by D. R. Graham
“What do you think we should do?”
“What do you want to do?” I threw the decision back at her so she would get used to thinking for herself.
“Um, don’t answer it.”
I let mine go to voicemail, and her phone rang right after, so she texted Hal to let her know she was fine, then turned it off. I turned mine off, too, and asked, “Where to next?”
“You decide.”
“Nope.”
She reluctantly closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the ceiling. “Uh, Notre Dame Cathedral.”
“Okay, that’s just down the street. Good job at making a decision.”
She shoved my shoulder as we stood. “Handlers are supposed to make the decisions for the celebrity. That’s the whole point.”
“I did. I decided that you need to practice handling yourself.”
We stepped out of the café onto the bustling sidewalk. “So, why am I paying you?” she asked.
I chuckled and wrapped my arm around her shoulder to keep us both warm. “I have no idea.”
We cut through a park to get to the church and stood in line for the tour of Notre Dame. Our tour guide was a tall, thin guy with black hair and a skinny moustache. He looked like a Pepe or a Pierre, but he said his name was George. Lincoln smiled in amazement the entire time. She especially liked seeing the view of Paris from the North tower where Quasimodo hung out—even though we had to walk up like four hundred stairs to get to it. I liked the stained glass windows from the thirteenth century, and I thought it was interesting that it took over one hundred years to build the cathedral. My dad would have liked it.
We went to the Louvre museum next. The lines were long, and it took a while to get in. It was too gigantic to see the entire collection in a few hours, so Lincoln and I ran through the halls to get to as many of the famous pieces as we could before it closed. We saw Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman sculptures, and Renaissance paintings. When we reached the hall that housed the Mona Lisa, we both stood and stared at her for a long time.
“She’s smaller than I thought she would be,” I said.
“Yeah, she’s tiny. Why do you think she became so famous?”
“I don’t know, but I can’t stop staring at her.”
She laughed. “Yeah, me neither, but I liked the naked Greek God statues better. Can we go back to that wing?”
“We don’t need to go back. I look like a Greek God statue when I’m naked,” I joked.
Lincoln looked away from the Mona Lisa and turned to face me.
“What?” I finally asked when she didn’t stop staring at me.
“I’m imagining you naked.”
“Yeah, well, cut it out. We still have another wing of Renoirs or something to look at.” I grabbed her hand, and we jogged down the corridor to speed-view all the paintings.
We were both exhausted when we returned to the front entrance of the museum. “Being a tourist is tiring,” she said and took off one of her boots to rub her foot.
“I think you’re supposed to spend at least a couple days in Paris. Do you want to go back to the bus?”
“No. We have to see the Eiffel Tower before we go back.”
“Bien Sur.” I pretended to tip my hat, and she smiled before we walked back to the river to catch the Batobus water taxi to the Eiffel Tower.
We disembarked on the dock, and stairs led up to the street from the river. The steel tower loomed above us. I tilted my head back to take in the massive structure.
Lincoln pointed to a little place down the street that was packed and had music from a string quartet filtering out through the door each time someone went in or out. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat dinner at a French restaurant before we go up the tower. That one looks authentic.”
I nodded because it looked more than authentic. It looked like it belonged on a postcard from Paris. “Sure.”
As we waited for a table, she said, “Thanks, Cain. This has been the best day of my life.”
I was glad that she had a nice time, but knowing it was the best day of her life felt like we were teetering on the edge of a slippery slope. I rubbed my neck and avoided looking at her. I knew it would ruin her good mood if I reminded her that I was an employee. I didn’t know what else to say, so I mumbled, “Yeah, it was pretty good.”
“Only pretty good?” she quipped as the maître’d escorted us to the back near the band. We sat down and glanced at the menus. They were printed in French, and although I knew how to say a few things, I hadn’t conversed in French since I was five years old, and I didn’t know what any of the items on the menu were. Lincoln ordered for both of us, then put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “If this is only a pretty good day, what was your best day ever?”
I smiled and bit off the top of a bread stick. “The first time I ever had sex was probably my best day so far.”
Lincoln’s cheeks instantly turned red, and she sat up straight. “Oh.” She unfolded the napkin and neatly placed it on her lap before she looked around the restaurant and chewed the fingernail on her pinkie finger.
I chuckled. “Not what you were expecting?”
“Uh, I don’t know. It’s um, that was, it’s just kind of private, don’t you think?”
“You asked.”
I didn’t want to be the reason for the depressed look on her face. “If it makes you feel any better, today is a really close second. And it’s not over yet. It might still clinch the number one spot.”
She smiled at the possibility of the day getting even better and fidgeted around for a while without looking at me. “Do you want to dance?”
“No. I don’t dance.”
“You don’t dance or you can’t dance?”
“Both.”
She stood and squeezed my hand, but I pulled back and made her lose her balance a little. “Get up, James. You’re teaching me how to cook. I’ll teach you how to dance.”
“I don’t want to learn how to dance.”
“Scared?”
“No.”
“Nobody even knows you here. What are you worried about?” She tugged my hand again, so I reluctantly got up. She arranged my left hand until it was resting on the curve of her waist, and she held my right hand at shoulder height. “Now, close your eyes and listen to the beat of the music.”
