The International Kissing Club

by Ivy Adams

  “Really? Who are you studying?”

  He sighed, a long, drawn-out exhale that somehow managed to sound both condescending and annoyed. And French, so French. It shot the small niggles of unwelcome interest she’d been feeling right into annoyance, and Piper nearly called him on his boorish behavior. But she had been raised in the South, and annoyance—no matter how well deserved—was no excuse for rudeness.

  Still, she couldn’t just stand here and gape at him like an idiot. She was struggling to come up with a reason to excuse herself when Marie breezed in. “Piper, you’re up early! I thought surely you’d sleep until noon after the night you and Simone had.”

  Before Piper could answer, her house mother turned and saw Sebastian. She squealed and launched herself at her son while Piper stood by, a little nonplussed at the realization that a woman as elegant as Marie could sound so much like a junior high girl.

  Sebastian didn’t seem to mind, though. He just grinned and swept his mother up into a huge bear hug, as she babbled in French and pressed kisses all over his face. Piper knew she should slip out and let them talk, but she was fascinated by the genuine affection on Sebastian’s face when he spoke to his mother. It seemed so at odds with the bored disdain she’d seen on his face just a few moments before.

  When their rapid-fire conversation finally wound down—Piper wasn’t able to follow the whole thing but she knew there was stuff in there about school and classes and what Sebastian wanted for dinner—Marie turned to her with a huge smile.

  “I’m sorry, Piper. Forgive me. Though he lives in the same city, my son does not stop by nearly as often as he should. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen him.”

  “It’s okay. I understand,” Piper said, even though she wasn’t sure she did. She tried to imagine what her mother’s reaction was going to be when Piper got back to Texas. Somehow, she doubted it would be this exuberant, no-holds-barred lovefest. More likely, it would involve migraine medicine, a cool washcloth, and an hour’s worth of complaints about Piper breathing too loudly.

  “So, I didn’t give you a chance to answer me, Piper,” Marie said as she poured two cups of coffee, then handed one to her son. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “I’m going to the Louvre.” Piper tried to sound casual, but from Marie’s indulgent smile, she knew that some of her excitement must have leaked through. “I have tickets for today and tomorrow.”

  “Oh, that’s right! I don’t know how I forgot—you’ve so been looking forward to it.”

  “Definitely. I’ve always wanted to see the Mona Lisa in person.”

  Sebastian snorted, muttered something in French under his breath that she didn’t quite catch. It must not have been flattering, though, because his mother sent him a warning look.

  “Of course you do. It’s a masterpiece. What else do you want to see?”

  “The Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace— ”

  Again Sebastian muttered under his breath, and though he wasn’t loud, Piper definitely caught the French word for idiot, along with a couple of other uncomplimentary phrases. She felt her cheeks flame with a combination of anger and embarrassment.

  “Sebastian!” Marie’s voice cut through the sudden uncomfortable silence. “That’s uncalled for. Apologize.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Piper said, starting out the door, glad that his ridiculously bad attitude had stopped her knees from trembling. “I’m going to go take a shower—”

  “It is not okay! I did not raise him dans une grange. In a barn!” She glared at her son.

  “Of course, Maman. You’re right.” Sebastian turned to Piper with a smirk. “I’m sorry that I made fun of your pedestrian taste in art. I will try to keep my more informed opinions to myself from now on.”

  Piper’s face grew even hotter, and if Marie hadn’t been standing there she would have gone off on the smug jerk. Instead, she gritted her teeth and contented herself with a simple, “That’s okay. I wouldn’t expect anything better from a pot maker.”

  “I’m a sculptor.” His teeth ground together.

  “You know what they say. One man’s art is another man’s …”

  “You know what—” Sebastian bit off whatever he was going to say as Marie’s laugh rang through the kitchen.

  “I have a wonderful idea. Why doesn’t Sebastian go to the Louvre with you today?”

  “What?” Sebastian yelped.

  “No!” Piper said at the same time. “That’s really not necessary.”

  “Of course it is. Sebastian has spent so much time in the Musée du Louvre that he practically has the entire place memorized. He can get you wherever you want to go much more quickly than you could get there yourself. It’ll be fun.”

  Piper didn’t think the Junior League Mother-Daughter tea could be less fun than having to waste an entire day putting up with Sebastian’s snide comments and bored sighs. She’d been planning this trip forever and really didn’t want it ruined by some French moron with delusions of grandeur.

  “Really, Marie,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m sure I can find my way around—”

  “And I have tests to study for, Maman. Midterms are next week.”

  “They don’t start until Wednesday. I’m sure you can take off a few hours to show our guest around. I’ll look forward to hearing all about your day at dinner tonight.” With those parting words and a look that brooked no argument, she slapped her coffee cup down onto the counter before gliding majestically out the same door from which Piper had spent the past five minutes trying to make her own escape.

  Cold silence filled the kitchen after Marie’s departure. Piper didn’t say anything for a minute, waiting to see how Sebastian would respond, but when he didn’t, she muttered, “Don’t worry about it. I don’t expect you to—”

  “My mother told me to take you, I’ll take you. It’s not worth the hassle otherwise.” He drained his own coffee cup before setting it in the sink. “One thing, though.”

