest conspired to screw with her attempts to keep things platonic.
The restaurant had changed a lot in the seven or eight years since they had last visited. The tables were more crammed together and the annoying music being piped in made the atmosphere feel a lot less intimate than Maddie had remembered. And when one of the waiters asked Sofi for a selfie, they both agreed to eat and leave as quickly as they could.
Maddie had so many things she wanted to say, but maybe the meal being a washout was a good thing. Tomorrow, Sofi would be gone from her life for at least the next four months, and then she could stop tormenting herself with what-if and if-only.
“Shall we go somewhere for a brandy?” They were waiting for the check, and she wanted to prolong their evening together for as long as possible.
“We could.” Sofi leaned forwar
d and closed her hand over Maddie’s. Maddie let herself enjoy the warmth of her touch. “But, since we missed it before, I thought maybe this time you might want to do the river cruise.”
The memory was ridiculously clear to Maddie. The band had been given a rare night off and the four of them had been exploring the city. They were in a bar on a floating dock waiting to board a riverboat when Sofi had feigned illness and insisted Maddie take her back to the hotel. They had spent the evening making love with all the passion of new lovers. And when Daya and Suzy had come back full of stories about the trip, Sofi had sat in bed doing her best to look like someone who had a stomach bug while Maddie couldn’t stop looking at her, not quite believing that Sofi was finally hers.
“I love Paris.” Sofi turned to Maddie as they stood on the bridge overlooking the boats below them. “If it wasn’t so cold, I’d definitely live here.” She smiled at Maddie. “I’d learn French and work at becoming chic, and I’d cook meals for you and Mateo loaded with butter and garlic.”
Maddie’s heart flipped more than she needed it to at the fantasy of them living together, of Sofi cooking for her and Mateo. They’d had wine with the meal but not so much that Sofi couldn’t know what she was saying. And definitely not enough to justify Maddie feeling this good about it.
“And you’ll direct arty French movies in black and white and come home late smelling of brandy.” Sofi softly stroked the back of Maddie’s hand as she spoke.
“Sofi?” The word almost stuck in Maddie’s throat, the power of speech evaporating as the feelings built in her chest. “Don’t.” It wasn’t just the touch. She couldn’t handle Sofi saying things she didn’t mean. It felt too much like the past.
Sofi’s thumb stopped moving, but she didn’t release Maddie’s hand. She moved her gaze away and looked down at the river. Maddie had ruined the mood. She had to. They couldn’t do this. They shouldn’t do this. It wasn’t that she didn’t want what Sofi was saying, it was precisely because she wanted nothing more.
“I’m sorry,” Sofi said. “It’s just, y’know, being here.” She didn’t finish. She didn’t have to. Maddie imagined they were both thinking the same thing. Paris was where they’d finally become lovers, after months of waiting, months of stopping themselves. Paris had taken them in and made it possible, and neither of them had ever been the same since.
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