I closed my eyes and felt her move to the side. I stepped in the same direction. Her body moved away from me. I stepped closer, then her body moved toward me, and I stepped away. It actually wasn’t that hard. I opened my eyes and smiled.
“See. It’s nice, right?”
“It’s all right.”
The band transitioned into a slow song, and the couples who were dancing all hugged each other tightly. Lincoln stepped forward and pressed her cheek against my chest. I moved my arms and wrapped them around her body. She sighed as we swayed back and forth. If I had known it felt so good to dance with a girl, I would have agreed to dance with Liv one of the hundreds of times she’d asked me to. My heart sped up, and Lincoln probably felt it.
Once the song ended, she didn’t step back. “The food’s here,” I whispered and waited for her to lift her face off my chest. She looked in my eyes for a brief second before she sat back down at the table.
We didn’t talk as we ate. It didn’t feel awkward, but it did feel like there was an intense, unspoken conversation happening between us that neither one of us wanted to acknowledge. We kept the silence going as we left the restaurant and strolled in the dark to the Eiffel Tower. We crammed into the crowded elevator and I had to hug her closely to make room for the bodies. Her eyes met mine, and she didn’t blink for what felt like minutes as we rode up. I finally looked away, but could feel her still staring at me. Once we were at the top, it seemed like everyone else stopped talking, too. It was perfectly silent. We wandered out onto the platform and looked over the edge at the millions of sparkling lights.
“It’s so romantic,” she whispered.
I inhaled an
d stared at the sky. It started to snow, and I couldn’t help thinking that she was right. A few minutes later, she started to cry.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head and took her glove off to wipe her cheek. “It’s just so beautiful, and it makes me sad to know that you would rather be here with someone else.”
I glanced at her. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”
“But it would be different if you were here with Liv.”
Part of me wanted to be honest and tell her that Liv and I were done, but I worried she would hope our relationship could be more than professional. I didn’t want her to get hurt, so I didn’t say anything.
She glanced at me and wiped her cheeks again. “Sorry. It’s just that I always had this dream that my first kiss would be on top of the Eiffel Tower.”
“That’s cliché. Where was your first kiss?”
“I haven’t had it yet.”
“Oh please!” I nearly yelled and then lowered my voice. “I saw you grinding up on that video shoot. There is no way in hell you haven’t at least kissed a guy.”
“I haven’t.”
I shoved her shoulder playfully. “You are such a liar.”
“Shut up. I am not. I learned the raunchy stuff from watching other videos and movies. I’m an actress, remember?”
“You’ve got to be shitting me. You’re almost eighteen years old, you’re beautiful, you’re famous, and you’re trying to tell me that you’ve never been kissed. I don’t believe you.”
She shrugged. “It’s true.” She took her knit hat off and leaned her head close to the edge. Her hair cascaded forward. “What would you do if this fencing was loose and I squeezed out to jump?”
“Watch you splat. Then call Hal.”
She leaned back and frowned. “You wouldn’t try to catch me?”
“Not if you jumped. I’d try to catch you if you fell.”
“Oh.” She held onto the railing and rocked back and forth. “Do you think it’s weird that a girl who’s almost eighteen hasn’t kissed a boy?”
“Yes. When’s your birthday?”
“In eight days.” She sighed, and her body deflated as if her best day ever just took a nose dive. “I guess we should probably head back before Hal calls the police.”
When she turned, I grabbed the collar of her coat, pulled her in to my chest, and kissed her. She seemed stunned at first, and it took a second before she opened her mouth and kissed me back. Once she did, blood rushed through my veins. She grabbed my neck, and I pushed her against the railing to kiss her harder. She slid her hands to hold my jaw, and I could feel the tremble in her fingers.
Eventually, I leaned back and checked her expression. She appeared to be in shock—her eyes were stuck in a wide open stare, and her mouth locked in the same position it had been in while we kissed. I glanced around at the other people on the platform, then back at Lincoln. She blinked slowly as if her brain was trying to process what just happened. Her expression made me laugh. “There is no way you’ve never kissed a guy before.”
“I swear to God I haven’t,” she whispered.
“Well, then you’re pretty good at it.”
“Really?”
I smiled, glad that her best day ever was saved, and grabbed her hand to lead her back to the elevator. “Let’s go.”
She had a grin plastered across her face for the entire taxi ride back to where the buses were parked. She was still smiling like an idiot when we walked up and found Hal standing in front of our bus talking to the driver. “Oh, thank God. Where have you two been? I called you both like a thousand times.”
“Sorry, Hal,” she said in a dreamy voice and boarded the bus.
“Is she drunk?” he asked me.
I laughed. “No. She just had a really good time.”
Hal patted me on the back in a congratulatory way before walking to his bus. I boarded, and we started rolling as soon as the door closed. Lincoln smiled at me before she went into the bathroom. I stood outside the bathroom door and shouted, “You know that was a one-time thing, right?”
“You kissed me. Tell yourself it was a one-time thing.”
“I just didn’t want your best day ever to end on a sad note.”