  “What?”

  “You might want to wash your face and comb your hair. I’d hate for the tourists to mistake you for a modern art sculpture.”

  “Like one of yours?” She raised her eyebrows, glad that his obnoxiousness had made her strange reaction to him vanish as quickly as it had come. “But what was I thinking? It’s not as if yours will ever be in the Louvre.”

  An hour and a half later, Piper was still fuming over Sebastian’s quip about her looks. Even though he’d been totally right—a glance in the bathroom mirror had shown her chin-length brown hair sticking up in about thirty different directions and last night’s makeup pooled unattractively under her eyes—but that still didn’t give him the right to make fun of her. She’d experienced more name-calling than anyone should have to at the hands of Germaine the … Is there a word in French that rhymes with Germaine and means psycho? She wasn’t going to put up with it. Certainly not from an arrogant French guy with much better looks than manners. French assholes had nothing on Germaine.

  Putting her annoyance aside, she couldn’t help the little thrill that shot through her as they crossed the huge courtyard toward the glass pyramid that would be their entrance into the Louvre. She was finally here, had finally made it to the most famous art museum in the world. She couldn’t wait to see the Rembrandt room and the Italian Grand Gallery. For months—for years, really—she’d dreamed about seeing the works up close. Now that it was going to happen, she almost had to pinch herself to believe it was real.

  “You’re shaking,” Sebastian said as they stood at the back of the line waiting to enter the Pyramid. “Are you cold?” He started to shrug out of his black pea coat, but then seemed to think better of it. “You should have brought a jacket.”

  “I’m not cold,” she said disgustedly. “Just excited.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Really? Over a museum and a bunch of old artwork?”

  “Oh my God! You did not just say that about the Louvre! This place is … is …”
/>   “Is what?”

  “It’s the pinnacle of art museums. The collections here are incredible. The Rembrandts, the School of Fontainebleau, the Goyas, and the Rubenses. There are more works of art here than in almost any other museum in the world—”

  “Whoa!” Sebastian held up a hand. “I get the point. Why don’t we head to the gift shop first, so you can buy your set of French masters refrigerator magnets?”

  “Well, that would certainly save you time, wouldn’t it? Then you could get back to studying for the midterm for your how-to-be-a-sanctimonious-jerk class. Oh wait; you’ve already aced that one.”

  “No, you must have my university confused with your exchange program. I take real classes, unlike you, whose only in-depth education seems to be in oral anatomy.”

  “Excuse me?” Piper asked, unable to think of a better comeback. She couldn’t help but wonder who had told him about her extracurricular activities. Simone? But she’d thought her house sister was amused by her quest to experience everything France had to offer.

  Confused and a little hurt, she snarled, “I don’t need you here, you know. I know almost everything there is to know about the Louvre. I’ve spent years studying the databases and the virtual tours and I made a list of everything I want to see.”

  “You made a list?”

  She rolled her eyes. Trust him to ignore her entire outburst except for the one thing that interested him. “So what if I did?”

  One dark eyebrow shot up. “Can I see it?”

  Her hand went to the back pocket of her jeans of its own volition, though Piper didn’t know if it was because she wanted to show him her list or because she wanted to protect it—and herself—from more ridicule. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to show it to you?”

  When he didn’t answer, she sighed. “Look, why don’t we call it a day? To make your mother happy we’ll meet back here in six hours and say we had a fabulous time.” With that, she turned her back on him.

  The next thing she knew, his hand was digging in her pocket.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” She slapped at him, but she wasn’t quick enough. Turning, she saw Sebastian smiling that smug grin that made her want to strangle him where he stood. Her folded-up list was in his hand.

  “Give me that!”

  He held it out of reach as he opened it. His smirk quickly turned to a frown as he perused the fifty-three items she had listed there.

  “Really?” he demanded a minute later. “This is the art you’ve traveled thousands of miles to see?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  He muttered something about God saving him from tourists, and Piper went from annoyed to angry. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with my list,” she told him indignantly.

  “Except for the fact that it reads like a must-see list out of a teneuro guidebook?”

  “Those are some of the most famous works in the whole world—”

  “Exactly. And they’re fine for a bus of Japanese tourists trying to make their way through the Louvre before lunch, but Simone told me you wanted to be an artist. I thought you wanted to look at the real masters.”

  Then, before her disbelieving eyes, he folded the list in half and ripped it to shreds.

  “Stop!” she cried, trying to wrest it out of his hands. “I worked hard on that—”

  “Which is the most pathetic part of the whole thing,” he answered, right before he tossed the mangled remains into a nearby trash can.

  He’d thrown her list away.

  Piper stared at the trash can in shock.

  Sebastian had ripped up her list and thrown it away, like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. And now, here she was at the front of the line, and she was about to go into the Louvre armed with only the names of the paintings she remembered. Which was about twelve.