“Mmm hmm.” The door swung open, and she poked her head out. “Are you sure you weren’t just a little curious to know what it felt like to kiss me?”
I smiled because I had been more than a little curious, but I covered the grin by swiping the back of my hand across my mouth. “You wanted your first kiss to be on top of the Eiffel Tower, and you only get your first kiss once. I didn’t want you to have to wait until you’re twenty or something to get kissed.”
She smiled in the self-assured way that I’d only ever seen her do on stage in front of an adoring crowd. “Well,” she poked my chest, “just make sure you remember it was a one-time thing, James.” She closed the door, and a minute later, she was singing in the shower. It sounded beautiful.
It felt good to know I made her happy, but that was exactly why I shouldn’t have kissed her. I had no idea how I was going to un-complicate the relationship, and worse, I honestly wasn’t sure I wanted to. I stretched out on my bed to come up with an argument to convince her that keeping the relationship professional was better for both of us. Instead of coming up with a game plan, I fell asleep thinking about the kiss and listening to her voice.
The next thing I remembered was flying through the air. I slammed against the ceiling of the bus. Then I dropped, and my shoulder was driven into the floor. The room tumbled again as if I were in a dryer. I hit my head on the corner of the bed frame. Finally, after another roll, I ended up rammed against the window with debris piled on top of me. There was dead silence.
Chapter Twelve
Blood poured out of a gash above my eye, and I couldn’t move my left arm properly because the pain in my ribs felt like it was stopping my heart. I used my right arm to push the mattress and the lamp off me. “Lincoln,” I called as I looked up at the door—it was where the ceiling should have been. I cupped my hands against the window that was underneath me. All I could see through the glass was what looked like snow and dirt.
I flipped the mattress and stood on it so I could reach high enough to unlatch the door. It took three punches before it gained enough momentum to swing up and open. Lifting myself out of the room and onto the wall of the hallway hurt so badly I had to buckle over to fight off the wave of light headedness and nausea.
“Lincoln!” I crawled along the wall and opened the door to her room. Snow fell in from one of the broken windows. Everything was piled up on the one side, and there was shattered glass sprinkled everywhere like glitter.
I frantically pulled debris off the pile and dug down until I found her. She was contorted and jammed between an end table and the closet. When I picked her up, her body seemed lifeless. Something exploded and knocked me off my feet. Lincoln’s body landed on me. The smoke from the fire entered my nostrils before I felt the heat. It smelled like the night my parents got torched, and I started to gag. It took all my strength, but I rolled over and lifted Lincoln onto my shoulder. The back window was partly smashed, so I kicked at it to make a hole big enough to duck out.
The pavement was icy and I fought not to slip as I crossed to the opposite side of the street. I put Lincoln down on a snow bank and then ran toward the front of the mangled bus to see if the driver had gotten out. He hung from the seatbelt, unconscious. I climbed in through the broken front window and pulled him out. He was close to two hundred pounds, so I had to drag him by the armpits with his heels dragging. I dropped him next to Lincoln and hunched over with my hands resting on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
The bus was flipped backwards and wedged on its side in a ditch. Flames had engulfed the back half of it already. The other buses weren’t anywhere to be seen. “Shit,” I mumbled, then sat in the snow to rest Lincoln’s body on top of mine. She had a faint pulse. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, �
��Hey, you’re okay. Hold on. They’ll be here soon. They should be here soon. Just hold on.” I stared up at the stars, but after what seemed like only a few seconds, they faded as if someone had turned the dimmer switch down.
“Cain.” I heard my name and opened my eyes. “Cain, can you hear me?” The entire back side of my body felt numb. I focused my eyes on the face of the person who was saying my name. It was Hal. “Hey, he’s coming to. Get him into the helicopter.”
Two men lifted me off the cold and strapped me onto a board. There was a restraint across my forehead, and I couldn’t turn my head. I stared up at the sky trying to remember where I was. Snow fell into my eyes, the flakes melted, and the liquid ran down my temples. They slid me into a helicopter and climbed in with me. The lights above were too bright, so I closed my eyes. That’s when I remembered what happened.
Panicked, I tried to sit up, but my head was trapped. A hand pushed my chest to keep me from trying to sit up. “Where’s Lincoln?” I asked and attempted to turn my head.
“You guys were in an accident, and we’re flying you to the hospital.”
“I want to talk to her.” A needle poked into my arm and someone wrapped a blanket over me.
“Just stay still.”
“Is she okay?”
Nobody answered. The only sound I heard was the whirl of the helicopter blades. My eyelids felt heavy, and each time I blinked, it got more difficult to open them again.
I woke up in a hospital room. Hal was talking on the phone nearby. To my relief, Lincoln was sitting on a chair next to my bed, resting her cheek on the mattress, holding my hand with both of hers. Hal paced back and forth near the window. He hung up and looked over. “Hey, kid.”
Lincoln’s head popped up, and she smiled at me. “Morning.”
“Are you okay?” I asked her. My voice was hoarse and didn’t sound like mine.
She leaned to the side and swung her leg up enthusiastically to show me that her ankle was bandaged. “I gashed my leg, bumped my head, and broke a nail.”
“So, you almost died,” I teased.