  She was so angry that she wanted to punch him. So angry that she nearly did. Only the fear of breaking her hand—and being unable to sketch for the next few weeks—kept her from smashing her fist into Sebastian’s smug face as he ushered her through the doorway, past the ticket booth where he presented his yearly pass, and down the elegant spiral staircase that led to the very heart of the museum.

  Piper didn’t say a word as they descended the stairs, largely because she couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t start with a particularly vile curse. But the second they got to the bottom, she wrenched her elbow from his grip and started blindly toward one of the exhibit halls. As far as she was concerned, she wanted nothing more to do with him, ever. He might be the hottest guy she’d ever seen, but he was also a total asshole and she—

  “Hey, you’re going the wrong way!”

  She kept walking, refusing even to look at him. “I’d say that was impossible, considering the only way I’m going is away from you.”

  “You can’t just wander around the Louvre. Not if you have any hope of getting something out of it. Beyond looking at pretty pictures, I mean.”

  “Isn’t that the point of going to a museum? To look at pretty pictures?”

  “Again, I thought you wanted to be an artist.”

  “I do!”

  “Then you should know that real art—true art—is rarely pretty. It’s shocking, thought provoking. But rarely is it anything so insipid as ‘pretty.’ ”

  His words struck a chord deep inside her, the truth in them absolutely undeniable. And for the first time since she’d met him, his voice held no condescension or annoyance. Just a pure, palpable love for the works of art they were about to see.

  For a moment, a connection shimmered between them. The understanding of what it was to be transported out of oneself by a great masterpiece.

  The knowledge of what it was like to be surrounded by greatness you could only hope to one day achieve.

  “Well, what am I supposed to do? Without my list I don’t have a clue where to start.”

  “You don’t have to know.” He scooted in front of her, blocked her path. “I know enough for both of us.”

  She gritted her teeth. “God! It’s amazing to me your ego actually fits inside the museum. It’s gigantic.”

  “Maybe, but it’s also well earned.” He reached for her hand, and an odd tingling started where their fingers connected. She yanked her hand away, tucked it in the pocket of her jeans. He might be the only French guy she didn’t want to tingle with.

  Sebastian sighed impatiently. “Come on, Piper. Trust me.”

  “Why should I? You’ve done nothing but make fun of me since we met.”

  “I’ll stop, I promise. And I also promise that I’ll give you the tour of your life. If you’re unhappy when I’m finished, I know where they sell ten-euro guidebooks.”

  She narrowed her eyes, uncertain if she wanted to spend the next few hours with him. It kind of seemed like she was making a pact with the devil. “What if I don’t want to waste the whole day with you? It’s not like you’ve been much fun to be around so far.”

  “That’ll change, I swear. Now come on, let’s get going.”

  He turned away and walked toward the series of galleries that branched off the lobby, as if he just expected her to follow. For about fifteen seconds, she debated ducking into the ladies’ room and waiting for him to leave, but she was smart enough to know that if she did, she would only end up wandering around completely lost for the next six hours. With a grudging sigh, she started after Sebastian.

  What followed was the strangest, most amazing museum tour that Piper had ever been on. They began in front of Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, a huge painting that showed thirteen survivors of a wreck just as they spotted the Argus, a rescue ship. When she told him her impressions of the scene, Sebastian nodded enthusiastically and then pointed out a bunch of stuff she hadn’t even noticed.

  From there, he took her through the sculpture galleries—which were his favorite for obvious reasons—where they studied the tomb of Philippe Pot and the enormous Marly Horses statues, along with some smaller, lesser-known works. She really loved a
n abstract sculpture of a little girl, and when she pointed it out to Sebastian, he laughed and told her it was one of his favorites as well. Then he pulled her to another room, his voice warm and deep as he regaled her with stories and interesting facts about everything she was seeing.

  On and on the tour went, hitting a few works in each of the galleries, though not the ones Piper had originally intended. Sebastian even took her to the Rembrandt room for a few minutes before hustling her into yet another gallery. There was just so much to see, and Sebastian kept up a running commentary on every single piece of art they saw. His knowledge was awe inspiring, and more than a little intimidating.

  The day slipped away, along with most of the tension between them. By the time they left the Louvre—after being ushered to the door by two security guards anxious to close up—it was dark out and Piper was starving.

  “Thank you so much,” she said as they walked back toward the nearest Metro station. And she was shocked to realize how appreciative she actually felt. “It was amazing.”

  “Better than your list?” he asked with a grin that lit up his whole face and reminded her of just how handsome she’d first found him.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that …”

  “No? But you have to admit you enjoyed yourself.”

  She started to deny it out of principle alone, but one look at Sebastian’s eyes, which were dark and strangely serious, and she knew she couldn’t. In those moments, when he stood so close to her she swore she could hear not only her heartbeat but his as well, the International Kissing Club had never seemed less important.

  “I did.”

  “Good.” He paused for a moment. He tilted his head and studied her with the same intensity he’d lavished on the sculpture gallery. Really looking at her for the first time. “You have a nice smile.” He sounded almost surprised.

  But not as surprised as she was. Feeling a little uncomfortable, she tried to joke. “So do you, when you’re not smirking at me like I’m a lower life-form.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s a hazard of the nationality.”